Saying What Matters 10 | What the Body Remembers From ChildhoodSaying What Matters 10 | What the Body Remembers From Childhood
The Millennium Counseling Center Podcast
Rahsaan Nurullah guides Oren Matteson through somatic healing to connect dizziness and body sensations with childhood experiences of isolation and fear. Together they talk about how trauma, sensitivity, and old safety patterns can shape adult behaviour, and how awareness offers a way to choose something different.
39:28•11 Aug 2026
What the Body Remembers: Somatic Healing, Childhood Fear and Being Seen
Episode Overview
- The body carries a distinct ‘language’ through sensations, which can reveal unmet needs from childhood.
- Simple breathwork and body scanning can shift fear and discomfort into calmer, more neutral states.
- Many adults run on outdated ‘safety technology’ installed in childhood, especially around being seen and accepted.
- Trauma is influenced by the meaning a person makes and their sensitivity, not just by how dramatic an event looks from the outside.
- Practising awareness of sensations creates space to choose a response instead of falling into automatic reactions.
“The body has a language to it. Our entire lives our body has been trying to give us signals and tell us what it needs, and we typically ignore it.”
What remarkable journeys have people faced head-on against addiction? This conversation between therapist Rahsaan Nurullah and counsellor Oren Matteson offers a close-up look at how the body stores childhood fear, isolation, and the pain of not feeling seen—and how those old patterns can still run the show in adulthood. Across the episode, Rahsaan guides Oren through a somatic healing exercise using breathwork, body scanning, visualisation, and gentle humour.
You’ll hear Rahsaan talk Oren step-by-step into noticing sensations in his feet, chest, shoulders and head, then giving those sensations a “voice”. A simple feeling of dizziness at the top of Oren’s head gradually links back to his 10-year-old self alone in a new bedroom, startled by loud radiator pipes and unsure how safe it was to be fully seen.
Rahsaan names this process as “somatic healing energy work”, explaining that “the body has a language to it” and that many people are living on “safety technology” installed in childhood—outdated but still active. Oren recognises how old survival strategies around being liked, staying small, and avoiding judgement can limit his adult self, including in work, speaking, and creative projects. Together they also challenge narrow ideas of trauma.
Even something as simple as only being allowed two toys instead of five, Rahsaan notes, can shape lifelong patterns if a child isn’t ready for the experience. They stress that sensitivity differs from person to person, which is why compassion and non-judgement are so vital in recovery spaces. For anyone dealing with addiction, anxiety, or long-standing shame, this episode offers a practical, relatable way to start listening to the body and updating old “software” with adult awareness.
It’s gentle, honest, and occasionally funny—while still asking big questions about safety, visibility, and choice. How might your own body be trying to talk to you, and are you ready to hear what it’s saying?
Do you want to link to this podcast?
Get the buttons here!
More From This Show
The latest episodes from the same podcast.