What Puberty Was Supposed to Do for Sensitive People

There was a moment somewhere between eleven and fourteen when your body made a quiet decision. Nobody named it. Nobody held a container for it. And your nervous system has been running that improvised strategy ever since.

In this episode, I'm walking you through what the puberty initiation was actually designed to do for sensitive people, what most of us received instead, and why the body keeps the record of all of it in very specific, very real places. I also get personal here because my daughter is moving through this threshold right now, and it's bringing up a lot for my own inner child. This one is for both of us.

We also look at how this imprint shows up differently depending on your Cosmic Sensitive Type, whether you're a SOLA, BARO, EMPA, or LUNA, and what it looks like to finally start mapping the pattern instead of fighting the symptoms.

In this Episode: 

00:00 The quiet decision your body made at puberty and why it's still running the show

01:55 What an uninitiated transition actually costs a sensitive nervous system

04:50 Where the body stores the pattern: upper back, jaw, neck, gut

08:00 Sola, Baro, Empa, Luna: how the puberty imprint shows up by Cosmic Sensitive Type

11:00 What naming your type actually does and why it's the first step in repatterning

13:00 June's cosmic timing and the Tlish Diyan (Apache) map for this threshold

15:29 How to find your pattern and the next step: BodyScan and the Cosmic Sensitive Circle

Links mentioned:

🪐 Take the Cosmic Sensitive Quiz to learn your Cosmic Sensitive type: https://cosmicsensitivequiz.com
🩺 Book a Body Scan to understand your internal map: https://bodywhisperhealing.com/services
🌙 Join the Cosmic Sensitive Circle for ongoing support in understanding inputs that impact sensitive people: https://bodywhisperhealing.com/services
✨ Learn more about the Release Retreat in Colorado this July: https://bodywhisperhealing.com/retreats/the-release-retreat

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Website: Body Whisper Healing
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LinkedIn: Amanda (Ritchie) Smith

Take the Cosmic Sensitive Quiz to find out what stresses you out most and why. It's fun, it's free, and it's only 7 easy questions. https://www.cosmicsensitivequiz.com/

