Unlocking the Body's Memory with Majo Torreli

Your body remembers everything. From childhood traumas to ancestral patterns, cellular memory shapes your present reality in ways your mind may never fully grasp. As somatic coach Majo Torreli reveals in this eye-opening conversation, we've been approaching healing backward—focusing almost exclusively on our thoughts while neglecting the identity stored within our bodies.

Traditional therapy keeps us "from the neck up," offering valuable insights but often missing the physical dimension where our deepest patterns reside. When triggered, our bodies literally time-travel back to past traumas, recreating the exact nervous system state we experienced years or even decades ago. This explains why intellectual understanding alone rarely creates lasting change—our biology is still responding to old programming.

Somatic work bridges this gap by treating the body as the primary storyteller in our healing journey. Through intentional movement, breathwork, and embodiment practices, we can release energy that's been stuck for years, often manifesting as persistent anxiety or doubt that conventional approaches can't touch. Unlike regular exercise, somatic practices combine physical experience with cognitive awareness, creating a complete healing circuit.

This whole-body approach also revolutionizes manifestation. Rather than just visualizing desired outcomes, somatic rehearsal allows you to literally embody your future self in the present moment. By experiencing the felt sensations of who you're becoming, you create an energetic blueprint that makes that reality increasingly inevitable.

Ready to discover what your body has been trying to tell you? Download Majo's free guide "No Fluff Manifesting for the Smart Woman" or book a complimentary somatic coaching session through the links below. Your body holds the wisdom—it's time to listen.

Majo Torreli - Somatic Coach for Women

Free resource: https://www.shesembodied.com/no-fluff-manifesting-for-the-smart-woman

Majo is happy to offer a complimentary somatic session as a taster for her one-on-one coaching container - please check out her website https://www.shesembodied.com/

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):

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My new novel The Red Magus has recently been published in conjunction with the Unbound Press.  An entralling mystical adventure set across time and space, where past and current lives converge.  Find it on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Somatic Coaching
• 6:31 How the Body Stores Trauma
• 11:23 Cellular Memory and Energy Release
• 15:00 Movement and Breath as Healing Tools
• 21:10 Somatic Approach to Manifesting
• 25:55 Daily Practices and Resources

Transcript

Speaker 1: 2:31

So welcome everybody to another episode of Balm to the Soul. And I'm your host, natasha Joy Price, and I'm a solicitor, I'm a energy therapist, I'm an author and, obviously, I'm a podcaster. And today I have a lovely new guest and her name is Maho Turelli. Did I pronounce that right? And her name is Maho Torelli. Did I pronounce that right? Perfect, thank you. So welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for supporting the podcast and joining us. It's lovely to meet you, and you're based over in Madrid, aren't you?

Speaker 2: 3:04

That's correct, yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:06

And how's the weather over there today?

Speaker 1: 3:08

It's actually very nice because the summer is chilling a little yeah, yeah, it's chilling a little here, actually it's, it's uh, but it's a nice day, so that's, that's nice, isn't it? Okay, lovely, and um, maho is a somatic coach for women, and when I was reading, I sort of read up on people's websites and the information you send us, and it was it's. I find this all very fascinating how the body holds a memory, how the body holds on to um. You know emotions and traumas and you know um, because somatic just for anybody who doesn't know somatic is about means relating to or affecting the body, doesn't it? Yep, that's correct. So tell us about your work, tell us about the importance of doing somatic work.

Speaker 2: 4:05

Yeah, of course, and thank you so much for having me, natasha.

Speaker 2: 4:09

So essentially, as you said, somatic soma the root comes from Greek and it just means body, especially in relation to the mind and the brain. So, as you're aware, we live in a society where a lot of I mean everything, I would say that we do is very heady. It's very from the neck up. Even our self-help, our self-development, therapies, everything which is amazing and so helpful, it's very much mind-based and you go into a therapy room and you sit there for an hour talking about your problems, right. So it's very logic-based and very linear. And about your thoughts you engage, mostly your thoughts. So in somatics what we do is take that deeper and further by dropping you into your body and working with the body as the storyteller and not just with your mind, because what happens is that about 90% give or take of who you are as a person. So what makes you Natasha? You is actually stored in your body, in your nervous system, in your sensations and everything from the neck down. So ignoring that it's like ignoring, essentially, a huge part of who you are.

Speaker 1: 5:25

That's why a lot of people are often in healing journeys that last forever, because there's so many things like healing journeys that last forever because there's yes, so it's, it's, it's the connection between the mind and the body, isn't it really it? What is what you people miss out on sometimes? So they're doing years of talking therapy, but they're not sort of connecting that to in the body.

Speaker 2: 5:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we want to bridge that gap in somatics.

