Shapes of Survival & what it reveals about anxiety
Your body has a history… and it shows.
You may not remember the moment your shoulders began to curl in, when your voice got quieter, when your jaw learned how to hold back tears. But your body does.
Long before the mind makes meaning, the body takes shape. In response to pain. To pressure. To systems that say, you’re too much, you don’t belong, stay small.
These aren’t random habits. They’re survival shapes. And in somatic therapy, we begin to see them. Feel them. Honour them. Not to erase the past, but to reclaim something deeper. Your right to take up space.
What Are Survival Shapes?
In somatic therapy, a “shape” is more than a posture. It’s the way your body organises around experience.
It includes:
The way you hold your shoulders when you’re trying not to cry
The way your breath stops when you’re bracing for rejection
The way your spine curls inward when you’re afraid to be seen
Or how you freeze, puff up, go rigid, without even meaning it
These shapes are intelligent. They form early. They keep us safe.
Especially for those of us who are marginalised, by race, gender, sexuality, neurotype, disability, or class, these shapes often become chronic. A way of being that helps us move through an unjust world.
But what happens when the shape becomes the cage?
You’re Not Frozen. You’re Holding Something. You might feel stuck in anxiety. You might say things like:
“I can’t relax.”
“I don’t know how to let go.”
“My body doesn’t feel like mine.”
But what if your body isn’t stuck, what if it’s holding?
Holding fear. Holding history. Holding the need to stay alert, even when the danger is long gone.
In somatic therapy, we don’t force the shape to change. We meet it. We feel with it. We bring warmth and breath to the place that hasn’t known safety in a long time. That’s where the shift begins. Reclaiming Shapes of Dignity and Belonging.
Once the body feels met, not manipulated, it begins to soften. And something new becomes possible. A different shape. A shape of dignity.
This might look like:
Standing tall, not to perform confidence, but to feel your own spine
Placing a hand on your heart, and meaning it
Lifting your gaze without apology
Breathing deeply, even when the world told you not to feel
These are not poses. They are postures of truth. And they belong to you. You Can Begin Right Here.
You don’t need to force anything.
Your body already knows how to find its way home.
In our work together, we gently explore both your survival shapes and your possible shapes.
The ones that feel like: I am allowed to exist. I am allowed to belong. I am allowed to be seen.
There is nothing wrong with the way your body adapted. But you don’t have to live there forever. There are new shapes available.
Not because you’ve become someone new…
but because something true has been remembered.
If you’d like to begin exploring this for yourself, I’ve created a short, guided practice.
In just a few minutes, you’ll be invited to notice the shape your body is holding and begin to meet it with breath and care.
