How do we define dissociation? If you’ve ever felt like part of you is observing life from the sidelines — floating above the physical world, watching your life unfold like a dream, or slipping into autopilot when emotions arise — you may know what it feels like to be dissociated.
Dissociation isn’t merely “spacing out.” It’s a nervous system survival pattern, rooted in trauma and reinforced over time. When our body once couldn’t contain what was happening to us, our consciousness learned to divide itself for protection. We moved out of the felt sense of experience and into the headspace of observation.
But here’s what many spiritual paths don’t teach: what is lost in dissociation is not gone forever — it is waiting to be remembered in the body.
In this episode of All About Soul, I speak with trauma healer and embodiment practitioner Kristin Windsor about how we can move from dissociation into inhabiting our body in the now — not by reliving old pain, but by learning to feel safe in the present.
Kristin’s journey deepened through her own healing path: after more than a decade in conventional therapy, medication after medication, scan after scan, and being diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, she discovered
something profound: healing is less about re-analyzing the past and more about re-educating the nervous system in the present moment.
That shift — from re-experiencing trauma to embodiment — is what this episode explores.
We talk about how, in trauma, the nervous system learns survival strategies like dissociation to protect the self. But those same strategies can later leave us feeling disconnected from our body, stuck in our heads, and unable to access the natural wisdom that lives in sensation, breath, and presence.
This isn’t simply a psychological insight — it’s a spiritual truth: our soul’s home is the body.
When we learn to return to sensation — gently, without judgment — we begin to inhabit the body again. We open the door to the felt sense of presence and life energy. What once felt like fragmentation becomes integration.
In this conversation, we explore:
- What dissociation really is, from both a nervous system and spiritual perspective
- How trauma lives in the body long after the events have passed
- Why revisiting old memories can sometimes reinforce trauma instead of healing it
- The role of the nervous system in trauma healing and embodiment
- Practical ways to invite presence into the body — through breath, sensation, voice, and awareness
- How to build safety in the present without reliving what once hurt you
For many spiritual seekers, the journey often begins in the mind — in insight, intuition, and inner knowing. But trauma lives below the threshold of thought, in the tissues, the breath, and the subtle musculature of defense. True
transformation moves from understanding into felt experience.
This episode is an invitation to practice embodiment as an act of healing: to sense your feet on the ground, to feel the breath in your lungs, to notice the wind on your skin, to feel the aliveness of your body — even if it feels unfamiliar.
You don’t have to relive every memory that once hurt you in order to heal it. In fact, coming back into the body — into the now — can be a safer, more transformative path to liberation.
Dissociation is not a flaw to fix. It’s a survival imprint to come home from. If you’ve ever wondered whether you’ve “missed” something in your healing journey, or if you feel like part of you still floats outside your life, this episode may help you feel seen — and grounded — in new ways.
✨ Come listen. Come feel your body again.
Because healing isn’t someplace you go — it’s something you inhabit.
