When Your Mind Moves Faster Than Your Body
- Bethany Blaine
- Oct 30
- 4 min read
Updated: Dec 3
So, if you’ve come to the part where your mind is made up and you’re ready to step into something new, I’ve got a few tools for you. Even when your mind says:
“Hell yeah, I’m ready!”
Your body usually has its own opinion. And that opinion sounds a lot like:
“Nope. Too soon. Too much. Too fast.”
It’s not that your body’s against you; it’s that it’s loyal. It knows what it knows, and it understands what has kept you safe before. The trouble is, what once worked to protect you can also keep you stuck. This is where you learn to hold your body through change instead of bracing for it.
Getting your body to trust that it’s safe to expand takes more than mindset work.
It takes rhythm.
It takes proof.
It takes practice.
After years of experimenting through motherhood, business, and full-scale reinventions, these three tools have never left me. They’ve held me steady while everything else was inconsistent. They’re not the kind of tools you “try for two weeks and forget about.” They’re foundational and are practices I maintain and evolve when recalibrating into a new version of myself. Let’s get into them.
Breathwork: Teaching the Body It’s Safe to Slow Down
Your breath is the most honest conversation you’ll ever have with your body. When life speeds up, your breath shortens. Your body’s trying to help you survive, but it doesn’t always know when the emergency is over. Breathwork teaches your body how to recognize calm again.
Every slow, intentional breath sends a signal through your vagus nerve (your body’s internal “calm down” switch) that says, “We’re safe now.” Long exhales activate your parasympathetic nervous system, the one responsible for rest, digestion, and emotional regulation.
Here’s a rhythm to try:
Inhale through your nose for 4 counts.
Hold for 2.
Exhale through your mouth for 6.
Do this for a few minutes and notice your body catch up to your mind. But know that breathwork goes beyond relaxation:
It improves focus and mental clarity by reoxygenating the brain.
It enhances emotional processing, teaching you how to feel without flooding.
It boosts nervous system resilience, lowering anxiety and stabilizing mood.
It supports immune and digestive function by restoring balance through the vagus nerve.
Breathwork creates the physiological proof that presence is safe again.
EFT Tapping: The Nervous System Reset Button
EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) looks almost too simple to be powerful. But once you understand what’s happening underneath, it makes perfect sense. When you tap gently on specific acupressure points while acknowledging what you feel, several things happen at once:
The amygdala, your brain’s alarm system, begins to settle.
The prefrontal cortex, responsible for clarity and reasoning, comes back online.
Cortisol levels drop.
Your body receives the message: “It’s safe to process this now.”
Tapping interrupts the stress signal in real time. It’s the bridge between feeling the emotion and releasing the tension. You might say:
“Even though I feel anxious, I’m safe to feel this.”
“Even though this still triggers me, I accept what’s here.”
Each tap tells your nervous system: this is safe to experience now. Beyond emotional regulation, tapping helps with:
Repatterning limiting beliefs by pairing thought with somatic safety.
Improved sleep and HRV, key signs of regulation.
Cognitive clarity — when the body relaxes, the brain can focus.
Sustained emotional stability after big transitions.
Reflection reveals the truth; tapping helps your body begin to live it.
Vibration & Movement — Completing the Stress Cycle
Stillness can be medicine. But when your body’s carrying too much, stillness can also become another form of tension. Movement (even subtle and intentional movement) is how your body metabolizes emotion and energy. That’s why animals shake after a stressful event; it’s their built-in recalibration process.
Your body has mechanoreceptors — sensors that respond to pressure, vibration, and motion. When activated, they send new data to the brain: “We’re grounded. We’re here. The threat is over.” You can:
Stand barefoot and shake out your arms and legs.
Sit or lie on a vibration plate to release deeper tension.
Stretch, sway, or dance when your body feels frozen.
These movements:
Complete the stress cycle, giving energy somewhere to go.
Improve circulation and lymph flow, supporting detox and recovery.
Boost dopamine and serotonin, creating natural motivation.
Enhance proprioception, your ability to feel rooted and embodied.
Emotion literally means energy in motion. Movement allows that motion to finish its story instead of staying trapped in your shoulders, jaw, or gut.
The Science of Embodiment
Each time you pair awareness with a body-based cue like breathwork, movement, or EFT, you’re teaching your nervous system a new truth: presence is safe. That’s your brain rewiring itself through embodied experience. This is the work of proving to your body that what the mind understands is safe to live now. Over time, this rewiring shifts your baseline from vigilance to flow, and from survival to expansion.
Bringing It All Together
Embodiment isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about helping your mind and body move in the same direction. These tools — breathwork, tapping, and movement — aren’t quick fixes. They’re anchors. They hold you through change, through new versions, through moments when your nervous system needs proof instead of theory. Because awareness opens the door, but integration is what walks you through it.
Something to Ponder
What would change if you stopped trying to convince your body to keep up — and started showing it, one breath, one tap, one pulse at a time?
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