Speaker 1: 5:56

Yes, it reminded me. Well, there was something that you, one of the talking points that you gave me, and it was about when you're triggered, a memory of a trauma, and you're triggered and your body goes back into the state it was in at the time of the trauma, which I find fascinating. So it's on a cellular basis, literally, it result, it's, it reverses straight away to how it was. That's extraordinary, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 6:26

it is, it's mind-blowing, it blew my mind as well like from a nervous system perspective and from a neuroscience perspective, like you literally are taken back from. I mean, if that trigger or trauma is from when you were five years old or you know, a little kid, or maybe just at whatever past point in your life, you're taken back to that point and you immediately, like biologically inside, become that person in the sense that you are, in your nervous system, feeling the same way, exact same way you felt at that point and you have the exact same tools. So, even if you're not like more developed and, you know, more evolved emotionally, when you're triggered you essentially like time travel. I call it back to that point. Yeah, you shall heard, yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:14

That's extraordinary, isn't it? And it reminds me. I'm a past life regression therapist and I did my training. I don't know about eight, 10 years ago, but it reminds me. In that training we did body work and what we found was, if you get into the position of a trauma in a past life, you release the energy from the muscles. And I we had to do a lot of work doing, you know, as the practitioner, but we had to be the client and I have a very vivid memory of doing that. It felt really awkward to me to move the body into that position, but the minute I did that, I could see energy coming off me which was quite extreme, blew my mind. At that point I just thought how amazing. So not only are we, you know, we can remember trauma in this lifetime, the body is remembering or being triggered to go into a state in past lives.

Speaker 2: 8:15

That's amazing. I had never made that link, but it makes so much sense because I think of it like intergenerational as well, right, yeah. The trauma that you hold, also from your lineage. Yes, that makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 1: 8:28

Yes, and how fascinating that we're talking about the body, because I always used to think, you know, we work on the energy and the energy holds all this information and the energy flows through the body. So obviously that's the connection, but actually I think it's more than that. I think it is like a cellular memory that we must be born with, that we must come into this, into this world, with yeah, yeah, I agree, like codes, almost, you know, and like yeah you can like play with to.

Speaker 2: 9:01

Yeah, like not recreate, but rather create the life you want.

Speaker 1: 9:06

Yes, so I found although I found it very um, it didn't feel natural to me, but actually moving my body and and into the position that I died in, which is a bit macabre, but that's that's what happened and and seeing that energy, I understand that doing work with the body must release a lot. Even if you don't see it, you must be if your intention is to release something from your ancestral lineage. Doing movement, doing breath work, is that?

Speaker 2: 9:42

the sort of exercises that you Absolutely exactly Movement, breath work, movement is a big one for releasing. And what you're saying is so on point point, because the thing with staying in your mind, in like whatever you're doing in your, in your healing journey, let's say, is that you are not, I mean it doesn't move anything right, you're just like whatever rage is there, whatever um, I mean sometimes even joy, because you cannot feel the bad without feeling the good and vice versa, like there's the same coin. So it's like you are. And a lot of people feel like why do I have this lingering anxiety that doesn't go away, even like I'm going to therapy for years now? And it's often because you have all of this stuck emotion, just a stuck energy life inside of you. And that's what we like, you say, what we move and what we work with in somatics.

Speaker 1: 10:31

Yeah, real time in sessions so people who go to the gym. That in itself is probably incredibly good to release energy that we don't need, or do we need to set the intention to release? Is there another key to it?

Speaker 2: 10:47

yeah, I would say that, say that that does the thing. It has to be like a very whole, very much a whole body experience and exercise. So when I mean I was a gym rat for like 10, I've always loved working out and I used to call myself a gym rat for 10 years and those were the same 10 years where I was like also going to therapy and also doing all the mindset work and at the same time I was really stuck in my patterns. You know, I had a lot of difficult patterns in many areas of my life so and I was a gym goer and like I did a lot of movement. So it pretty much has to be a full body exercise in terms of engaging both your cognitive awareness and intentionality as well as your body and like actually building that link in that relationship yeah, so people who already go to the gym, people who already do movement and dance, that's all brilliant, but we need to bring in the mind at the same time.

Speaker 1: 11:45

We need to bring in that connection as to what they want to release, don't we?

Speaker 2: 11:50

yeah, and I would take it further to say like, and we need to bring in what is it? Because sometimes you won't even know when it's no, and that's okay. You don't need to know precisely. You know like, oh, this trauma from, like you know this exact point in my life, but you do need to establish this like rapport with your own self and your own body and be like, yes, this is this tightening in my chest, this is what I want to work with. Yes, I want to. You know, just see what's there and, like, start relating to it, and then you'll because then you get like intuitive about oh, maybe it's movement, maybe it's breath. You know it can be different things.

