JoeyJoelle

A.k.a. How I Keep Joey From Spiraling Off This Earth

You ever feel that? Like your spirit is calm, your mind is trying to stay positive, but your body is over there acting like you’re about to give your first high‑school speech again— shallow breaths kicking in, tight knots in the belly, your body basically yelling: “Ma’am, we are not okay”?

When the anxiety takes its toll, this tends to happen to me sometimes. Heart racing for no reason. Shoulders sitting up by my ears like earrings. Thoughts sprinting like Usain Bolt. And no matter how many times I tell myself to “just chill,” my body said, “Bitch how?!”

So I had to learn a different language—the language of release. Not the cute stuff. Not the aesthetic stuff. The real “my body is about to betray me if I don’t calm the fuck down” kind of regulation. And look, you know I’m a meditation and journaling girly…but sometimes even that don’t help with the kind of tension my body is holding. Sometimes my system just needs a different kind of release.

Let me walk you through the things I do when my body is screaming, and I need her to be the embodiment of peace again.

1. EFT Tapping: My little pressure-point therapy session

I stumbled across this little gem on TikTok. Little did I know how effective tapping would be! The way those nerve points hold stress? Wild. You don’t even realize how much tension you’ve been storing until you start tapping on your chest, your cheekbones, your collarbone… and suddenly your body’s like, “Final-fucking-ly!”

I swear, the moment I start tapping I sigh and I yawn like I’ve been up since 2011, and sometimes a random tear just drops.

That’s your body finally exhaling. That’s the stress unclamping from your nervous system. That’s your spirit saying thank you.

2. Excessive Shaking: Not cute, not dainty, but very necessary

I’m not talking about the cute little tremble influencers do on social media. No.
I mean shaking like a wet dog that just came out the ocean, shaking until your body remembers it’s allowed to let go.

I shake my whole body: arms, shoulders, legs, hips, neck. Sometimes it looks like a dutty wine colliding with an Ethiopian head-wine ceremony.

And you know what? That’s the point.

Trauma, stress, disappointment—your body stores all of it. Shaking forces your nervous system to unclench, to release the tightness you didn’t even know you were holding. Afterward, I feel loose. Present. Back in my body again.

3. Voo-ing: The sound that resets my whole system

If you’ve been here for a while, you already know: I like to Voo. It’s literally just making the sound “Voooooo” from deep in your belly. But the vibration? Whew. It’s like your whole body finally gets that deep exhale it’s been begging for.

That low hum travels through your chest, your core, your spine, and suddenly the internal chaos calms down. Your breath deepens. Your thoughts slow. Your body stops bracing for imaginary danger. That’s the power of vibration: it tells your system, “We’re safe now.”

Why I Keep Coming Back to These Practices

These practices help me come home to myself, every single time.

So, which of these unaesthetic methods will you be trying next time you feel deregulated?