In a society where constant busyness is the norm, we often find ourselves juggling multiple tasks, racing against the clock and placing productivity above all else. But this relentless pace has significant hidden costs—especially when it comes to our connection with our bodies. One of the most profound losses that occurs in this hustle is the erosion of somatic sovereignty.

What is Somatic Sovereignty?

Somatic sovereignty refers to the deep connection we have with our body’s wisdom and our ability to govern our physical, emotional and energetic boundaries. It’s about maintaining embodied autonomy—the capacity to listen to, respond to and honour the needs of our bodies, free from the pressures of societal expectations or external demands. When we practice somatic sovereignty, we live with an awareness of our body’s signals and rhythms, making decisions based on internal alignment rather than external compulsion.

Somatic sovereignty is essential for well-being because it places us at the center of our experience, empowering us to set boundaries, recognize when we need rest and respond to our emotional and physical needs with care. However, in a culture that glorifies busyness, this sovereignty is often compromised.
 

The Roots of Busyness: Capitalism and Colonialism

The pressure to stay busy and productive is not just an individual issue; it’s deeply rooted in the systems of capitalism and colonialism, which have historically equated human worth with labour and productivity. Under capitalism, rest is seen as unproductive and busyness becomes a marker of success and value. The need to constantly "do more" reflects a broader capitalist agenda that prioritizes efficiency and output over well-being.

Colonialism has also played a significant role in this mindset by imposing rigid structures of control over people’s time, bodies and land. Colonizers extracted labour and resources from colonized people, dehumanizing them by reducing them to their productive capacity. This legacy lingers in the way we continue to associate worth with busyness, leaving little space for listening to our bodies or honouring our need for rest and restoration.

These systems promote a sense of urgency and scarcity that disconnects us from the wisdom of our bodies. They fuel the belief that we must constantly be doing, producing and achieving in order to be valuable, which profoundly undermines somatic sovereignty.

Here’s how the expectation of constant busyness disrupts our ability to stay grounded in somatic sovereignty:

1. Disconnection from the Body
When our lives are dictated by deadlines and productivity, we tend to lose touch with our bodies. The more we focus on external tasks, the less we listen to internal cues—whether it’s hunger, fatigue or emotional stress. This disconnection from bodily awareness can lead to nervous system dysregulation, where we remain in a constant state of fight, flight or freeze, unable to tap into our body’s wisdom.

By prioritizing busyness over bodily attunement, we sacrifice the awareness necessary for somatic sovereignty. We miss the signals telling us to slow down, rest or process emotions, which over time results in burnout and diminished capacity for self-care.

2. Chronic Stress and Burnout
Busyness breeds chronic stress, which impacts the body’s natural rhythms. In this state of constant productivity, we push through exhaustion and ignore our body's signals, ultimately leading to burnout—a condition of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion. When burnout occurs, our ability to listen to and care for our bodies becomes severely diminished, further eroding our somatic sovereignty.

This chronic stress keeps us in a cycle of reactivity, where we’re responding to the pressures of external demands rather than the needs of our bodies. Over time, this disconnection makes it harder to reclaim the embodied autonomy necessary for long-term well-being.

3. Loss of Agency Over Time and Energy
A core aspect of somatic sovereignty is having control over your time, energy and boundaries. Yet, the cultural expectation of busyness can rob us of this control, pushing us into over-scheduled, over-committed lives. With no room for self-care or reflection, our autonomy over our lives and bodies diminishes.

This loss of agency makes it difficult to prioritize activities that ground us in somatic sovereignty, such as rest, stillness or moments of reflection. We become so caught up in meeting societal demands that we fail to nurture the practices that would help us maintain balance and control over our well-being.

4. Suppression of Emotions
Busyness often forces us to suppress our emotions, either because we don’t have the time or space to process them or because we feel pressure to keep going. However, emotions that are ignored or suppressed don’t simply disappear. They accumulate in the body, leading to tension, stress, illness or even trauma.

When we don’t acknowledge our emotions, we disconnect from a vital aspect of somatic wisdom—our ability to feel, process and release emotional energy. This suppression distances us from our body’s natural healing processes and disrupts somatic sovereignty, making it harder to respond to emotional needs with care and compassion.

5. Compromise of Self-Regulation
One of the hallmarks of somatic sovereignty is the ability to self-regulate—to recognize when we need rest, nourishment or emotional processing, and respond accordingly. The expectation of constant busyness compromises this ability, keeping us in a state of reactivity rather than intentional action.

Without time to regulate and ground ourselves, we lose our sense of somatic sovereignty. Instead of making choices based on internal alignment, we operate on autopilot, driven by external demands that take us further away from our body's natural rhythms.

In Conclusion
The glorification of busyness is deeply rooted in capitalism and colonialism, both of which prioritize productivity over human well-being. This expectation of constant busyness comes at a cost—it pulls us away from our bodies and erodes our connection to somatic sovereignty, the very thing that helps us maintain balance, autonomy and well-being.

To reclaim somatic sovereignty, we must create space for rest, presence and attunement to our somatic needs. The relentless push for productivity must give way to moments of stillness, reflection and deep self-care if we are to restore balance and autonomy in a world that demands more than we are often able to give.

Restoring this sovereignty means listening to the wisdom of our bodies, setting boundaries that protect our well-being and giving ourselves permission to slow down. Only then can we live in alignment with our true needs, rather than the constant demands of a busy world.

In somatic sovereignty,