Ep. #588 | The Feeling Muscle with Dr. Jenn Rapkin

By Jenn Pike | June 1, 2026

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

In this episode, I sat down with Dr. Jenn Rapkin, naturopathic doctor, body worker, former dancer, and author of The Feeling Muscle: Sitting With and Outlasting Hard Feelings, and I walked away from this one with so much clarity around something I’ve personally been navigating — the relationship between what we hold in our bodies and how it shows up as physical symptoms, dis-ease, and emotional patterns we can’t seem to shake.

In this episode, we explore:

  • What it means to be a “frequent feeler” — and why that’s actually a gift, not a burden
  • How the messages we were raised with (“grow thicker skin,” “boys don’t cry,” “grin and bear it”) trained us to armor up and disconnect from our emotional body
  • Why emotion is a pre-verbal, physical experience — and how learning to locate feelings in the body changes everything
  • The concept of “shaking the hand” of a feeling — a simple, powerful practice for beginning to sit with what’s coming up rather than numbing or distracting
  • Why Dr. Rapkin’s approach is NOT about excavating trauma — it’s about exercising your feeling muscle one small moment at a time
  • The connection between unprocessed emotions and physical symptoms (gut issues, hormonal imbalance, chronic illness) — and why the nervous system is always part of the conversation
  • How we’ve become conditioned to outsource our health, our answers, and our healing to strangers on the internet — and why the most powerful answers already live inside you
  • Why safety and permission are at the root of emotional processing — and how childhood conditioning shapes our nervous system well into adulthood

Let’s dive in!

Thank you for joining us today. If you could rate, review & subscribe, it would mean the world to me! While you’re at it, take a screenshot and tag me @jennpike to share on Instagram – I’ll re-share that baby out to the community & once a month I’ll be doing a draw from those re-shares and send the winner something special!

Click here to listen:

Apple Podcasts – CLICK HERE
Spotify – CLICK HERE

Connect with Guest –

This episode is sponsored by:

Free Resources:

Programs:

Connect with Jenn:

Have a question? Send it over to hello@jennpike.com and I’ll do my best to share helpful insights, thoughts and advice.

Posted in Podcast Episodes and tagged , , , , , , ,