You Don’t Need More Insight. You Need More Capacity.

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from knowing yourself really well.

Knowing your patterns.

Knowing your history.

Knowing exactly why you react the way you do.

Many people who find their way to somatic work are not unaware. They are deeply self-aware. They have read the books, done the therapy, reflected endlessly. They can name the wound and trace it back with precision.

And still, their body tightens. Their chest braces. Their reactions feel bigger than their intentions.

This is often where frustration turns inward.

Why do I understand this so clearly and still feel stuck?

Because insight and capacity are not the same thing.

Insight lives in the mind. Capacity lives in the nervous system. Capacity is the body’s ability to stay present with sensation, emotion, and activation without leaving. Without dissociating. Without collapsing. Without appeasing or exploding.

When capacity is low, awareness becomes overwhelming. Reflection turns into self-monitoring. Healing starts to feel like another thing you are failing at.

In those moments, the problem is not a lack of understanding. It is that the body does not yet feel safe enough to stay.

For many of us, insight became a survival strategy. If I can explain it, I can manage it. If I can understand it, I can stay in control. But the nervous system does not reorganize through explanation. It reorganizes through experience.

A body in survival does not need more information. It needs pacing, safety, and permission to unfold slowly.

This is what somatic work offers. Not fixing. Not pushing through. Not reliving what hurt. Instead, it gently increases the body’s capacity over time. It teaches the nervous system, moment by moment, that this sensation is tolerable, that this feeling can move, that staying does not mean danger.

When capacity grows, insight finally has somewhere to land. Change stops being something you try to force and becomes something that happens naturally, from the inside out.

If you have ever thought, “I understand this, so why am I still here,” nothing is wrong with you. Your body is asking for a different kind of support.

This post begins a 30-day series called Hot Takes from the Body. These are somatic truths for people who have already done a lot of inner work and are ready for something that meets the body where it actually is.

We begin with capacity.

Reflection:

Where do you understand yourself clearly but still feel stuck in your body?