if your body could talk

Our bodies are always communicating with us.

Think about it, your body is the only thing that has been with you since the day you were born, and will remain with you until you take your last breath. Our bodies are our homes. They are living, breathing organisms.

Of course they can communicate with us. 

Our health is correlated with how in-tune we are with our bodies. Depending on how closely you choose to pay attention, you may or may not know yourself on a much deeper level than most.

If you want to understand more about yourself, start paying attention to how your body is trying to communicate with you. If your body could talk to you–what would it say? Would it thank you for treating it well and appreciate the kind words you tell it, or would it's heart be broken because of how you treat it, talk to it, and ignore it?

We’ve trained ourselves to ignore the different ways our bodies communicate with us. We can ignore something so much that we convince ourselves it has finally disappeared from our minds forever. Our cognitive dissonance tells is that it won't eventually come out, and that's really far from the truth. It is no help that in addition to this, we live in a society that tells us to respond with, “I’m good, how are you?” in exchanges with others, instead of really looking inward before responding. The next time someone asks you that question, I challenge you to answer it intuitively. You'll be surprised by what comes out.

---

Recently, I was in a terrible mood for several days in a row. I don't mean grumpy, I mean pissed at the world. I normally have a very sunny disposition, so this was super out of character for me. My bad mood came out of nowhere, and nothing I tried was helping me snap out of that headspace. I told the people around me that it was for no reason, that I was just feeling "particularly snappy". The sad part is, I allowed myself to believe it. Being in a bad mood for “no reason” meant one thing–my emotions were dysregulated. Unusual behaviors don’t stem from nothing. Whether I wanted to admit to this truth or not was dependent on how long I chose to listen to what my ego was telling me, which was, “you’re fine”. The longer I listened to my ego and allowed the narrative to ring true, the more miserable I became. Clearly something was wrong, and it was blatantly asking to be addressed. 

When we ignore what our bodies are trying to tell us, we are acting in opposition to it. When this happens, we create more stress for ourselves, and you know what stress leads to 10 out of 10 times? Sickness. 

When I quieted my mind and asked my body what she was trying to tell me, more came up than I realized I had been “pushing to the side to think about later”. I was actually hurting, deeply. I had become so disconnected from my body and emotions that I was completely disregarding what was going on inside of me, AKA, acting in total opposition to my body. Our emotions have to move through us, when we ignore them out of existence or leave them stagnant, they start to permeate our overall sense of joy. It dawned on me that I had never set aside time or given myself space to really process things that had taken place, and because of this, my overall person was being negatively affected. Only until I slowly moved through each of those situations in my head and understood why I was feeling what I was feeling (or at least, doing my best to) did I finally feel a sense of peace. Over time, I came back home to myself, and felt lighter. The mind-body connection is a portal to self-awareness.  

---

Try to pay closer attention to how your body is communicating with you, especially when it’s acting in ways it normally doesn’t. This is how you deepen the connection with yourself, practice mindfulness, and live in a healthy, more healed, emotionally-regulated headspace. 

Your body has done so much for you. Allow yourself to feel gratitude for its health and function. I encourage you to look at the relationship you have with it. Go back to the reflection questions from third paragraph and sit with them. Notice what your body tells you, how it responds. Meet each answer your body gives with love and sincere compassion. Make it a safe place to be open and free of judgement. Little by little, this is how you can begin to heal parts of yourself.

If your body could talk, what would it say to you?