How to Listen to Your Body for Answers When Your Mind is in Turmoil
“When receiving intuitive information through your body, the more you listen, the more you hear.”
Our mind can often play tricks on us. If you pay close attention to the dialogue in your mind, you’ll notice, in fact, you are smart enough to talk yourself in and out of anything. Your mind knows your history, your hopes and fears, your pleasure and pain points. It knows you well enough to point you toward what appeals to you and steer you away from what scares you. Because of this, our mind is programmed to keep us safe, but also drive us toward what we desire the most, which ironically, may not always be what’s best for us.
When it comes to decision-making, we may not have the most clarity when faced with a difficult choice, especially an emotional one. Sometimes, each choice we make can lead to equally desirable and detrimental outcomes. In those types of scenarios, our mind often starts spinning and mulls over every possible outcome within our imagination, without real solutions.
At times, the more facts and information we gather from others, the more confusing it becomes. The problem with that is every piece of information gathered from outside of you came from, well, outside. They are from a source and perspective not singular to what necessarily is best for you, and the best decisions ultimately lie within you and no one else. If you have a trusted friend who is able to mirror and help you discover the answer within yourself, then they are the best person to talk to. But if you struggle to find an objective resource you can rely on for an important decision, you may want to start paying attention to what your body is trying to tell you.
Does our mind know what’s best for us?
I am a big fan of logic. I make many decisions, even predictions, using inductive and deductive reasoning, and they have worked very well for me. I rely on my logic for any decision that has to do with business planning, logistics, etc. — solutions to something concrete and tangible. Our mind is great for that. It takes all of our experiences and lessons into account and formulates the best answer to help us clear obstacles and move toward a good outcome. Sometimes, that combined history breeds a healthy enough instinct to help us determine what is best without conflict.
But our logic isn’t always reliable when faced with a decision that can affect our not-so-tangible faculties like our emotions, self-esteem or general well-being. Our mind could snap into survival mode to try and protect us from hurt and harm. If the decision is of a new caliber, our mind will be in unknown territory and can go into overdrive, trying to predict possible outcomes based on new and old information, often injected with fear of the unknown. If the decision is for a familiar problem, a possible pattern, then our mind remembers what not to do and strives to break through, but can be injected with fear as well, of the known and unknown — what’s on the other side of that breakthrough is unknown territory and can be just as frightening. As you can see, our mind can enter the negative feedback loop quite easily, and we end up with incessant thoughts circulating for days, weeks, persistently.
Does our intuition know what’s best for us?
What about our intuition, you might ask. Can we rely on our intuition to guide us toward the correct actions?
If you have been following my writing, you might have noticed I am a believer of intuition. I trust my own intuition immensely and encourage everyone to trust theirs. So why am I talking about listening to our physical body? Because our intuition, or guidance from our higher self, often comes through our subconscious, unaware by our conscious mind but is well connected to our physical body. The problem is, most people associate intuition with their feelings or emotions, and that is where confusion occurs.
You will often hear people say “this feels right” or “that just doesn’t feel right.” And sometimes, that could very well be their intuition talking; but because of the language we are used to, we automatically connect our intuition to our feelings, when they are not quite the same. While our intuition is from our higher self, a higher intelligence, it will always try to guide us toward alignment with our highest self. Our emotions, however, are influenced by our upbringing, our culture, and past experiences, and can take us on quite a detour away from what’s truly best for us. This is when listening to our physical body becomes the simplest yet wisest way to find the answers we need.
Your body always has your best interest
As I continue to embark on my own journey of Embodiment, I have learned that our body has a vast amount of intelligence, waiting to be unraveled, and the best part is, we can trust them, because they are our own. From memories of each of our living cells to the neural impulses that travel through our entire body, it remembers our entire history, every joy, pain, and any unprocessed trauma. Not only does our body remember our history since the day we were born, it has all of the inherited experiences of our family and ancestors stored in our DNA. In a way, our body has all the answers we’ll ever need to know about who we are.
Listening to our body can seem both easy and complicated. Not all of us were taught to pay close attention to our body’s subtle signals. In our current culture, we place so much importance on the logical mind that we forget the abundant amount of information the rest of our body has. When it comes to decision-making, the answer can be as easy as observing how your body responds.
Here are 2 clues your body gives regarding how something or someone is affecting you:
1. Muscle tension
Pay close attention to the response of your muscles when you place yourself in different scenarios. If it’s about a person, then notice if your muscles tense up when you are around that person. Do you find yourself clenching your jaw or fists involuntarily, even just a little bit. Do you feel anxious and uneasy at the thought of that person? If it’s about a job, then notice if you have the same type of tensions when you are in that work environment. If it’s a change in life and you are not able to place yourself in that physical environment, then notice your body’s response when you simply think about yourself in that new life of yours. Does it put your body at ease or does it cause stress?
2. Energy level
Use your level of energy as an important indication of what is enhancing you vs. depleting you. If it’s about a person, then notice if the thought of that person lifts you up or brings you down. Does your body feel heavy after being around that person for a long period of time, or does it feel light and full of life? Notice those same set of cues from your body about other situations in your life. Do you find yourself depleted and needing a lot of rest after spending time in a certain environment, or do you feel energized and ready for more?
Note: Sometimes it can take a few days or longer to observe those responses, but over time, you’ll notice that your body will give you a consistent set of cues as to what causes it stress. If it is an important decision and you wish to be certain, you could make the decision and imagine it as done in your mind. Let it go for the next 24-48 hours and observe your body’s response to that decision before carrying it out. Your body will more or less show you how it feels about it.
I’d like to think of myself as having a powerful mind, in many ways. Though recently, I find myself dropping into my physical body more and more, as a trusted source of information. This exciting new practice has proven time and time again to be more reliable than my logical mind, especially when my emotions are heightened from dealing with certain situations. Now, when it comes to making good decisions for myself, as well as others (my well-being affects those around me, too), I not only allow my mind to provide me with reason, I also check in with my body for the reassurance that I am doing the right thing.
