When You Start To Come Back To Yourself
There are certain days when the room feels far away, even if you are sitting right in the middle of it.
You hear someone speaking, you nod, you respond, you do the thing that is being asked of you, yet a quieter part of you knows you are only half there.
Maybe you notice it at the sink, staring out the window while the water runs over your hands.
Maybe you notice it in conversation, when you laugh at the right moments and still feel strangely untouched.
Maybe it comes at night, lying in bed, realizing you cannot quite feel your own body, as if a soft layer of fog has settled between you and your life.
I have known this distance.
For a long time, it was how I stayed here.
No one taught me the word for it, but my body knew the practice. It learned to step slightly aside when things felt too loud, too sharp, too uncertain. It learned to float when everything felt like too much to hold.
We often call this dissociation. I experience it as an old doorway the body built when presence felt too strong. A threshold that once protected us, and now asks to be walked through in a different direction.
This is a story about that turning. About what begins to move when you feel the pull to come closer to your own life again.
How Distance Becomes A Way Of Living
For many of us, this distance did not begin in adulthood.
It began in living rooms where emotions hummed beneath the surface and no one named them.
In classrooms where being quiet and easy kept everything smoother.
In family systems where your sensitivity picked up currents that were never spoken out loud.
Your body is wise. It watched, listened, and adjusted.
If feeling fully was overwhelming, it learned to soften sensation.
If speaking up brought more tension, it learned to stay agreeable.
If no one could sit with your big feelings, it learned to tuck them away and keep going.
Over time, that adjustment can become so familiar that it feels like personality.
The capable one.
The calm one.
The one who is fine.
Yet under the surface, there may be a quieter longing:
I want to feel my own life again.
I want to know what I actually want.
I want to be here, not just performing “here.”
This longing is a very sacred sign. It means that another part of you, just as wise as the one that stepped aside, is ready to explore a new way.
The Way Distance Shapes Connection
When you live with even a slight sense of separation from your own body, it touches every relationship.
You might notice that:
you listen deeply to others, yet feel unsure how to share yourself
touch, affection, or sexual intimacy sometimes feel like something you are watching yourself do
you care about people, yet feel strangely alone, even in partnership or community
places that used to feel nourishing now feel a bit flat, as if the color has dimmed
Nothing about this makes you broken. It simply means that the protective distance that once helped you cope is now sitting between you and the intimacy you actually want.
Coming back to your body is not only about personal healing.
It is about being able to really receive a hug, to feel held by a forest or the ocean, to taste your food, to watch your own laughter reach your eyes again.
Presence restores connection, not only inside you, but between you and everything you love.
When Your Body Begins To Invite You Back
The body has many ways of asking for your return.
Sometimes it comes as a small tug of restlessness when you lose yourself in scrolling.
Sometimes it shows up as a lump in the throat when you pretend you are fine.
Sometimes it appears in the form of exhaustion that no amount of sleep fully touches, because the real fatigue lives in the constant effort to stay away from yourself.
If you notice any of this, you might pause and simply say, in your own way,
“I see that something in me wants space, and something in me wants to come closer. Both are welcome here.”
Instead of trying to force yourself to “stay present,” you begin to build a bridge. A path that honors the part of you that kept you safe and also honors the part of you that longs for more aliveness, more clarity, more realness.
Small Ways Back Into Your Body
Returning to your body does not need to be dramatic. Often, the simplest practices are the most powerful, especially when repeated.
You might try:
Feeling your contact points
Notice where your body meets the chair, the floor, the bed. Let yourself feel your weight without needing to change anything. Even a few breaths here begins to teach your system that being here can feel solid, not threatening.
Bringing attention to your senses
Choose one sense at a time.
The warmth of a mug in your hands.
The way sunlight lands on a wall.
The rhythm of a favorite song.
Let the details of the moment come forward. This is how you slowly move away from distortion and back into clear, direct experience.
Giving your feelings simple language
You do not need poetic words. Even a quiet “I feel far away right now” is an act of intimacy with yourself. You are no longer disappearing without acknowledgment; you are staying in relationship with your own state.
Letting movement wake up your aliveness
Stretching in the morning, rolling your shoulders, walking without a destination, shaking out tension in your hands or feet. Movement tells your nervous system, “I am here, and I have some choice in how I inhabit this moment.”
Each act may seem small on its own. Together, over time, they weave a very real path back home.
The Role Of Relationship In Coming Home
We do not learn dissociation in isolation. We also do not have to learn presence alone.
Healing often deepens when you can feel another safe nervous system near yours. Someone who does not demand that you be more expressive, more “on,” more available than you feel. Someone who can sit with you, both when you are spacious inside and when you feel more solid.
This might be a trusted friend, a partner, a therapist, a spiritual guide, or a healing space that feels honest and steady.
As you allow yourself to be seen a little more as you are, without leaving yourself to keep the peace, your system gathers new evidence:
It can be safe to be here.
It can be safe to feel more of myself.
It can be safe to let connection touch me.
Presence, then, becomes less like standing under a harsh light and more like resting by a well you know you can return to, again and again.
Walking This Path Together
If you recognize yourself in these words, I want you to know this:
The way you learned to survive reveals your brilliance, not your failure.
And if there is a part of you now that wants something different, that part is worthy of being taken seriously.
I am Emily Rose. I walk with women and femmes who are learning to come back into their bodies, their relationships, and their own inner ground. Together, we explore body led subconscious work, timeline and parts work, and practices that restore connection to self, to others, and to the places that feel like true home.
If something in you softens or leans in as you read this, you are welcome to:
You are already in motion, even if the steps feel small.
Each time you choose to feel one breath more, to stay one moment longer, to speak one honest sentence, you are returning.
To your body.
To your life.
To the well of yourself that has been here all along.
With love,
Emily Rose
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I'm Emily Rose
Intimacy Doula • Oracle • Human Design GuideI work with women whose lives have been shaped by old patterns; lineage, trauma, and lived experience that live on in the body. Together, we listen through the subtle body, memory, and the energetic field to clear distortions and make space for you to come home to yourself again; to feel whole, rooted, and more honest in your intimacy with yourself and the people you love.
