The Body Receives First
Why your nervous system sets your prices long before your spreadsheet does
A massage therapist sits across from me.
Her hands, instruments of repair that have unwound years of other people’s pain, are trembling.
We’re talking about a price increase.
Thirty percent.
Her first in ten years.
“I know the math supports it,” she says. “Expenses rose. My skill deepened. Demand stayed steady. I understand all of it.”
Her voice thins.
She presses her palm to her sternum.
“But when I imagine saying the new number out loud, my chest tightens. My throat closes. I lose my breath.”
We sit there.
This is the real threshold. The work doesn’t begin in the spreadsheet. It doesn’t begin in the announcement email. It doesn’t begin in strategy.
The body receives first. Then the bank account follows.
Most conversations about pricing never make it this far.
They stay cognitive. Rational. Clean.
Meanwhile the nervous system is already deciding what feels survivable.
We live inside systems that reward giving and quietly punish receiving. Especially for people shaped by identities and histories where safety depended on usefulness.
Women.
BIPOC folks.
Queer and trans people.
Immigrants.
Anyone taught that space, need, or expectation carried consequences.
We learned how to give beautifully. We learned how to anticipate others. How to soften our edges. How to stay essential.
Our bodies learned this long before our minds could explain it.
Receiving learned a different association.
Risk.
Exposure.
Loss of belonging.
And then we wonder why the numbers hesitate.
Most business advice never touches this layer. It treats pricing as a mindset problem or a confidence issue.
Your nervous system decides long before your pricing strategy ever does.
Ten years at the same rate.
Meanwhile, life kept moving. Rent climbed. Insurance expanded. Food changed.
Her expertise matured into something precise, intuitive, rare.
She studied trauma-informed bodywork.
Learned to read patterns beneath symptoms.
Held clients who stayed for years.
They called her life-changing.
She charged like she was still new.
When I asked what shifted, she looked down at her hands.
“I’m tired,” she said.
“Tired of working this hard and always worrying if I’ll make enough this month. Tired of deciding between rest and responsibility. Tired of pretending I don’t want more for myself.”
There it was.
Underpricing hadn’t been a math error.
It was a receiving pattern.
And the body had been paying the cost.
Every time you price beneath sustainability, the nervous system absorbs a message.
Needs become negotiable. Desire becomes dangerous. Receiving feels conditional. The body adapts.
It contracts around hunger. It scans abundance for threat. It braces against ease.
This isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s your bodies intelligence. It’s a protection mechanism. And it can be retrained.
Pricing doesn’t begin with what the market tolerates.
It begins with what the body requires to stay alive inside the work.
Thriving, not surviving.
When I asked her that question, the answers came easily.
Ongoing acupuncture for chronic pain. Bodywork for herself. Food that supported inflammation. Time away from the table. Weekends that stayed open.
We calculated the monthly cost.
Her eyes widened.
“That’s more than I make some months.”
Exactly.
That number wasn’t a problem. It was simply information.
Housing that feels secure. Food that nourishes. Care that actually works. Time that restores. Savings that let the system breathe.
Add it all together.
Divide by sustainable capacity, not maximum output. The give the body permission to receive.
We didn’t start with an announcement.
We started with practice. Small. Somatic. Repetitive.
Receiving compliments without deflection. Accepting help without justification. Keeping gifts. Receiving payment with presence and joy.
No apologizing. No shrinking.
Eye contact. Smile. Breath.
Each moment taught the body something new.
Receiving stays. Receiving supports. Receiving expands.
Weeks later, we returned to the number.
The email went out quietly.
Thirty percent.
Long-term clients able to bulk purchase sessions at the old rate.
New rate moving forward.
She called that night. Her hands shook. Her heart raced.
And beneath it all, space opened. Breath returned. Fear and expansion often arrive together when a system steps into capacity.
Here’s what she feared.
A mass exodus.
Anger.
Accusations.
Proof that she had asked for too much.
Here’s what actually happened.
Three clients left.
Out of forty.
One who said it didn’t fit their budget referred two others who could afford the new rate.
Everyone else stayed.
Some were relieved. Some affirmed the change. Some reflected her growth back to her.
Within months, her income stabilized upward.
Her schedule softened. Her care resumed. Her body relaxed.
The deepest shift wasn’t financial. When resourced people price for sustainability, the ripple spreads.
Energy returns. Time opens. Choice expands.
Resourced bodies imagine differently. Show up differently. The world changes around them.
👉 Reflection Prompts
Where does receiving still ask you to brace?
What would pricing feel like if your body trusted it could stay?
What becomes possible when your system feels resourced?
🔥 Daily Affirmations
My body holds authority in my business decisions.
Receiving expands my capacity to serve.
My pricing supports my nervous system and my life.
I allow money to meet me with steadiness and respect.
Sustainability strengthens my impact.
PS. Profit is Protest and so is pricing your work in a way that keeps you alive, resourced, and available for what matters. Your capacity is part of the revolution.