Fear in the Body

Fear in the Body: How Craniosacral Therapy Helps Unravel Somatic Holding Patterns

Fear Is Not a Flaw - It’s a Message

Fear is a natural part of being human. It’s not a weakness or a failing - it’s our body’s way of looking out for us. At its core, fear is protective. It sharpens awareness, prepares us to act, and alerts us to potential danger. But when that fear becomes chronic or gets locked into the tissues, it stops protecting and starts limiting.

Often, we try to rationalise fear - to think our way out of it. But some fears don’t come with a clear story. They show up in the body: a clenched jaw, shallow breath, tight shoulders, a racing heart. They may have roots in trauma, early attachment disruptions, or simply in the body’s accumulation of stress over time.

This is where Craniosacral Therapy (CST) offers something profound - a way to meet fear not with force, but with presence. Not with analysis, but with attunement.

The Neurobiology of Fear: A Survival System Stuck On

Fear is rooted in our nervous system’s oldest survival strategies. When the brain senses threat, the amygdala sends a signal to the hypothalamus, which activates the HPA axis - the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal loop. Cortisol and adrenaline flood the system. Muscles tense, breath quickens, heart rate spikes. We enter fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

These responses are vital in emergencies. But if the body doesn’t complete the stress cycle - or if fear becomes a constant background hum - the system gets stuck in high alert. This is especially true after trauma or early experiences where fear had nowhere to go.

Over time, this unresolved fear becomes physiological. We hold it in our fascia, our breath, our gut. It becomes the lens through which we perceive the world - even when there’s no longer a threat.

How Fear Shows Up in the Body

In my craniosacral practice, I often see fear surface in subtle, embodied ways. Clients avoid eye contact or speak in a tight, careful tone. They hold their breath or sit with arms wrapped tightly around their body. I feel a hum in the tissues - a kind of internal bracing, as if the body is saying, “Something might happen. I’m not safe yet.”

Sometimes, fear shows up as dissociation - a flatness or numbness, the sense of being “not quite here.” The nervous system has gone beyond activation and into shutdown. Other times, it’s more active - fidgeting, tension in the jaw or belly, a restlessness just beneath the surface.

Fear can also appear at unexpected moments - right when something is about to shift. Many people feel most anxious just as they’re nearing something important: a boundary, a decision, a truth. It’s as if the fear flares up to protect them from change.

Fear Without a Story: How Early Experience Shapes Somatic Memory

Not all fear comes with a narrative. Some of the deepest fear I encounter in clients - and in myself - has no clear origin. It simply shows up in the body: a tightening, a resistance, a sense of dread that seems out of proportion to the moment. This kind of fear is often preverbal, stored in the implicit memory of the body.

These patterns can take root during birth, in early infancy, or even in utero. The nervous system is exquisitely attuned during these stages - and it’s learning fast. If an experience feels overwhelming or unsafe and there’s no way to process it at the time, the body stores that signal. It might be decades before the conditions are right for it to be met and integrated.

Craniosacral Therapy is one of the few modalities I know that can meet these silent layers of experience - not with explanation, but with presence. And when we bring care to what was once held alone, something very old begins to soften.

When Fear Was Wise: Understanding the Protective Patterns in the Body

One of the most powerful reframes we can offer ourselves is this: fear isn’t here to harm you - it’s here to protect you.

What we often call anxiety, shutdown, or overreaction is the body’s way of saying, “Something once felt dangerous, and I’m making sure it doesn’t happen again.” These responses may be outdated, but they were once brilliant adaptations. They helped us survive. The body doesn’t cling to fear out of weakness. It does so out of care.

When we start to see our protective patterns in this light, something shifts. We stop trying to override or shame them into submission. Instead, we bring curiosity. We ask: What was this response trying to protect me from? What does it need now to feel safe?

That shift - from self-judgment to self-respect - is often the beginning of profound change.

Slow is Safe: Building Trust with the Nervous System Over Time

Working with fear isn’t about quick release. It’s about building the kind of safety that allows the system to gradually let go. This takes time - and that’s okay. The nervous system doesn’t respond to pressure. It responds to attunement.

In my practice, this often begins before a hand is even placed. It’s in how I greet a client, how slowly we move into contact, how much space there is to pause, renegotiate, or rest. When someone has spent years overriding their body’s cues, the simple act of having choice - over pace, touch, positioning - is reparative.

For those who have never felt met in their vulnerability, this relational safety is foundational. The body begins to learn: This is different. I can soften here. I am not alone.

There’s no rush. In fact, slow is what makes the work sustainable. The nervous system, like the seasons, knows how to unfold - if we give it the time and the right conditions.

A Personal Story: Getting Closer to the Source

In my own journey, fear showed up long before I understood it. As a child and young adult, I’d sometimes become irrationally anxious in crowded spaces - trains, busy rooms, public events. At the time, it felt inexplicable. But during my Craniosacral Therapy training, as I began to come into relationship with early preverbal trauma, the fear surfaced more strongly. I became more hypervigilant - more anxious - as I got closer to the source of it.

There was a moment during a session when I finally dropped into the root of that discomfort. I felt an immense wave of fear begin to rise. But alongside it, I sensed something else - something larger than the fear. A quiet knowing that I could move through it. That I wouldn’t be undone by feeling it fully. And I wasn’t.

What followed was a deep release - some tears, a spaciousness in my chest, a loosening that was physical and emotional. I realised then that fear isn’t something to override. It’s a signal. A threshold. A place where something important is happening. And if we meet it with care, we can pass through it - into greater freedom, into deeper knowing.

What Begins to Shift When Fear Is Met

When fear is met - not resisted, not analysed, but simply met with calm attention - it begins to shift. I’ve seen this happen again and again in practice:

• Breath deepens

• Posture opens

• Tears come - sometimes sadness, sometimes relief

• A smile appears - soft, surprised

• Clients speak more slowly, more from their centre

• They report feeling “more in their body,” “lighter,” “less afraid of the fear itself”

What changes isn’t just the fear - it’s the relationship to fear. Clients begin to see it not as something shameful or overwhelming, but as a message from a younger, more protective part of themselves. And once that part feels heard, it doesn’t have to shout so loudly anymore.

Reframing Fear: From Barrier to Threshold

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this work - both as a practitioner and in my own healing - it’s that fear often intensifies just before we cross into something important.

Fear doesn’t always mean stop. Sometimes, it means here is a growth edge. Something important is close. And you get to choose how to meet it.

Craniosacral Therapy helps you make that choice not from panic, but from presence. It supports the body in finding a new relationship to fear - not as something to override, but something to listen to.

Because fear is not the end of the story. Often, it’s the doorway into it.