Your Body Remembers: Why You’re Anxious Even If “Nothing’s Wrong”
You’re lying in bed at night and suddenly your chest tightens. Your heart starts racing. You can’t catch your breath. Or maybe you’re going about your day and feel a wave of unease—for no clear reason. Logically, you know you're safe. Nothing bad is happening. So why does it feel like it is?
This is something I hear all the time in therapy:
“I don’t get it—nothing’s wrong, but I feel so anxious.”
Here’s the thing:
Your body doesn’t speak logic. It speaks memory.
And sometimes, your body remembers things your mind can’t explain.
Anxiety Isn’t Always About the Present Moment
When you've lived through overwhelming experiences—whether obvious trauma or slow-drip stress over time—your nervous system gets trained to stay on high alert. It learns to scan for danger. And even long after the threat is gone, that system can stay activated.
This is why you might feel anxious even when your life looks calm on the outside.
That tight stomach before a date?
That sudden irritability around a parent, even though you're “fine”?
That freeze response when someone raises their voice?
Your body is reacting to something old, not necessarily something current. And that doesn't mean you're broken. It means you're human—and your system is doing what it learned to do to keep you safe.
This Is a Trauma Response—And It's Normal
A trauma response doesn’t have to come from a single big event. It can come from:
Growing up in a home where emotions weren’t safe
Being in a relationship where you had to walk on eggshells
Living in a body or identity that’s been consistently marginalized
Internalizing shame or perfectionism as a survival strategy
These experiences live in the body. And they shape how we breathe, sleep, hold ourselves, and respond to the world—even when we don’t “remember” the original hurt.
So What Can You Do?
Therapy—especially somatic and psychodynamic therapy—can help you learn the language of your body. Together, we can begin to notice your nervous system’s signals with curiosity instead of fear.
Some of what we might work on:
Gently building awareness of what’s happening in your body, without judgment
Learning tools to regulate your nervous system and ground yourself
Exploring the roots of where these sensations come from
Creating space for your body to feel what it didn’t get to feel back then
Reclaiming safety, at your own pace
This isn’t about getting rid of anxiety—it’s about understanding it. Befriending it. Learning how to care for the part of you that still thinks you need to be on high alert.
If you’ve ever thought, “I don’t know why I feel this way,” you’re not alone.
Your body remembers. And it’s trying to tell you something—with tenderness, not judgment. Let’s listen together.