EFR 942: Why Your Anxiety, Gut Issues & Exhaustion Might Be Stored Trauma (and how to finally release it) with Liz Tenuto
Ever Forward Radio with Chase Chewning
Chase Chewning
5.0 • 947 Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2026
⏱️ 75 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What if your anxiety, exhaustion, gut issues, insomnia, chronic tension, or even emotional numbness weren't random… but your body trying to communicate unresolved stress and trauma? Somatic healing expert and When the Body Speaksauthor Liz Tenuto—better known online as "The Workout Witch"—joins us to unpack how trauma gets stored in the nervous system and why so many people stay stuck even after years of therapy, self-help, and "doing all the right things." Liz explains the science behind somatic healing, bottom-up nervous system regulation, neurogenic tremors, emotional release, chronic stress physiology, and how seemingly "normal" symptoms like jaw clenching, gut issues, fatigue, insomnia, and brain fog may actually be signs your body never fully completed the stress response. This conversation blends neuroscience, emotional healing, nervous system education, and practical tools into one of the deepest conversations yet on what it truly means to move Ever Forward.
YOU WILL LEARN:
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Why trauma is physical, not just emotional
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The difference between top-down vs bottom-up healing
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How chronic stress silently changes the body
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Why high performers often normalize dysregulation
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The role of safety and co-regulation in healing
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The surprising power of tiny movements and somatic exercises
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How unresolved trauma can mask deeper layers of pain
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Why healing can lead to a more authentic and connected life
Follow Liz @theworkoutwitch_
Follow Chase @chase_chewning
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00:00 – Trauma gets stored in the body
00:44 – What "bottom-up healing" means
01:00 – Why physical release creates emotional healing
01:33 – Neurogenic tremors explained
01:51 – Your body is your most honest messenger
03:09 – Giving yourself permission to not feel okay
06:11 – Is healing a luxury in modern life?
07:35 – When your body is quietly screaming at you
09:07 – Healthy coping vs hidden avoidance
11:42 – Why we always go to extremes with stress
14:21 – Can 5–10 minutes a day really heal stress?
16:12 – Signs trauma may be stored in your nervous system
19:58 – A simple vagus nerve exercise for relaxation
22:25 – Rocking movements & soothing the nervous system
25:14 – Gabor Maté's definition of trauma
26:56 – What is secondary trauma?
30:05 – Chase shares his PTSD healing journey
31:59 – Somatics vs talk therapy explained
35:11 – Why the jaw & psoas hold stress
36:09 – Why animals shake after stress (and humans don't)
38:54 – Why physical release creates emotional release
40:46 – The importance of safe people & co-regulation
43:08 – Signs your nervous system may be dysregulated
45:20 – Liz shares her trauma story
47:14 – Discovering somatic healing for the first time
49:39 – What somatic exercises actually look like
51:16 – Why gentle movement heals the nervous system
53:09 – Can you do somatic healing on your own?
54:20 – Reclaiming ownership of your body
55:50 – Healing trauma through unlearning survival patterns
57:43 – Somatics vs therapy: where should people start?
58:45 – Healing trauma you can't consciously remember
01:02:16 – Why avoiding trauma never truly works
01:03:09 – Trauma lives in your cells & tissues
01:05:57 – Healing creates ripple effects for others
01:09:57 – Liz on joy, hobbies & learning to play again
01:12:45 – What "Ever Forward" means to Liz
01:14:24 – "When the body speaks… are we listening?"
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Episode resources:
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | But only 10 to 20% of trauma is stored in your verbal memory, meaning that the rest has |
| 0:07.2 | us what we call a somatic memory in your body, so it lives in your tissues and your cells. |
| 0:12.1 | Our body can get stuck in its stress physiology, and that can happen like you're saying |
| 0:17.8 | with acute trauma or a single incident like your mom passing away |
| 0:22.4 | like experiencing a natural disaster or it can happen from long-term stress that just is constant |
| 0:31.0 | and lasts for longer than three months. So what do we do then? That's really where somatics can come in and any bottom up |
| 0:40.8 | feeling can come in. So any bottom up therapeutic technique. So what do you mean bottom up? So top down is |
| 0:46.8 | talk therapy where you're really working at it from a mental place, a mental and emotional place. |
| 0:52.7 | Explain then why it's so important for us to |
| 0:56.0 | work on physical release in order to really have the emotional release. You perceive the stressor |
| 1:02.3 | or the trauma. It goes into the Olympic system in your brain, the amygdala, which is your fear center, |
| 1:07.6 | that automatically within milliseconds cues down to spike cortisol and adrenaline. |
| 1:14.5 | It's autonomic. |
| 1:15.5 | You can't control it. |
| 1:16.6 | It just, you just, you're flooded with stress hormones. |
| 1:19.7 | One part of what I teach is actually this thing called neurogenic tremor is where you |
| 1:23.6 | safely recreate the shaking in your body. |
| 1:26.7 | And it's these tiny shakes. |
| 1:28.9 | And it really finalizes your stress response and it releases trauma out of your body. |
| 1:33.8 | Hi, I'm Liz Tenuto, founder of the workout which and author of When the Body Speaks. |
| 1:37.9 | Welcome to Ever Forward Radio. |
| 1:51.5 | Be feeling bad in our bodies be just as much as a teacher as feeling good can. |
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