Somatic Detox: Do You Need One This January?
- Sarah Gilbertson
- Jan 1
- 5 min read
Every January, there is an assumption that something needs fixing.That we should start, stop, reset, improve.
A somatic detox, the way I am using the phrase, is not about adding anything.It is about noticing what is already there, and what your body might be ready to stop carrying.
What Is a Somatic Detox?
If you have searched “somatic detox” recently, you will have seen everything from workout videos promising to release trapped trauma to 21-day programmes designed to change how you feel by February.
Most of it blends somatic practice with detox culture, as if your nervous system needs flushing like a juice cleanse.
It does not.
What your body might actually need is this: someone to help you understand what it has been doing while you have been pushing through.
When I work with clients using somatic narrative, we are not extracting anything. We are not purging, releasing, or unlocking.
We are translating.
Your body has been communicating through tension, bracing, fatigue, and that tight feeling in your chest when you think about doing one more thing. Most of us have learned to override those signals.
A somatic detox, as I am using it here, is about pausing long enough to listen.
A somatic detox is not about fixing your body. It is about understanding it.
Do You Need a Somatic Detox, or Just Less Pressure?
This is what most somatic content misses.
It is not about the technique: the stretch, the shake, the breath pattern. It is about being guided into the soma, the body as experienced from within, so you can notice what is actually happening there.
Not what you look like. Not what you can lift, run, or achieve. But what it feels like to inhabit your own body.
After injury, illness, surgery, or a long stretch of holding everything together, many women say the same thing:
“I don't feel like myself anymore.”
That is not a mindset problem. It is a nervous system that is still responding to something that happened weeks, months, or even years ago.
Somatic narrative helps you find the thread back, not by analysing it, but by noticing it.
Why January Makes This Harder
January wellness culture thrives on urgency.
Fresh start. New you. Push harder. Do more.
But if your nervous system has spent the last year in some version of survival mode, January pressure simply adds more load.
You can rest. You can take time off. But if your system has not learned that it is safe to stop defending, you will still feel wound tight.
That is not laziness. That is your body doing its job.
What's needed is not to override that response, but to help your nervous system update its sense of threat.
And that does not happen through willpower.It happens through attention.
What a Somatic Detox Actually Feels Like
If you have seen somatic content online, you might expect shaking, crying, or dramatic emotional release.
That can happen. But it is not the point.
Most of the time, somatic change is quiet.
It might look like:
a softening in your shoulders you did not realise were braced
a full breath you have not taken in weeks
the absence of tension that was there yesterday
Sometimes it feels like nothing at all. And that nothing is often progress.
If you are constantly chasing catharsis, you may be re-activating your system rather than settling it.
The goal is not drama. The goal is capacity.
The goal is not release. The goal is capacity.
Somatic Detox vs Somatic Release
Language matters here.
“Somatic release” often suggests that feelings are toxins to be expelled. “Somatic narrative”, the way I work, treats feelings as information.
When we can feel what is present without rushing to interpret it, fix it, or make it disappear, those sensations often begin to dissipate on their own. They lose their grip, little by little.
Pain scientist Lorimer Moseley explains that protective responses are shaped by context, not just tissue damage. The nervous system responds to what it perceives as threat, and that perception can change through safe experience.
That is the difference between forcing calm and allowing capacity to return.
How Somatic Narrative Works
Much of my work with clients involves guiding them safely into the soma, into the body as experienced from within, so they can sit with uncomfortable sensations without becoming overwhelmed.
Not to analyse them. Not to assign meaning. Just to feel them.
When this becomes possible, something else often re-emerges:
gut feeling
inner wisdom
interoceptive and neuroceptive signals
That is not something I give clients. It is something they reconnect with.
Why This Is Especially Hard for Women
Many of the women I work with are carrying multiple roles: mother, carer, leader, partner.
Layer in perimenopause, invisible labour, and years of being told or feeling you had to keep it together, and the nervous system has very little room left.
Self-compassion is genuinely hard for women. Not because we are bad at it, but because we have been trained to be harder on ourselves than on anyone else.
So when January arrives with detox language, even the gentle versions, it often becomes another metaphorical stick to beat ourselves with.
Much of my work involves helping women develop self-compassion, which sounds simple until you realise how deeply women have been conditioned to judge themselves.
It is not something you force.It tends to emerge when the nervous system no longer feels under threat.
When Quiet Attention Is Not Enough
For some women, noticing and listening is enough to soften things.
For others, especially after injury, illness, surgery, or a long period of holding everything together, the system needs more support.
This is the space Beyond Recovery holds. It is not a programme. It is a paced, contained space for women who have done the rehab, done the resting, and still don’t feel ready in the way they expected to.
Not fixing. Translating.
You can also explore this work through 1:1 somatic narrative coaching, guided carefully and led by what your system can handle.
Something Has Shifted
Many women say this quietly: “I have been told I am fine, but I do not feel fine.”
A somatic detox, as I am using the phrase, is not about getting back to who you were.
It is about acknowledging that something has changed. That there has been a transition.
And that transition needs to be felt, not fixed.
You are not broken. You are not behind. You do not need optimising.
If anything, you may need permission to stop trying so hard.
If This Resonates
Join Flourish Notes for grounded reflections on nervous system literacy, recovery, and midlife change.
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About Sarah
Sarah Gilbertson is a Therapeutic Coach and founder of FlourishWell Coaching.
She works with women navigating midlife change, recovery, and confidence, especially in the space between “you are fine now” and feeling ready again.
With a background in movement teaching and ski instructing, Sarah brings a grounded, body-first approach to emotional health and nervous system literacy.
Learn more about working with Sarah flourishwell.coach
Further Reading
Lorimer Moseley and David Butler (2015). Explain Pain Supercharged. NOI Group. https://www.noigroup.com
Somatic Experiencing® https://traumahealing.org
Johns Hopkins Medicine – Somatic Self Care https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/office-of-well-being/connection-support/somatic-self-care
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