Like many people lately, I’ve been doing a lot of work online — reworking my website, writing, and managing my practice. After long stretches on the computer, I started noticing something interesting in my own system:

It’s as if my nervous system gets plugged into the internet, buzzing and alert, but less connected to the grounded, real world around me.

By the end of the day, my body feels tight, my breath shallow, and my mind scattered. I know many of my clients experience the same thing — feeling overstimulated, disconnected, and emotionally flooded after hours of digital engagement.

This state isn’t just “mental fatigue.” It’s your nervous system adapting to a highly stimulating, disembodied environment. And without support, it can leave you feeling anxious, numb, or stuck in a constant state of low-level activation.

Online Life, Embodied Systems

For many of us, work, social connection, and daily logistics happen on screens. While technology connects us globally, it often pulls our attention out of our bodies and into abstract digital spaces.

Signs your system may be feeling this include:

• Head, neck, or jaw tension after working online

• Feeling “wired but tired” at the end of the day

• Forgetting to breathe deeply

• Emotional flatness or irritability

• Difficulty transitioning out of work mode at night

• A sense of disconnection from yourself or others

  I notice my eyes are hurting by the end of the day!!!  When these patterns accumulate, they can mimic or amplify anxiety, burnout, or trauma responses, especially for people whose nervous systems are already sensitive.

How Somatic Experiencing Can Help

Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a gentle, body-based approach that supports regulation of the autonomic nervous system — the part of us responsible for safety, connection, and survival responses.

In therapy, SE helps you notice and track sensations in the body, unwind chronic patterns of activation, and reconnect with a grounded sense of presence.

For people spending long hours online, Somatic Experiencing offers practical ways to:

• Reconnect to bodily cues that get overridden during focused digital work

• Discharge accumulated activation from hours of cognitive load

• Strengthen embodiment, so the mind doesn’t “leave” the body during intense mental tasks

• Learn micro-practices between meetings or emails that keep the nervous system regulated throughout the day
  
  Becoming Embodied in a Digital Age

Being a human, hopefully, will never leave us. Integrating embodiment practices into your day doesn’t require hours of meditation. It can be as simple as:

• Standing up and noticing the contact of your feet on the floor between meetings

• Letting your eyes soften and widen to reconnect to your environment

• Taking two slow, full breaths and noticing the sensations that follow

• Briefly stepping outside to let your nervous system orient to real space, not just screens

  These small acts bring your system back into the here and now, allowing the mind–body connection to reestablish itself — something that’s essential for emotional regulation, clarity, and resilience.

Serving Clients in Palm Beach Gardens & Beyond

As a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, I support clients locally and virtually who are ready to:

• Feel more grounded in their daily lives

• Heal anxiety and trauma through mind–body integration

• Reconnect with their natural rhythms in an overstimulating world

  Whether you’re navigating stress, burnout, or simply want to live with more presence, body-based therapy can be a powerful way home to yourself.

Schedule a consultation to explore how this work can support you by pressing and filling out the form for the “Connect with Me for a 15-min Consult” button

Many people come to therapy saying, “I understand why I feel this way — but I still can’t change it.”
They’ve talked through their stories, analyzed their patterns, and developed insight. Yet deep down, something still feels stuck — like the mind understands, but the body hasn’t caught up.

This is often where Somatic Experiencing (SE) becomes the missing link

Why Insight Alone Isn’t Enough

Traditional talk therapy can be incredibly valuable — it gives language to your experience, helps identify patterns, and builds awareness. But for many people, insight doesn’t automatically create relief.

That’s because trauma, chronic stress, and emotional overwhelm don’t just live in our thoughts — they live in the nervous system.

When your body is holding tension, bracing against old experiences, or still scanning for threat, no amount of mental understanding can convince it to relax. The body needs a way to complete what it couldn’t finish, to release what it’s been carrying.

What Somatic Experiencing Offers

Somatic Experiencing is a gentle, body-based therapy that helps you reconnect with your body’s natural capacity to heal and self-regulate.

Rather than diving into stories or reactivating pain, we slow down and notice the subtle cues of the nervous system — sensations, impulses, breath, and emotion. Through this process, the body learns that it’s safe to release the energy of past overwhelm. What I have seen over and over again is that at one point, this pain was translated into a label of PTSD, Anxiety, depression, codependency, and trauma. Some have even self-medicated over it with drugs or over-eating and/ or under-eating.

Clients often describe SE as feeling freeing, lighter, or finally able to breathe again. It’s not about reliving the past all the time— it’s about helping your body find the safety and balance it’s been missing.

The Freedom That Follows

When your body starts to let go of old patterns of bracing, you can experience:

• Less anxiety and tension in daily life or more energy that perks you up
  
  

• A calmer, steadier sense of presence
  
  

• More access to emotion without feeling overwhelmed
  
  

• Greater ease in relationships and connection
  
  

• A sense of returning to yourself — not just mentally, but physically
  
  

This kind of freedom doesn’t come from forcing or fixing. It comes from listening, allowing, and trusting the wisdom of the body.

Integrating the Mind and Body

In my Palm Beach Gardens practice, and in my virtual sessions across Florida and Connecticut, I help clients integrate Somatic Experiencing with cognitive and mindfulness-based approaches.

Together, we explore the root of what your body has been carrying — not to analyze it, but to finally release it.

If you’ve done talk therapy and sensed that something deeper is waiting to unfold, this work may be what your system has been asking for.

Begin Your Own Embodied Healing

If you’re ready to move beyond understanding your story and into feeling truly free within yourself, Somatic Experiencing offers a profound way forward.

Jennifer Goggin, LMHC, LPC, SEP
Serving clients in Palm Beach, FL, and virtually across Florida and Connecticut.

Schedule a consultation to explore how Somatic Experiencing can help you come home to your body and your life.