Before answering the question ‘how do I come back to my body?’ it’s useful to look at the sneaky ways patriarchy is set up to steal it.
Patriarchy is way more than ‘just a social system.’ It’s something that lives in our bones, our breath, and our daily choices. Conscious and subconscious rules that ensure we see, and respond to, our bodies in certain ways.
I'm curious if any of these resonate with you?
1) From an early age, you were taught to silence your body. To be quiet, to not take up space, to not bleed visibly, or feel “too much.” Instead you learnt to shrink yourself to stay safe and numb yourself to survive. Even your body’s natural rhythms – hunger, fatigue, pleasure, pain – were dismissed or disciplined. “Don’t eat too much,” “smile more,” “don’t be dramatic.”
These aren’t just offhand comments, they’re tools of control.
2) You were made to believe that the emotional weight of the world was yours to carry, so you learnt how to become an expert in attuning to others (how they feel, what they need, whether they’re comfortable) often at the expense of your own emotions and physical boundaries.
This constant caretaking wasn’t just designed to exhaust you; it was meant to pull you out of your body. When you’re constantly scanning the room for emotional cues, you lose touch with your own sensations, your own breath, your own truth.
3) You were taught to see your body as a project to fix rather than a safe place to come home to. An object to compare with what you saw online – thighs to criticise, a stomach to suck in, breasts to reject.
By internalising objectification, we became both the watcher and the watched. We learnt to stand outside ourselves, judging our bodies, instead of living within them.
It may feel A LOT reading this and honestly it’s just the tip of the ice-burg.
However, I want you to know that there’s another way. A way that’s rooted in embodiment, in presence, and in your own truth.
A way you get to reclaim your body.
So How Do I Come Home To My Body?
Embodiment is the radical act of coming home to your body.
It means tuning into your breath, your belly, your pulse and trusting what you feel. It’s a practice of living from the inside out, instead of outsourcing your truth to the world around you.
Embodiment invites you to:
- Feel your feelings instead of managing them.
- Move in ways that nourish you, not just shape you.
- Speak from your truth, not from fear or politeness.
- Trust your body’s wisdom — even when it goes against what you’ve been taught.
When you’re embodied, you reclaim your body not as an object, but as your home, your guide, and your power.
This is not a linear journey. There’s no perfectly embodied woman. But every moment you choose to pause, breathe, and feel, you’re unlearning patriarchal conditioning and returning to yourself.
Reclaiming your body in a patriarchal world is not just personal — it’s political. Every time a woman listens to her body, trusts her no, honours her yes, and moves from intuition — she chips away at the systems that told her she wasn’t enough.
You don’t need to “fix” your body.
You need to feel it, inhabit it and belong to it — again and again.
Now is the time to return to yourself.
