BookView: The Body Keeps The Score
It has receipts!
This book sat me down like a disappointed aunt at Thanksgiving and said, “Sweetheart, we need to talk about what you’ve been stuffing into your emotional junk drawer.”
I picked up The Body Keeps the Score thinking it would be a gentle, scholarly stroll through the psychology of trauma. Some light neuroscience, a few diagrams, maybe a polite reminder to hydrate. It was recommended to me during therapy and having read it, I definitely find the junk draw description more apt.
Bessel van der Kolk’s central thesis is simple and rude:
Your body remembers everything you tried to forget.
Trauma isn’t just a bad memory floating around like a rogue file on your mental desktop. It’s stored in your nervous system, your muscles, your sleep patterns, your digestive tract, your startle reflex, your inability to relax during a Pixar movie, and your left trapezius, which has apparently been clenched since 2004.
Van der Kolk walks through decades of research showing how trauma rewires the brain, disrupts the stress response, and turns your body into a kind of overzealous security guard who keeps pulling the fire alarm because someone microwaved popcorn.
One of the book’s most helpful clarifications is that trauma isn’t about the event. It’s about the impact.
Two people can go through the same experience; one walks away shaken but functional, the other ends up with a nervous system that reacts to a car door slamming like it’s the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.
Trauma is what happens when something overwhelms your ability to cope, and your body says, “I’m going to hold onto this until you’re ready.”
Spoiler: you are never ready.
The Modalities / So Many Ways to Cry in Public
Van der Kolk introduces a buffet of healing approaches:
EMDR. Eye movements that somehow convince your brain to stop acting like a raccoon in a thunderstorm.
Yoga. Turns out the cure for existential dread might be child’s pose.
Neurofeedback. Basically teaching your brain to stop setting itself on fire.
Theater. Because sometimes the only way to find yourself is to pretend to be someone else for a while.
Talking. But not the “explain your trauma like a TED Talk” kind. More like “let your body speak the language it’s been whispering for years.”
The book’s message is clear: healing is not one-size-fits-all. It’s more like one-size-fits-you-after-you-stop-lying-to-yourself.
My Personal Takeaway
I closed the book and immediately became suspicious of every sensation in my body. At least, more than anxiety already had me suspicious for these sensations.
Why is my jaw tight
Why is my stomach doing that
Why did my heart rate spike when the dog sneezed
Van der Kolk didn’t just give me information—he gave me a new hobby: noticing things I’ve been ignoring for decades.
But here’s the thing: it’s hopeful.
Not in a “just manifest your way out of trauma” way, but in a grounded, practical, “your body is trying to help you, even when it’s being dramatic” way.
Healing, according to this book, is less like climbing a mountain and more like cleaning out a garage.
You find things you forgot existed.
You question your past decisions.
You sit on the floor holding an old box thinking, “Why did I keep this.”
And then you decide what stays and what goes.
It’s messy.
It’s slow.
It’s holy in a very ordinary way.
Final Verdict
The Body Keeps the Score is brilliant, unsettling, hopeful, and occasionally feels like being emotionally audited by a neuroscientist.
If you want a book that will help you understand yourself, your loved ones, and why your shoulders are always up by your ears, this is it.
Just… maybe stretch first.
As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.