In this episode, I sat down with Dr. Jen Rapkin, naturopathic doctor, body worker, former dancer, and author of The Feeling Muscle: Sitting With and Outlasting Hard Feelings, and I walked away from this one with so much clarity around something I've personally been navigating — the relationship between what we hold in our bodies and how it shows up as physical symptoms, dis-ease, and emotional patterns we can't seem to shake.
In this episode, we explore:
What it means to be a "frequent feeler" — and why that's actually a gift, not a burden
How the messages we were raised with ("grow thicker skin," "boys don't cry," "grin and bear it") trained us to armor up and disconnect from our emotional body
Why emotion is a pre-verbal, physical experience — and how learning to locate feelings in the body changes everything
The concept of "shaking the hand" of a feeling — a simple, powerful practice for beginning to sit with what's coming up rather than numbing or distracting
Why Dr. Raphkin's approach is NOT about excavating trauma — it's about exercising your feeling muscle one small moment at a time
The connection between unprocessed emotions and physical symptoms (gut issues, hormonal imbalance, chronic illness) — and why the nervous system is always part of the conversation
How we've become conditioned to outsource our health, our answers, and our healing to strangers on the internet — and why the most powerful answers already live inside you
Why safety and permission are at the root of emotional processing — and how childhood conditioning shapes our nervous system well into adulthood
Let's dive in!
Thank you for joining us today. If you could rate, review & subscribe, it would mean the world to me! While you're at it, take a screenshot and tag me @jennpike to share on Instagram – I'll re-share that baby out to the community & once a month I'll be doing a draw from those re-shares and send the winner something special!
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Have a question? Send it over to hello@jennpike.com and I'll do my best to share helpful insights, thoughts and advice.
