How to Release Self-Contempt and Find Freedom
Recently I had to have an echocardiogram of my heart. I wasn’t worried about it going in, but then I ended up with my shirt off in front of a male technician. I can now handle most situations, but on this day a particular aspect of this exam triggered a body memory of the sexual abuse I’d endured in marriage. The tech did nothing wrong or inappropriate, but my body told me, This feels familiar, and it’s not good.
I started to shake uncontrollably, and my mind filled with images I’d much rather forget. As I sat in my truck afterward, trying to put the pieces back together, I lamented that my body still holds so much. Despite excellent therapy and a great deal of healing, now and again something most definitely surprises me.
I immediately went to self-loathing. How could I be feeling this way? How could this still sneak up on me? This time it took support from my therapist to help me unwind and regain equilibrium after this bout with self-contempt.
My clients experience this too. Often, I hear stories about a flashback or body memory that snuck up and derailed what was otherwise a good day.
What does “holding ourselves in contempt” mean and how does it mess with our embodiment? Contempt means “to despise.” It’s seeing ourselves with hatred. Drs. John and Julie Gottman refer to contempt as sulfuric acid to a relationship.1 It is the one thing that will ruin a relationship faster than anything else—and it is always abusive. If we direct contempt at ourselves, how can we possibly be in a healthy relationship with self? How can we be connected to our bodies?
We can’t. We cannot be fully embodied when we hold ourselves in contempt.
I think Satan likes to use self-contempt because it keeps us so stuck. It’s a battle I fight with and for my clients. I don’t think I’ve sat across from a survivor of abuse who didn’t struggle with contempt.
Vanquishing self-contempt is hard but very worth it. Once we’re free from it, we gain a whole different relationship with our self and our bodies. We experience ourselves—and the goodness God put inside us—differently, and I have found that this is key to healing.
Take Sarah, for example. “How did you feel biking down the Virginia Creeper?” I asked her one day. The Virginia Creeper Trail is a scenic, thirty-five-mile former railbed that cuts through the Virginia and North Carolina mountains.
Sarah looked at me and smiled. “Free. I didn’t have a care in the world. My body felt good. My mind felt good. I didn’t hate myself for those hours rolling down that mountain. I couldn’t believe what my body and I could do.”
My client’s smile looked like a ray of sunshine. She truly felt different. For the first time, she had experienced herself without contempt and hatred. The lies that often swirled in her head about her worth, value, and ability had been quieted by a bike trip down a mountain. Her body and mind worked together in concert. She was fully embodied—and it was a beautiful sight to behold.
You may not be able to hurtle down a mountain on a bike, but my guess is there are things you can do to help you feel embodied; in other words, to feel connected to your body rather than disconnected from her as if she were your enemy. I love this definition of being embodied: “It means that connecting to the sensual side of living through touch, movement, and sensation can help you strengthen the mind-body bond. In turn, you can become more engaged, present, and an active participant in your life.”2
Did you catch the word sensual in that definition? Being embodied is being fully connected to yourself and the world around you. Even as we begin to accept that our very good bodies are functioning as intended, we may struggle to accept healthy touch—either from ourselves or others. Maybe we eschew it completely or maybe we seek it out in unhealthy places.
As we come back into our bodies, we can notice how they respond in various situations, including those involving touch. We also have more control over what we allow or don’t allow when we’ve befriended our physical selves and no longer see them as our enemies. This is part of God bringing beauty from ashes.
Embodied Movement
If you’re like me and most of my clients, learning to become embodied requires some practical steps. Trauma survivors—especially those who have experienced sexual trauma—can struggle terribly with being embodied. Here are a few exercises that can help you get started. As with any exercise, do what feels good to you. This is an invitation to your body to something potentially new. New things can be tough sometimes, and that’s okay. These are just meant to help you connect to your body. If you’re struggling, getting some support from a therapist or a group that practices being embodied could be really helpful.
In this first exercise, you simply want to begin feeling comfortable moving your body. Feel free to start small, just one or two minutes. It can be any type of movement that feels good to your body—stretching, walking, etc. Be creative. I often walk because my body can tolerate it. Keep your mind gently focused on the act of movement and how it feels to your body. If your mind wanders, gently and without judgment bring it back. The “without judgment” part is super important here. As we already talked about, we can line up with contempt and evil if we’re not careful, but taking a nonjudgmental and curious perspective prevents us from aligning with the enemy.
This exercise can be triggering if you aren’t used to being in your body. You don’t have to be afraid of triggers, though they are decidedly no fun at all. Mindful movement will help you just be present with and in your body. Your actual physical body and your felt sense of your body can match up, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
Checking In
Learning how to connect to our bodies again—or maybe even connect for the first time—is a learned skill.
Sit or lie in a comfortable position. Take a few moments to slow your breath, breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth. Try to let your exhale breath be longer than your inhale. Then check in with yourself and ask, “How is my body doing today?” Just notice, without judgment, whatever comes up. Allow your awareness to mingle with curiosity. Then, ask yourself, “What sensations am I aware of in this moment?” If you’re able to continue in curiosity, consider what your body might be trying to say through those sensations. Afterward, consider briefly journaling your experience.
Important note: As I mentioned earlier, if you’re just learning to notice and check in with your body, you may have sensations or memories come up you aren’t expecting or that are emotionally activating. If that happens for you, you can either surf the experience—meaning noticing it without judgement until it passes—or you can transition to a more grounding exercise and table those memories or sensations until you can connect with your therapist about them. It’s not unusual for our bodies to get really excited and do a lot of talking when we start listening to them!
1 Ellie Lisitsa, “The Four Horsemen: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling,” Gottman Relationship Blog, Gottman Institute, accessed May 31, 2024, https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-recognizing-criticism-contempt-defensiveness-and-stonewalling/; Ellie Lisitsa, “The Trouble with Contempt,” The Gottman Institute, accessed July 31, 2024, https://www.gottman.com/blog/self-care-contempt/.
2 Karen Sosnoski, “Present Tense: 9 Ways to Get Out of Your Head and Live an Embodied Life,” Healthline, October 25, 2021, https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/live-an-embodied-life#What-is-conscious-embodiment?
Adapted from Body & Soul, Healed & Whole: An Invitational Guide to Healthy Sexuality after Trauma, Abuse, and Coercive Control by Tabitha Westbrook, LFMT, LCMHC, LPC. Copyright ©2025. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.
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