Episode 23

August 25, 2025

00:05:48

Read the Body Signs of Abusive Relationships: What Therapists, Victims & Friends Must Know

Read the Body Signs of Abusive Relationships: What Therapists, Victims & Friends Must Know
Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing
Read the Body Signs of Abusive Relationships: What Therapists, Victims & Friends Must Know

Aug 25 2025 | 00:05:48

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Show Notes

Your body remembers what your mind tries to forget. Posture, voice, and eyes all carry the hidden signs of abuse — and once you know how to read them, you’ll never miss them again. Ana Mael, Somatic therapist, delivers embodied truth-telling — showing how trauma is carved into the body, validating survivors, and teaching others to read the signs so healing can begin.

Full video: https://youtu.be/9llsotH96K4

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Key Learnings

Emotional abuse leaves physical evidence – posture, face, voice, skin, and breath all carry signs of trauma. Voice as frequency of abuse – tremors, high pitch, unsettled tone signal chronic emotional strain. Eyes reflect despair, shame, and fear – gaze patterns (downcast, unfocused, pleading, or avoiding) reveal inner states. Somatic collapse – curled shoulders, muted skin tone, shallow breath, and loss of vitality are markers of long-term abuse.

Facial trauma expression – chronic muscle tension in jaw, neck, and forehead creates visible and energetic imprints of trauma. Key Takeaways Trauma is not abstract—it etches itself into the body. What looks like “aging” may often be trauma carving itself into identity. Posture, tone, and gaze are diagnostic clues that can be observed in real time.

Expiration date on suffering – Ana emphasizes survivors must set boundaries on enduring emotional decay. Impact

Raises awareness that emotional abuse is not invisible but embodied. Validates survivors’ experiences by showing their symptoms are not “just in their head” but biologically and physically real.

Empowers practitioners and friends to recognize early somatic warning signs of abuse. Shifts healing lens – from purely psychological narratives to a body-based, somatic perspective.

Influence Reframes trauma not as personal weakness but as visible consequence of external harm. Counters cultural minimization of abuse by demonstrating how it literally shapes faces, bodies, and breath. Encourages both survivors and supporters to notice the nonverbal cues of collapse, shame, and fear. Core Lessons Emotional decay is visible and measurable in the soma.

Chronic abuse alters life force – posture tone, facial tone, and breath collapse. Shame and fear are embodied, especially in gaze and breath. This is not love but trauma carving identity. Healing requires not only awareness but also choosing a boundary—an “expiration date” for suffering.

Ana’s Role & Delivery Somatic Interpreter – She translates invisible emotional abuse into visible, physical signs (posture, eyes, breath, skin, voice).

Embodied Teacher – She delivers lessons not as abstract psychology but through real, embodied observation — things anyone can see and feel.

Witness of Pain – She validates survivors by naming what their body already knows but others may have ignored or minimized.

Boundary Setter – She emphasizes the need for an “expiration date” on emotional decay, delivering empowerment instead of endless endurance.

Truth Teller – She strips away illusions (like confusing trauma effects with aging or love) and calls it what it is: trauma carving identity.

What She Delivers Clarity – Emotional abuse leaves measurable, recognizable imprints on the body. Empowerment – Both survivors and friends/therapists can recognize the signs and act sooner.

Validation – Survivors are reassured that their exhaustion, shallow breath, dull eyes, and collapsed posture are not weakness — they are the body carrying harm.

Hope with Boundaries – Healing begins by naming the truth and deciding that the suffering must have a limit.

Ana Mael is a genocide survivor, somatic therapist, and author of The Trauma We Don’t Talk About. She is the founder of the Somatic Trauma Recovery Center and has dedicated her career to helping survivors reclaim their identity, dignity, and self-trust. With decades of lived experience, Ana offers a unique, unapologetic approach to healing that combines trauma justice, somatic therapy, and spiritual integrity. She advocates for vulnerability, accountability, and collective healing to dismantle the systems that perpetuate oppression and harm.

Chapters

  • (00:00:00) - Signs of emotional decay in the body
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Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] So teaching number one is emotional decay is visible in the body. [00:00:08] The first thing I want you to understand is this chronic emotional abuse leaves evidence. [00:00:18] It is written in your posture, it shows in your face, and it lives in your voice. [00:00:28] And that voice has a frequency of abuse. [00:00:34] It's more on a high pitched and has a tremor, the frequencies of a tremor. It's very unsettled voice. [00:00:44] So posture, face, voice. [00:00:53] And then hope is placed in someone incapable of love. [00:01:00] The body. The Soma bears the cost. [00:01:06] And this is not just the metaphor, okay? [00:01:11] It's how our body goes to the breakdown, to the collapse. [00:01:18] Shoulders are curled inward in protection. [00:01:23] Eyes are very dull, very. [00:01:26] There is no spark. [00:01:29] Mostly they are looking down or they're clinging onto you with the spear of. It's almost as the eyes would say, please save me, save me, give me a hope. [00:01:42] Or the eyes can be very unfocused. They can move away from you. [00:01:47] Okay? [00:01:49] Eyes are moving away from you. If you're, let's say, friend, as I was in this case, it's a shame. [00:01:58] It's a shame they cannot look at you because of so much internal shame. [00:02:08] In some cases, um, it's fear. [00:02:12] It's fear what will happen. [00:02:15] What will happen if you call up on the abuser. [00:02:22] It's a fear from your. Sometimes even for your own life. Okay? [00:02:29] Skin tone is muted by adrenal fatigue. There is no vibrancy in the skin and breath is very shallow. It's almost. [00:02:40] You can breathe up to your thymus. That's it. [00:02:47] Because if you take this big breath with a deep breath, we are feeling things. [00:02:55] And when we are going through this emotional turmoil, it's just better not to feel. [00:03:02] So this is not just sadness, it's emotional decay. [00:03:07] It's the result of living in a body that has stopped believing. It deserves more. [00:03:15] Okay, so this is what we can see on the Soma level. [00:03:22] Facial trauma expression is real. [00:03:27] Muscle tone in jaw and eyes changes. [00:03:34] So we are talking about muscle tone and it's connected with your postural tone. So postural tone is your ability to respond. How quickly you can respond. That's your life force. [00:03:49] So that's gone. That's gone. Okay, that's gone. [00:03:55] Chronic tension in the neck and forehead. [00:03:59] It's almost like you're approaching to the person and you can feel that energy of tension in the neck, in the neck, into your shoulders. Shoulders are almost moving up to the neck and in the forehead. Forehead can literally move forward or be in the state of forward all the time. [00:04:25] Downward collapse in the spine. [00:04:28] People who are already in resigning syndrome. [00:04:33] And skin and gaze, uh, uh, lose their shine. [00:04:39] And this is not aging, people. This is not aging. [00:04:44] This is trauma carving itself into your identity. [00:04:51] And this is not love. [00:04:54] And this is why in the piece I say, see what face he carved on you. [00:05:01] So let me just summarize what your body may already know. [00:05:07] Emotional decay is visible. It's visible where we don't just feel tired. [00:05:15] We look like someone who has been carrying pain too long. [00:05:21] Too long. [00:05:24] And that needs to have expiration date when you decide. [00:05:32] By this date I will be done if I don't see this, this and that. [00:05:44] But it needs to have expiration date.

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