Speaker 1: 12:29

Yeah, Again, also breath work I've done in the past and I cannot breathe. I think maybe this is an issue I need to deal with. I get really confused in breath work and I find it really really difficult. But I ended up doing about six sessions with a lady and, oh my goodness, about six sessions with the lady and oh my goodness, it was so therapeutic. It was such a release, week after week, not realizing I had this stuff to release. So it is an incredibly powerful process, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 13:06

Oh, it is. Yes. Breath is, I think, the most, most grounding tool. If you can't reach for anything at any given point, reach for a deeper exhale.

Speaker 1: 14:12

Yes, but um, also, things like just walking and mindfulness exercises are also are going to be something that people can use, aren't they?

Speaker 2: 14:23

yeah, absolutely, especially at first, when you are very new to this, speaking your body's language, um, doing the very basics, like you say, going out to nature. Nature is incredibly soothing and for your vagus nerve it like it literally soothes your whole system, just being out there. You know, hug a tree, just be out there. You know, hug a tree, just be out there with nature. Yeah, go walk. Yeah, these things are. They sound basic but they can be very deep.

Speaker 1: 14:53

Yeah, I always think sometimes you know it's good to go back to the basics. Actually, you know they are the foundation, aren't they that you work on? But if you get a bit lost, just revert back to the basics. Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about manifesting as well, because you talk about manifesting and, um, we have talked about manifesting on the podcast before, but one element that you add which is different, is this somatic work. So how does that help us when we're trying to manifest?

Speaker 2: 15:25

yeah, it's exactly the link to the concept that we were discussing already of like time traveling, like I call it, and the fact that, because you can literally embody and quote unquote, become a past version of yourself, that means you can use that like built in capacity that your body has to become already in the here and now, in the present, the future version of yourself and whoever you want to become. And because everything that you want to become you need to embody first in your body Like whatever it is that you are feeling, whatever it is that you're sensing today, whatever you sense, on repeat you become, yes, and that's like one-on-one manifesting, you know, like whatever, um, from a somatic perspective.

Speaker 1: 16:14

That's what makes, uh, my approach different and uh, yeah, we work not so much with your thoughts and like what people call limiting beliefs, but like your sensations, your body, your felt senses, because once you like rehearse the felt sensations of your future life, that kind of becomes inevitable interesting because we believe that, um, well, I believe, but um, that actually time is not linear and we can jump around, um, like you say, but if we, if what we've just talked about, and the body has a memory of a past life, it will have a memory of a future life presumably, or the possibility of a future life yeah, yeah so actually we're tapping into cellular knowledge yeah, I see it from like a quantum perspective, in terms of like you actually have this infinite possibilities.

Speaker 2: 17:14

You know, I see the body like the bridge, I like to call it, between between, like Newtonian physics, so like very much flesh and bone, cause and effect, here and now, reality, and quantum physics, which is like infinite possibilities and you are the creator, you know, with the observer effect whatever door you open is the door you go into and create. Yeah, so that's like the body, is that bridge between both?

Speaker 1: 17:43

Yes, yes, because my way would be very limiting, wouldn't it? But actually what you're saying is there's infinite, infinite. That's really interesting. So how do you get people to connect to that infinite in their body? How do you connect them in that way?

Speaker 2: 18:05

we do a lot of somatic rehearsing in sessions and what's really effective and interesting about this is that the thing with recreating the reason you're recreating the same life every day is that around you you, you have people, objects where, like I, reflect back to you and we create this energy field where we are reflecting back to you the new identity that you want, and what you're doing is somatically rehearsing that identity in real time. You know, it's not just you're sitting there visualizing, like most manifestation methods do, but we're actually like rehearsing your new identity in your felt senses, in your body, and I'm like the mirror for that new identity. So, like you start picking up on it on a very unconscious level and then you start recreating it step by step, small by small, in your real life and that's how you like embody that new person you want to be yeah, person, gosh, that sounds amazing.

Speaker 1: 19:23

I suppose it's one of those things where you just have to live it to fully understand. Yeah, definitely yeah, how that process works. But you are offering a one-to-one session, aren't you?

Speaker 2: 19:37

for the listeners I am offering yes, a free, a free taster of yeah, what somebody can can start unlocking for them so I'll put all your details underneath the episode and they can contact you through that.

Speaker 1: 19:51

But you're also offering um a free resource, aren't you as well, that they can?

Speaker 2: 19:56

yes, yes, uh, it is my guide, my free guide no fluff manifesting for the smart woman, um, and I called it that because I feel that there's, first of all, there is a lot of fluffy stuff out there in terms of like manifesting and, um, I do it from a very much somatic neuroscience perspective, so it's very you, grounded in the body and tangible in that way and, you know, as a smart woman I bet a lot of your listeners are smart, self-aware women.

