Before Clients Can Let Go, They Need Help Turning Toward

When you help a client “turn toward,” you actually help them change their neural pathways.

Therapists often meet a new client at the very moment they are trying to let go of some very difficult feelings. They want the anger to stop, the grief to lift, the fear to quiet down, or the same old pattern to finally release. By the time they arrive in a session, they may have already tried to think their way through it, reframe it, journal about it, distract themselves from it, make meaning of it, or convince themselves they should be over it by now. They want to move on without being pulled back into the same emotional loop again and again. They want to find a way to just “let it go.”

But we know that release is not the first step. Sometimes what looks like holding on is actually an emotion asking to be met, understood, and processed before it can move. Real change requires staying with what is happening long enough for the body to process it. The goal is to help the client listen to what the emotion is signaling before moving too quickly past it.

When “let it go” comes too soon, even with good intentions, it can become another form of avoidance. The client may leave with language that sounds resolved, while the emotional charge remains active underneath. This is one of the reasons clients can understand something intellectually and still return to the same pattern somatically, relationally, or behaviorally. The mind may have made meaning, but the body has not yet had a new experience.

Research on grief and the body supports what many therapists already see in practice: emotional pain is not only cognitive or psychological. Studies have linked bereavement and emotion regulation during grief with changes in inflammation and immune functioning (Cohen et al., 2015; Lopez et al., 2020). A broader review also found that emotion regulation and inflammation are connected, with poorer regulation generally associated with higher inflammation and stronger regulation skills associated with lower inflammation (Moriarity et al., 2023). These studies reinforce the clinical point that emotional experience is embodied. When clients are encouraged to “just let it go,” they may be trying to move on cognitively from something their body has not yet processed.

This is where somatic work becomes so important. The body often knows when a client is trying to move past something too quickly. Their words may say, “I’m fine,” or “It’s not a big deal,” while their jaw is clenched, their breath is shallow, or their system is already bracing, flooding, or going numb. Discomfort often needs to be met before it can be released, and emotions may need attention, space, and bodily awareness before they can shift. With the right somatic tools, therapists can help clients orient to safety, notice what is happening in the body, and stay with the experience in a supported, manageable way so the body has space to process what is being held.

This is different from helping a client calm down or appear more comfortable. Emotional regulation is not emotional control. It is the process of helping the nervous system build enough capacity to stay present without becoming overwhelmed or disconnected. That capacity is what makes real processing possible. Over time, the client is no longer only talking about what happened. They are learning how to stay with what happens inside them now.

This is also why turning toward is not about asking clients to relive their trauma or stay stuck in pain. From an interpersonal neurobiology perspective, when a client can revisit what has been held in the body while also experiencing safety, attunement, regulation, and present-moment support, the brain and nervous system are given new information. The traumatic memory is not being repeated in the same context; it is being met in a new one. Over time, that new context can help change the way the body remembers and responds. In this way, turning toward becomes part of the rewiring process. The client is not simply remembering what happened. They are having a different embodied experience with what has been held, which is what allows new neural pathways to begin forming.

This also helps explain why spiritual bypassing, positivity, and premature reframing often do not create lasting change. They may offer temporary relief, but they can also teach the client to leave the body before the body has finished communicating. The result is often familiar to therapists: the same issues return in a different form. The client thought they had moved on, but the unresolved emotional charge shows up again through anxiety, resentment, shutdown, over-functioning, avoidance, conflict, or the same relationship pattern repeating itself. What has not been met and processed does not simply disappear. Sometimes it comes back as the next symptom, the next rupture, the next stuck place, or the next moment when the client cannot understand why they are reacting so strongly.

Turning toward is not the opposite of release. It is a pathway to it. The goal is still helping clients move toward more freedom and become less organized around old wounds, defenses, and protective patterns. For therapists, the question becomes how to support that process in real time, without rushing the client, overwhelming the system, or staying only in cognitive insight.

This is where the Embodiyou Method offers a practical bridge between insight and embodied change. Rather than moving clients away from their thoughts or into the body as a separate intervention, the method helps therapists recognize how emotional patterns are showing up through the body in real time, and use that information to support the client’s nervous system in a new way. A client may understand the story, but the body still needs a pathway for the emotional charge to move. That pathway often begins with regulation, safety, attention, and enough support for the client to experience something different from inside the pattern. When therapists can work with what is still held in the body, not just what the client can explain cognitively, release becomes less forced, less bypassed, and more real.

This is the work we will explore in our upcoming free workshop, Emotional Regulation 101: A Somatic Approach, where therapists will learn practical, body-based tools to help clients regulate in the moment, between sessions, and over time.

Because regulation is not just about calming clients down. It is about helping them build the capacity to feel, process, and move toward lasting change.

Register for the free workshop here.