Healing is Embodied, Not Educated: Why Most Smart Women Still Struggle to Feel Well

by Dr. LaSonya Lopez, MD

May 29, 2025

You know what to eat. You’ve read the books. You’ve done the labs, tried the supplements, practiced the breathwork. So why do you still feel off? You’re not missing information. You’re missing embodiment.

This is the unseen gap so many intelligent, accomplished women fall into—the gap between knowledge and lived experience. A space where insight doesn’t always become integration. Where doing all the “right” things still doesn’t feel right in your body.

Let’s explore why healing isn’t just about knowing more. It’s about coming home to yourself—one breath, one sip, one ritual at a time—and why for many, faith is the grounding compass that makes that return possible.

The Disembodied Woman: A Product of High Functioning Trauma

Many high-achieving women are walking around in brilliant bodies with offline nervous systems. They’ve become so practiced in self-control, independence, and hyper-productivity that they’ve lost contact with the subtle cues of their own biology.

Signs of disembodiment:

• Feeling numb or disconnected despite doing “wellness” things

• Overriding hunger, fatigue, pain, or emotion

• Needing data or validation to trust your intuition

• Feeling frustration that your efforts aren’t “working”

This isn’t a personal failure. It’s an adaptive response to years (or decades) of performing safety rather than experiencing it. And for many, healing starts not with information, but with the quiet anchor of faith—believing God’s design for the body includes rest, intuition, and self-trust.

When Health Becomes Performance

In a culture that celebrates control, wellness can easily become a performance of discipline:

• “I do infrared saunas 3x/week”

• “I track all my macros and supplements”

• “I don’t eat after 6pm, ever”

But performance doesn’t guarantee presence. You can hit every metric and still be disconnected from your actual needs. Healing isn’t about managing your body like a machine. It’s about listening to your body like a living language.

Faith reminds us: We were never meant to hustle our way into healing. True restoration often comes through surrender, not striving.

The Knowledge Trap: Why Smart Women Struggle

Ironically, the more you know, the easier it is to intellectualize your symptoms. You research everything. Try everything. But you’re rarely still enough to feel what’s true.

You get stuck in:

• Data loops (labs, trackers, symptom logs)

• Comparative cycles (“I’m doing what she’s doing—why do I feel worse?”)

• Control spirals (“If I just get this protocol right...”)

But healing doesn’t live in protocols. It lives in presence. And sometimes, it lives in prayer—in turning to something greater when you’ve exhausted everything else.

What the Nervous System Needs That the Mind Can’t Provide

No amount of knowledge can substitute for felt safety. If your body doesn’t feel safe, it won’t heal. It won’t digest. It won’t ovulate. It won’t relax into receptivity. You may know what to do, but your nervous system is still in “prove,” “protect,” or “perform” mode. Until your body believes it can stop bracing, your healing stays in the waiting room.

Faith creates a doorway for this shift. Believing in divine timing, in God’s provision, and in your worth apart from productivity softens the edges of performance and invites peace into the process.

Herbal Ritual as a Reentry Point to the Body

This is where herbal tea can become more than hydration. It can become a ritual of reconnection.

Here’s why:

• The act of steeping slows your tempo

• The aroma activates parasympathetic tone

• The temperature grounds you in sensation

• The bitter, sweet, or floral tastes engage emotional memory

Herbal tea becomes a somatic cue—a way back into your body through gentleness, warmth, and repetition.

Try this:

• Pick one blend that supports your current state (calming, energizing, digestive)

• Sip it in silence, barefoot, with both hands around the mug

• Say a short prayer or Scripture: “Be still and know,” or “This sip is for surrender.”

Reclaiming the Feminine Intelligence of the Body

The body has its own tempo. It speaks in seasons, not spreadsheets. It doesn’t always respond to linear logic or quantified input. To heal as a woman, you often have to slow down long enough to remember you’re not broken—you’re just disoriented.

Embodiment isn’t mystical. It’s:

• Crying when you need to cry

• Saying no when your gut recoils

• Sleeping when your bones ache

• Laughing from the belly again

And often, it’s realizing that your body was never meant to carry it all alone. God made the body as a temple—and He invites us to honor it with grace, not just discipline.

Signs You’re Re-Entering Embodiment

• You no longer need perfection to feel progress

• You eat what nourishes you, not what “should”

• You listen to your fatigue without guilt

• You stop explaining your boundaries

• You feel joy before achieving something

This is what it means to feel well—not just to function, but to inhabit yourself.

Final Word: Healing Happens When You Stop Outsourcing Your Body

You are not a project. You are not a protocol. You are not failing because you’re still tired.

You are remembering. Healing is not something you earn by doing everything right. It’s something you experience when you come home to your own body. And when you walk with faith that your body is fearfully and wonderfully made, you stop trying to fix it—and start learning how to steward it.

Move slowly. Breathe fully. Listen inward. Let your rituals become prayers, and your body a sanctuary—because healing begins where God already dwells: within you.