Transcript

0:01

Something few people in the Western world understand happened to you at puberty. Not necessarily anything dramatic, but something quiet shifted. A recalibration your body made without anyone naming it, without anyone holding a container for it. If you're a sensitive person, there's a good chance you remember the moment the world got louder. The social stakes went up. The emotional weather of every room became something you could feel before you walked into it. And if no one around you had language for that, if no elder, no teacher or no parents said, this is what you are, here's how to work with it. Then your body did what any intelligence system does under pressure. It adapted. it improvised and it's been running that improvised strategy ever since. That's what this episode is about today. I'm Amanda Smith and this is the Cosmic Body Shenanigans podcast where we are diving in to your nervous system as a sensitive body. My goal is to help you better understand what's going on like I'm your big sister. sometimes hard truths, sometimes gentle nudges. That's what I'm here for. So let's dive into this one because my daughter has hit this point in her life. And I remember this point when I was little. So this one's for my inner child too. And hopefully it's for your inner child. The Western world seemed to have skipped this part in the last couple hundred years where puberty is an initiation. But my Apache Shema Maria definitely made it clear that this was an initiation that needs to happen. And I'm now in discussions with my daughter around creating this initiation for her. And she keeps asking, why? Why do I need to do this? And of course that's coming from a place of, ooh, this is something I've never done before, but also from a place of curiosity. this episode's for her. And like I said, for my inner child, the one that didn't get this, but has gone through several puberty initiations since with Mellissa Seaman, as well as now Maria. Maria's Apache, specifically Tlish Diyan and for this people, for the indigenous, puberty isn't just a biological event. Puberty is a witnessing at a threshold. community gathers, elders hold a container, the young person is seen, named, and initiated into the circle. The message is unmistakable. You're changing, we see you, and here is who you're becoming in our community. For sensitive people, this is a game changer. Instead of puberty arriving and there becomes performance pressure and social sorting and a steep learning curve and how to be acceptable. Sensitive kids? Yeah. The ones who felt everything, who read the room, who cried when others didn't notice. They often received the opposite witnessing. They received correction. Don't be so sensitive. You're too emotional. You need to toughen up. The initiation was supposed to name and support the gift. become the gift. But that went underground and nobody took. that little one under their wing and said, we see you. But her body took note. His body took note. Here's where this situation gets somatic. The body takes note. The sensitive person, especially the ones that I work with, often have this huge aha moment and it's the first time that they have real recognition. I remember sitting in this moment with Mellissa in a uh circle of women and going, oh, that, that feels so much different in my body. And that's what I wanna share with you. The nervous system stores adaptive strategies. When a sensitive child decides consciously or unconsciously to manage their emotional expression, to hold themselves tighter, to become easier to be around, the body becomes the container for everything that doesn't get to move. So the most common places that we hold this, especially as we get older and our bodies want to let us know that we've stacked stuff up, the upper back and shoulders. This is the physical structure of holding it together, being braced. as I roll my shoulders, I'm like, okay, yes, let's open that back up. This is often dismissed as uh posture issue or holding stress or guarding your heart. And that last one is very true. The next place that it shows up is the jaw and the neck. The words that were never said. That's what's sitting in the neck, in the throat, in the jaw. The emotions that were swallowed. TMJ issues, neck immobility, grinding at night. These are the body's record of a long history of self-editing. The gut, this is where it all began for me. The sensitive person's internal lie detector running constantly. Gut sensitivity, bloating, digestive unpredictability that spikes in social situations or after emotional intensity. I have a client who has a really hard time getting on a plane because her guts go crazy. Yeah. I have another client who deals with dizziness, which has a lot of connection back to the jaw neck situation. Since the eyes are right there, the throat and the eyes are connected. I have a client who carries the weight of the world on her shoulders and it's shown up in her posture and she knows it and she hates the way it looks. These aren't random symptoms. They're the body's faithful record of a pattern that began when you were trying to navigate an uninitiated transition with no map. Mellissa Seaman, who is an initiate of Maria, came up with her Wheel of Wisdom. And in June, we're going through the puberty initiation. And Maria would agree, but it's usually tied in with the moons. And here's the cool thing about the June 1st moon, today's moon, if you're listening to this, when it went live. June 1st, we move back into normal timing, meaning linear timing. But before June 1st, we were doing the Coyote Leap. And when you look at the map that Tlish Diyan, the Apache, have laid out, you see instead of starting this year with a full moon, we started with a new moon. And for their map, that means we go over the top of a moon and then back, which they call the coyote leap. And if you know anything about coyotes, they're the tricksters, the fool card in Tarot. It's an interesting dance. And what we've been experiencing for the previous 18 months since March of 2025 was two steps forward. One step back. This whole time has been a beautiful opportunity for huge transformation. Transmutation. And here we are on June 1st, and we're leaping into linear time and the puberty initiation. Such a beautiful, beautiful thing. So these thresholds are moments when the body is most willing to revisit old imprints, old patterns, not to relive them, not to have to talk about them, to finally see them clearly from a more stable ground. For sensitive people who are understanding their cosmic sensitive type, and if you don't know, go take it at CosmicSensitiveQuiz.com. When you're a sola, a baro an empa, or a luna, the way puberty imprint shows up is specific to your type. So sola and baros may have learned to dim their natural brightness and their authority. Empas likely embodied the emotional weight of everyone around them all into their body, all the time, without even knowing it. That's something that I did for years. Lunas, you may have dampened your cycle and really felt into, need to exist in this linear timing. You didn't orient with nature. And it shows. Naming your type is often the first step in tracing the pattern back to where it began. And it could have begun before puberty. There are other initiations before puberty. There's the birth initiation. So if you had a traumatic birth coming into this world, that's an initiation. There are many more. That's for another episode. You can't release what you haven't identified. And this is where I really hope that you take a moment to sit with what was my puberty initiation or lack thereof like. and then rewrite it. What is your nervous system pattern showing you? If you identify with any of the three body parts, four body parts that were mentioned, the upper back, the neck, the jaw, the gut, then that's a beautiful place to start. Something will shift once you've identified it. It's always the first step. Identify it. Notice it and identify it. Your story doesn't change, but you can repattern by coming up with the ideal. What would have been the ideal situation? Who were the elders you surrounded yourself with? One of the things that I've been learning specifically about this time for my daughter is that aunties become unbelievably important because a psychological perspective, she's creating separation from me. And any mom who has raised a teenager or any mom who has a child between the ages of 11 and 14 knows that there becomes friction in the relationship. And that friction is about the natural progression of your child separating from you. Up to this point, the umbilical cord was close. aunties are important because that's who you want your child going to. They are going to their friends but if their friends are the same age as them then they don't have enough experience to really answer some of the burning questions and this is where the aunties come in and those are the people that are getting invited into this puberty initiation circle. So who are the aunties that you went to or that you wished you could have gone to? That's a beautiful place to start. June has the energy built for this. We're going into that hotter time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It's this fiery time to be able to take on puberty initiation. And again, it's not excavation for its own sake. It's witnessing, finally seeing your inner child. who is doing everything right with no map and understanding what her body or his body took on to keep them safe. If you're looking for extra support, especially around the body. Get on a body scan with me. 20 minutes, $97. This is where I show you your cosmic sensitive map. It might be that puberty was when things started to really go crazy in your sensitive body. It might have been birth, but I will identify that for you so that you have the map to move forward with. And then if you want continued support, This is where the Cosmic Sensitive Circle comes in. You can check both of those out at bodywhisperhealing.com. They'll also be in the show notes. Go check them out there. If this episode opens something for you, the next step is understanding your cosmic sensitive type. Because the way this imprint shows up is different depending on where you're a sola, a baro an Empa or a Luna. Take the free quiz. Seven easy questions. Takes maybe two minutes. Give yourself the language and some somatic practices to unwind what might be going on in your body. And if you can think of one woman or man who is holding in their shoulders have that posture that we were talking about of guarding the heart, or you can hear them grinding their teeth while they're working, or they complain about their gut. Think of just one and send them episode so that maybe this unlocks something for them. subscribe if you haven't already and Remember, stay curious, stay oriented, move with what's real and trust your sensitive body. It knows.