Speaker 2: 20:29

We are very good at analyzing with our minds and being in our minds, and my approach is about working with the whole of you and the wisdom that lives in the whole of you. So, yeah, I think that could be something they enjoy yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1: 20:43

Well, I, I will put up that link, definitely. So, um, what was I going to ask you? Then? It went in, went in, went out the other side. So just tell me also one thing that you do every day, spiritually Do you do? Is this something that you sort of embody and you know live? Because I could imagine it would get really addictive if you knew how to sort of affect your you know different areas of your life. You'd think, oh, I'll just tweak that, then you'd be doing the process.

Speaker 2: 21:25

Yeah, and I love that question because at the same time, I believe so, part of living this effectively and enjoying the process you know, enjoying your life is being very much in the present. So my go-to, definitely something I do every night, every morning and maybe even, uh, during some point during the day is meditation. I love, love meditating and in my right after my meditations, in the, at night and and in the morning, I have like my little praise, prayer and somatic anchoring, so like I I already know where I'm going essentially and that's like you know in my, in my field already, and like I just like anchor it, because when you have something that you um, a thought, let's say, or like a visualization that you feel in your body and that you also anchor in some way, like even if it's holding your fingers, like this that's where you anchor.

Speaker 2: 22:25

So I do that every day and it's like a no-brainer for me that that's where I'm going while at the same time meditating, because that keeps me very grounded in the, in the core of me yes, meditating is fabulous.

Speaker 1: 22:39

Yes, in hypnosis, that's how we anchor in good feelings, or feelings of empowerment, or, yeah, fabulous. I know what I was going to talk to you about. I was going to talk about emails, email addresses, because with all these fabulous guests I get, they have, some of them have the most fabulous email addresses and I think that's a real manifesting. But you have a fabulous one because you have you your email address. Is she embodied?

Speaker 2: 23:10

She's embodied?

Speaker 1: 23:11

Yeah, she's embodied, which I thought well, that's fabulous, that explains you and that, in effect, is sort of it's almost like manifesting, isn't?

Speaker 2: 23:21

it. Yeah, exactly, it is.

Speaker 1: 23:23

Yeah, I think I might have to look at my email address, definitely Well. Thank you so much, maho. It's been lovely to speak to you and it's really opened my eyes a bit, really, about you know. I think by bringing in somatic work into that, you, you create much more of a holistic hole, don't you?

Speaker 1: 23:47

it's almost like some people are missing that, just that yeah yeah, and if you are doing a lot of manifesting, it's not working, it's not hitting. So obviously something in your body is misaligned, if you like. How? How do you know that it's misaligned? Only in that it's not creating results, or do you get anything? Do you get any bodily, you know? Can you tell from your body, if you like, if that makes sense?

Speaker 2: 24:16

yeah, yeah, absolutely, uh. I would say that main states usually are like anxiety, like this lingering sense of anxiety that doesn't go away, no matter how much inner work you do. You know and like, from program to program and or like book to book, podcast to podcast, and like nothing seems to do it for you, and also the sense of like just doubt, doubt and allness. You know, the opposite of feeling like, oh, I'm not the creator of my life, that's, yeah, that's usually this, um, this lingering anxiety and doubt yeah, and feeling I don't deserve that or I'm not worthy to to achieve that.

Speaker 2: 24:58

Yeah, those are all yeah, the felt senses underneath they hold these beliefs.

Speaker 1: 25:04

Yeah. So at that point you need to go and do somatic work at some level, yeah, or come and talk to you. You can shift that. It's interesting, though, isn't it, because a lot of people will have felt that and just never crossed their minds that okay, what I need to do is some body work, somatic work it's just that we don't know.

Speaker 2: 25:27

I mean, I had no, I, I myself had that lingering anxiety, so I know firsthand what it is and I was very much into person, you know, into doing all the things you can imagine, and I just had no clue. Yeah, why, what is it like? And I you kind of get used to living with it. Yeah, kind of like your default state.

Speaker 1: 25:46

So if you don't have the normal, doesn't it it?

Speaker 2: 25:49

does. It's very difficult to. First of all I had no clue what somatics was, or working with your body, and then anxiety kind of becomes a part of who you are.

Speaker 1: 25:58

Yeah which is such a shame, and I actually think a lot of young people this next generation I mean, you're much younger than me, but this next generation, like my children's generation, have a lot of almost like just inbuilt anxiety for some reason yeah, yeah, because it's often, yeah, intergenerational and it's just very once it's become your new baseline or you're operating from.

Speaker 2: 26:26

Yeah, it's tricky to spot yeah, fascinating.

Speaker 1: 26:31

Well, I would definitely recommend listeners uh having a look at your website and uh coming to have a chat with you, because it all is fascinating. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been a real pleasure chatting to you. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been a real pleasure chatting to you thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1: 26:47

I love this no, that's no problem at all, and if you've enjoyed listening to us chatting, please um have a like and uh share the episode and um I'll speak to you all again soon.