Listening to your body

One of the keys to a healthy relationship with ourselves and our body comes from our ability to pay attention to and ‘listen’ to what our body is telling us.

So when you hear someone say, ‘Listen to your body’, what does that mean and what are we listening out for? And how do we do it?

It’s not like our body directly talks to us, like how we talk to each other when having a chat, is it? Yet in reality our body is always communicating with us, with signals and sensations that we can choose to observe and respond to or simply ignore and carry on regardless.

There are times when we do and have to pay attention to the signals from our body, but perhaps we mis-hear or find it hard to understand exactly what our body is telling us.

For example, when we are tired our body might be saying, ‘Have a rest or go to bed’ but we interpret this as, ‘I need to eat something sugary’ or ‘Have a coffee’. Or there are the times when we eat something that makes us feel bloated, sickly, sluggish, revved up or even drunk, yet we ignore what our body is so desperately trying to tell us – despite how unwell we feel – and do it all again next time.

Why is that? Why do we misunderstand or reinterpret or ignore what our body is saying?

There is a difference between ignoring our body and not being able to understand the signals. Not understanding the signals happens because we have forgotten how to speak the same language as our body. This often comes from years of ignoring what our body has been saying, not paying attention to the signals and only acting on what we have been told to do or think is right for our body.

It comes from years of overriding what we feel, reaching for that coffee or sugar fix when we are tired and drained or eating foods that we like the taste of, even though our body is telling us it can’t handle them. And on and on this list could go...

By tuning back into our body, listening carefully and giving ourselves the time and patience to learn and experience what the body is saying, we can begin to learn the language of the body again.

Listening to the body allows us to feel and learn what works for us and what does not, what supports us to feel well, energised and vital, as well as what alters how we feel that adds stress and dis-ease to our lives.

As we develop a caring and attentive ritual with our body, we can experiment with our choices, then listen to our body to see if that choice worked for our body or not.

In this way, we begin to create a way of living that supports and nourishes our very being and we know exactly what it is that throws us off or into a spin.

If we apply this ‘listening’ or body awareness to every choice, we can develop an understanding of the language of the body and start to live more from what the body ‘says’ and learn to let go of negative and destructive habits, emotions and behaviours and truly begin to heal.

"The body is the marker of all truth."

Serge Benhayon Esoteric Teachings & Revelations, p 569

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CommunicationHuman body

  • By Dr Rachel Hall, Dentist

    Dentist, business owner, writer, author and presenter. Family woman, guitarist, photographer, passionate about health, wellbeing and community. Lover of Vietnamese food, fast cars, social media, café culture and people.

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