Attention: Your Body Talks, Too!

It talks, it whispers, it yells… It expresses itself however it can, or however we let it, sometimes. Being aware of what it is telling us is always a good idea since our body gives our minds all the information that our senses capture. Thus, through it, we are connected to the outside world and the nerves that pass it on are responsible for this very job of carrying valuable information.

We have to be very aware of what it is telling us because a lot of the time, it is the only true, genuine path that we have to resolve a situation. In this way, attentively listening to our body is listening to a good part of the essence that forms us as different and unique people.

If you stop to think about it, surely you will remember some situation where your body was unhappy, agitated, and anxious to escape a space – physical or symbolic – it was occupying. Many times you will have found yourself holding onto a relationship, be it platonic, romantic, or professional, in which, despite the fact that you have stayed, something told you that it was not right, that it was not what you needed. That “noticing something,” that vague and sometimes imperceptible sensation, is part of our body.

Examples of how our body expresses itself

These are some examples of how our body talks to us, or rather… how it can ask us for help:

• Sensation of a frog in our throat.
• Sensation of a knot in our stomach.
• Sudden acne.
• Menstrual disorders in women.
• Hypertension. Tachycardia.
• Migraines.

In fact, the people who are most prone to suffer psychosomatic disorders also tend to have difficulties in life expressing their emotions and, by extension, confronting the problems that come from the improper management of these emotions. By psychosomatic disorder, we mean organic wounds that have a psychological origin.

When providing therapy to this kind of patient, their emotions are considered, and generally they are analyzed from a somatic, psychological, social, and cultural perspective. So when a person is unable to resolve or accept a situation – be this with himself or herself, or with others – this leaves its mark on the body and it forms a “cyst,” waiting for its owner to become aware of this wound and to repair it so as to move on.

Hard feelings, an ill on the daily agenda

When we build up hard feelings, we build up bodily harm. Hard feelings are feelings that have not been managed, that have not been expressed, and that travel through a person’s body without losing its track, constantly causing discomfort until it is resolved. It is an open wound waiting to be cured, but with all the vulnerability that it brings with it.

How do we understand this in relation to our body? Hard feelings would be like food that sits heavy in our stomach, that makes us feel bloated, and takes all of your desire to try anything new. It is so complicated to digest that it even makes us skip a meal or two, no matter how appetizing it might seem. Finally, until we manage to digest it, it will stop us from feeling comfortable.

In this way, treating covered up hard feelings, pointed out by the accusing finger of our body signs, is going to restore the natural dynamics of our body. The digestion of hard feelings will do away with the muscular tension and will allow us to enter a state of relaxation in which our body is going to feel much better.

Techniques to listen to what our body wants to tell us

There are various techniques to practice redirecting your attention towards your body and its ways of communicating with you. These techniques find their source in Buddhist meditation.

They seek to focus all of our attention on our body for a few minutes a day in order to be aware of each of the sensations, emotions, feelings, etc. that appear, without judging them. Accepting them as part of the messages that our wise body sends us, allowing us to be able to use the information that exists within those messages to eliminate our feeling of discomfort.

Our body is truly the richest fount that we can drink of. Everything that is born within it is real and genuine. Our head, with its impossible labyrinths of thought and reasoning, has not disturbed its essence. As such, listening to it is listening to ourselves. It is being a little bit wiser and living in a way that is more strongly rooted in who we are.

So… Let’s listen to our body, it has a lot to tell us!