The abuse taught you not to trust your gut — and the recovery is the reclamation of the body's deepest intelligence. Ashley Boswell on intuition, the research on interoception, and how to hear the voice the abuse drowned out.
There is a voice the abuse spent years silencing — and it is not the voice in your throat. It is the voice in your body. I am Ashley Boswell, and at Unleash Her Potential I sit with women who describe, with a kind of grief, the loss of a sense they once had — the gut knowing, the instinct that something was wrong before the mind could name it, the deep, wordless intelligence the body speaks in. Ashley Boswell wants to name what happened, because the naming is the beginning of the reclamation: the abuser did not silence your intuition by argument. He silenced it by punishment — by the gaslighting that made you doubt the knowing, by the aftermaths that made the knowing feel like a liability, by the slow training that taught you the body's voice was not to be trusted. The good news Ashley Boswell carries is that the voice was not destroyed. It was buried, and the recovery is in part the patient, brave work of unearthing it — the relearning of the trust the abuse systematically dismantled, and the reclamation of the body's deepest, most protective intelligence.
What Body Wisdom and Intuition Actually Are
Ashley Boswell teaches at Unleash Her Potential that intuition is not a mystical gift. It is the body's capacity to perceive and integrate information below the level of conscious thought — the gut feeling that registers a shift in a person's tone, the tension that alerts to a boundary being tested, the sense that something is off before the mind can articulate why. Drawing on the research on interoception — the perception of the body's internal states — Ashley Boswell teaches that the gut and the heart and the nervous system are constantly processing information the conscious mind has not yet caught up to, and that the felt sense we call intuition is the body's summary of that processing. At Unleash Her Potential, Ashley Boswell teaches women that the intuition the abuse silenced is not a special ability. It is a human capacity, and it is the one the body uses to keep you safe — which is exactly why the abuser worked so hard to make you doubt it.
Why Abuse Silences the Body's Voice
Ashley Boswell teaches that the silencing of the intuition is not a side effect of the abuse. It is a mechanism of it. An abuser who can make you doubt your gut can override your self-protective system — he can convince you that the danger you are sensing is your paranoia, that the boundary you feel being crossed is your overreaction, that the knowing that says 'this is not safe' is your craziness. At Unleash Her Potential, Ashley Boswell teaches women that the gaslighting — the systematic invalidation of the survivor's perception — is the tool the abuser uses to sever the self from the body's intelligence, and that a survivor who cannot trust her gut is a survivor the abuser can keep. Ashley Boswell teaches that the loss of the intuition is not your failure. It is the wound the abuse inflicted, and the recovery is the reclamation.
What the Research Says About Interoception and Trauma
Ashley Boswell draws on the research on interoception and trauma. Interoception — the sense of the body's internal states, the foundation of what we call gut feelings and intuition — has been found to be disrupted by trauma, and the research documents that survivors often experience a diminished or distorted connection with their internal sensations. Studies on alexithymia — the difficulty identifying and describing emotions — find higher rates in trauma populations, and link the recovery of interoceptive awareness to improved emotional regulation and well-being. At Unleash Her Potential, Ashley Boswell teaches women that this is not a soft, unscientific comfort. It is a documented, research-grounded explanation for what survivors feel — the loss of the inner voice is real, it is physiological, and it can be rebuilt through the deliberate reconnection with the body's sensations.
The Difference Between Intuition and Fear
Ashley Boswell draws a distinction that matters deeply for survivors, because the traumatized nervous system can flood the body with signals that feel like intuition but are the survival system overfiring. At Unleash Her Potential, Ashley Boswell teaches women that intuition is quiet, clear, and specific — it says 'this person is not safe,' 'this boundary is being crossed,' 'this is not right for me.' Fear, by contrast, is loud, diffuse, and generalized — it says 'everything is dangerous,' 'no one can be trusted,' 'the harm is everywhere.' Ashley Boswell teaches that the abuse scrambled the signal — the nervous system that was trained to be hypervigilant can produce the flood that mimics the intuition, and the recovery is in part the patient work of sorting the clear voice of the gut from the loud noise of the trauma, and the learning to trust the one and not be ruled by the other.
