An Archive of Pain… Revisited

I’ve often referred to the body as an archive, and I still believe that framing holds. But the phrase “an archive of pain” carries weight I’m no longer willing to reinforce. The second part of that sentence, of pain, comes with layers of conscious and unconscious baggage.

It echoes the messages I absorbed in my formative years from a Protestant Christian ethos that suggested the body was suspect, driven by base instincts, and that feeling those instincts meant moving away from godliness.

When we conceptualize the body as the archive of trauma or of pain, we risk deepening the very divide we are trying to heal. The body becomes the site of suffering. Once again, we find ourselves in a paradigm that says we must transcend the body to find peace.

But healing is not about transcendence. It is about alliance.

We must ally with the body, not against it. We must be vigilant for the subtle distortions, especially in language, that reinforce separation. The body, when seen clearly, becomes a mirror. A barometer for our internal states. A reflector of our lived experience.

This reframe aligns with wisdom traditions across time. And while it has always made intuitive sense to me, I am only now realizing how much my language has not reflected it. I have often used words like “processing” or “releasing” trauma through the body, but I am feeling increasingly called to speak differently.

The somatic process is not about getting rid of something. It is about expanding capacity.

When we feel emotion arise in the body, it is not because trauma is being exorcised or expelled. It is because we are reclaiming the energy we have spent suppressing, protecting, and avoiding. We are no longer guarding that place inside us from being seen.

As the body becomes clearer, as the mirror gets polished, our capacity grows. Not because something has left us, but because we have come home to more of ourselves.