151: Liz Tenuto: Your Body Is Holding Stress Your Mind Can't Release and Somatic Healing Is the Missing Link
Why Your Body Might Be Holding Stress Your Mind Can't Let Go Of
You've done the mindset work. You've journaled, meditated, maybe even sat through years of talk therapy. And yet that tightness in your shoulders never fully lets go. That's not a personal failure, it might just mean you've been working the wrong system.
In this episode, Tara sits down with Liz Tenuto, the somatic movement educator behind The Workout Witch, to dig into a question most women never think to ask: what if the stress isn't stuck in your head, but in your body? Liz has a background that blends psychology and ballet, and she's built a following of nearly four million people teaching zero-equipment somatic exercises designed to release tension your nervous system has been holding onto for years, sometimes decades.
This conversation is a genuinely useful one if you feel like you've hit a wall in your healing journey — like you're doing "all the right things" and still carrying stress you can't explain.
Liz's Story: Ten Years, Every Modality, Nothing That Lasted
Liz's own path into this work started with chronic pain and insomnia beginning at age fourteen. She tried nearly everything, acupuncture, yoga, massage, meditation, craniosacral therapy, and none of it stuck for more than a few days at a time. It wasn't until a ballet teacher brought her into a somatics class that something actually shifted. Tara and Liz talk candidly about that first session, where Liz found herself crying in the bathroom afterward, not from pain, but because it was the first time she could remember not being hard on her own body. Within four sessions, her insomnia had all but disappeared.
It's a reminder that healing isn't always linear, and sometimes the missing piece isn't a new modality altogether, it's a different way of working with the body you already have.
Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up: Why Talk Therapy Alone Might Not Be Enough
One of the most useful frameworks Liz offers is the distinction between top-down and bottom-up healing. Talk therapy, mindset work, and cognitive approaches work top-down, starting with the brain and working outward. Somatic work goes the other direction: bottom-up, starting in the body and letting the nervous system catch up.
For women who've plateaued despite doing "everything right" mentally and emotionally, this is often the missing link. Liz makes the case that there's no real separation between emotion and movement, they're the same system, just expressed differently. If you're already training hard in the gym but still feel like your stress has nowhere to go, this framework might explain why.
Two Exercises You Can Actually Try Tonight
This isn't just theory, Liz walks through specific, no-equipment techniques you can use immediately:
Hip rocking - a gentle bilateral movement that mirrors the same bilateral stimulation technique used in EMDR therapy, one of the most researched approaches to processing trauma.
The forehead swipe - a one-minute technique that stimulates a cranial nerve tied to calming your fight-or-flight response. It's subtle enough to do in a meeting without anyone noticing.
Liz also breaks down how somatic exercises compare to EFT tapping, which is having a moment of its own, and how to figure out which approach might fit your body and your stress patterns better.
Why This Matters If You're Already Training Hard
If you're a woman who lifts, runs, or moves your body regularly and still feels like stress is running the show, this episode reframes what "recovery" actually means. It's not just about foam rolling or rest days, it's about giving your nervous system a chance to complete the stress response it never finished. That's the piece cardio and strength training alone don't always address, and it's worth understanding if you want your training to actually feel sustainable long-term.
Liz's book, When the Body Speaks: How Somatic Healing Sets You Free, goes deeper into all of this, broken into three sections that Tara and Liz unpack toward the end of the conversation, including who the book is actually written for.
Try It Yourself
Curious what a somatic release actually feels like? Liz is offering a free one-minute hip rocking video, just DM "release" to her on Instagram@theworkoutwitch. You can also find her full app and courses attheworkoutwitch.com, and her book When the Body Speakshere.
If this conversation has you thinking differently about how you approach recovery, ourmacronutrient guide is a good next stop for building a foundation that supports your body instead of working against it. And if you want coaching that actually adapts to where your body and life are at, not a rigid plan that ignores your nervous system entirely, check outBroadsCOACH.
So, where do you think you're holding stress right now? In your shoulders, your jaw, your hips? Now that you know the difference between top-down and bottom-up healing, does something about your own stuck spots make a little more sense?