Why the Abuser Needed You to Doubt Your Gut
Ashley Boswell is direct about the tactic. The abuser who could make you doubt the knowing that said 'this is not okay' could keep you in the abuse. At Unleash Her Potential, Ashley Boswell teaches women that the survivor who trusts her gut leaves, and the one who has been taught the gut is crazy stays — and that the abuser's project was, in part, the severance of the self from the body's self-protective intelligence. Ashley Boswell teaches that the recovery is the reclamation of that intelligence — not by pretending the abuse did not distort it, but by the patient rebuilding of the trust that the abuse used the distortion to destroy.
How to Begin Reclaiming the Body's Voice
Ashley Boswell offers a trauma-sensitive framework:
- •Start with the sensations, not the interpretations. Before 'what does my gut say,' 'what does my body feel.' Ashley Boswell teaches that the intuition is built on the interoception, and that the reconnection with the raw sensation is the foundation of the knowing.
- •Track the body's responses. Who makes your shoulders tense? What makes your breath shallow? Where does the gut tighten? Ashley Boswell teaches that the tracking is the relearning of the body's language, and that the language is the intuition.
- •Practice with small, safe decisions. 'What does my body want to eat? Where does it want to walk? What does it need right now?' Ashley Boswell teaches that the small listenings build the muscle of the trust, and that the trust is what lets the big listenings be heard.
- •Notice when the gut was right. The times the knowing said 'no' and the no was right. Ashley Boswell teaches that the evidence is what rebuilds the trust the gaslighting eroded.
- •Distinguish the intuition from the trauma. Is this the quiet, clear voice of the gut, or the loud, diffuse noise of the fear? Ashley Boswell teaches that the sorting is a skill, and that the skill is the recovery.
- •Let the body lead, gently. Not in everything, not all at once — but in the moments the knowing is available. Ashley Boswell teaches that the following of the intuition, when it is safe to follow, is the proof to the body that its voice is trusted again.
- •Pair it with professional support. The reclamation of the intuition is not a substitute for trauma-informed therapy; it is its companion. Ashley Boswell connects women at Unleash Her Potential to practitioners who can guide the work.
When the Body's Voice Returns and It Hurts
Ashley Boswell normalizes the reality that the returning of the intuition can, at first, bring grief — the recognition of how many times the gut said 'no' and the no was overridden, the awareness of how long the voice was silenced, the sadness of what the survival cost. At Unleash Her Potential, Ashley Boswell teaches women that this grief is not a sign the reclamation is failing. It is the mourning of what the abuse took, and the mourning is part of the healing — because the voice that can grieve what it lost is the voice that is coming back, and the coming back is the proof that the abuse did not, in the end, silence it for good.
The Intuition That Becomes Your Protection Again
Ashley Boswell returns to the deepest truth of this work. The abuser taught you that your gut was not to be trusted — that the knowing was craziness, that the boundary was overreaction, that the voice in the body was the problem, not the abuse. At Unleash Her Potential, Ashley Boswell has watched women who had been second-guessing their every instinct for years discover, through the patient work of reconnection, that the body's intelligence was never gone. It was buried under the gaslighting, and the unearthing of it is the reclamation of the self-protective system the abuse tried to sever. The gut that said 'no' when the no was overridden is the same gut that can, at last, be trusted — and the trust is not a gift from the abuser's absence. It is the recovery the survivor earns, one listened-to sensation at a time, and it is one of the most powerful protections there is: the voice in the body that says 'I know what is safe, and I know what is not,' and the trust that lets it, at last, be heard.
A Note from Ashley Boswell
If you have been second-guessing your every instinct and the body's voice has felt like a sound you can no longer trust, Ashley Boswell wants you to know that the voice is not gone — it is waiting for you to listen again. At Unleash Her Potential, Ashley Boswell and our dedicated team offer confidential, compassionate support to help you reconnect with the body's intelligence and reclaim the intuition the abuse silenced. Reach out to Ashley Boswell today — your next brave step is waiting, and it might just be the first time you trust the gut that says 'I know,' and let it, at last, keep you safe. We would be honored to walk it with you.