Ep 29 - Ellen Newhouse – What Being Silenced as a Child Does to the Body, and the Path Back to Healing.
This powerful episode features a raw and deeply present conversation with Ellen Newhouse, an intuitive healer, acupuncturist, author, and transformational guide with more than three decades of experience. Ellen shares her lived experience of growing up in a violent household, learning to stay silent to survive, and how that silence eventually showed up in her body when her breath began to fail her.
Together, Jeanene and Ellen explore what it means to live inside contradictions, loving and fearing a parent, surviving through humour and smiling, and carrying trauma quietly for decades. They speak about anger as a necessary stage of healing, the role of the body in holding unspoken truth, faith as a source of stability, and the courage required to stop overriding what the body is asking for. This conversation unfolds slowly, honestly, and without easy answers, offering a grounded reflection on healing as a long, layered, deeply human process.
Listen on
“I learned to smile all the time, even when I wanted to scream.”
Ellen Newhouse
Wisdom from Ellen Newhouse in Episode 29
“I grew up in a very violent home that was so frightening and scary.”
“My father would say, ‘Nothing ever goes on here,’ after violent evenings.”
“It was absolutely crazy-making because as a child you take your lead from your parents.”
“I trusted no one, including myself, which was really horrifying.”
“I learned to smile all the time, even when I wanted to scream.”
“I stopped breathing correctly, and that’s when everything began to unravel.”
“I had created a life that looked good from the outside, but inside something was desperately wrong.”
“My body would not let me keep pretending.”
“Anger is a very important part of healing, you can’t bypass it.”
“My first seven years of therapy, all I did was scream.”
“The body remembers what the mind tries to forget.”
“I realised healing doesn’t happen all at once, it happens in layers.”
“I had to learn how to listen to my body instead of overriding it.”
Key Themes Explored
The Cost of Silence in Childhood
Ellen shares how growing up in a violent household required silence as a survival strategy, and how being repeatedly told that “nothing ever goes on here” created deep confusion and self-doubt. This silence did not disappear with adulthood, it lived on in her body, her breath, and her nervous system. The learning offered here is that what keeps a child safe in the moment can later become a source of physical and emotional distress if it is never acknowledged or released.
The Body as the Holder of Truth
A central thread in this conversation is the body’s role in carrying unspoken experiences. Ellen speaks about losing her breath as the point where her coping strategies stopped working, and how physical symptoms became the body’s way of demanding attention. The episode offers a clear learning that healing cannot remain purely intellectual, the body must be included, listened to, and supported through somatic and energetic work.
Healing as a Slow, Layered Process
Rather than presenting healing as a breakthrough moment, Ellen speaks honestly about the long timeline involved, decades of therapy, bodywork, spiritual inquiry, and learning to stay present with difficult emotions. She names anger, grief, and fear as necessary stages rather than problems to fix. The learning here is that healing unfolds over time, often far more slowly than we want, and that patience and self-compassion are essential companions on that path.