When Words Aren't Enough: Parts, the Body, and How Real Change Happens

There are people I work with who understand themselves exceptionally well.

They can tell me exactly when a particular response began. Which relationship shaped it. Which version of themselves learned to stay alert, to stay calm, and to stay ahead of other people’s moods. They can name the fear underneath it and the logic that once made it necessary. They have done the thinking. They have done the reflecting. Some have done years of therapy.

And yet, when something familiar happens, a silence across the table, a shift in tone, a look that feels unreadable, their body still tightens. Their chest braces. Their breath shortens. The response arrives before thought has time to intervene. They often say some version of this: “I know where this comes from. I just can’t stop it.”

This is where many people begin to feel quietly defeated. They assume that if understanding has not changed the response, they must be missing something. That they have not gone deep enough. That they are not doing the work right.

What I see instead is something else entirely.

Understanding lives in one place. These responses live somewhere else. Much of what shapes how we react in relationships is not stored as a story. It is stored as sensation. As posture. As impulse. As the way the eyes settle, or the way the body prepares itself before anything has happened. These responses formed long before there were words for them. Long before reflection or reasoning were available.

This is why insight can feel so complete and yet so ineffective.

I often sit with people who can describe their internal world with extraordinary precision. They know which parts of them are protective. They understand what those parts are afraid of and why they learnt to be vigilant. They can hold those parts with compassion rather than judgement. That matters. It lays important groundwork.

But knowing why a response exists is not the same as the body believing it is no longer needed.

The body does not update itself through explanation. It updates through experience.

I see this most clearly when someone notices the response arriving before thought. The tightening happens first. The urge to manage, explain, or withdraw follows. The understanding comes later. By that point, the body has already decided what is required. This is not stubbornness. It is protection.

The body is doing what it learnt to do when there was no time to think, only to react. It is reading the room, scanning for risk, and preparing for impact. And it does not speak in words.

This is where the work often needs to change shape.

When therapy stays entirely in the realm of language, some people find themselves circling the same ground. They understand more and more, but the response remains intact. What helps in these moments is not abandoning insight but adding another way of listening.

Attention matters here; for example, where it goes, how it settles, and what happens when it stays. There are ways of working that allow the body to show what it is holding without having to narrate it. Ways of noticing how the nervous system responds when attention rests in particular places, internally and visually.

What often surprises people is how little explanation is required once the body feels involved. A breath drops lower, the shoulders soften, and the sense of urgency eases. Not because anything has been reasoned through, but because something has been felt and completed.  When this happens, people often describe it as relief without a story. A sense that something has shifted even though they could not explain exactly how. The response that used to arrive automatically does not disappear, but it loses its grip. There is more space and more choice.

The protective part does not need to be argued with. It needs to know, at a bodily level, that it can stand down. This kind of change is subtle. It does not announce itself; it shows up later, in moments that used to be difficult. A pause where there used to be tension, or a silence that does not trigger collapse, or even a conversation that unfolds without rehearsing every possible outcome in advance.

People often tell me they notice it only in hindsight. Something happens that would once have sent them into vigilance, and they realise afterwards that their body stayed with them. This is the difference between understanding yourself and feeling safe enough to respond differently.

If you have spent years reflecting on your patterns and still find yourself caught in the same bodily responses, this may not be a failure of insight. It may simply be that the work now needs to include the place where those responses live.  Not everyone is ready for this kind of work, and it is not a shortcut. But for those who have done the thinking and still feel stuck, learning to listen to the body can open a different conversation entirely.

One that does not rely on words to do all the work.

If this resonates, a discovery call can offer space to explore whether working in this way might be appropriate for you. There is no obligation and no assumption that this is the right path. It is simply a chance to consider whether the kind of change you are looking for requires a different language than insight alone.