Listen to Your Body
Growing up, many of us learned to overrule our bodies. That “no pain, no gain” sentiment primes us for burn out. Many of the leaders I coach have to learn to listen to their bodies, maybe for the first time.
It turns out that our bodies are always talking to us. In fact, our bodies are speaking several languages at once:
Through perception, we’re taking in information directly from our environment via our senses.
Through interoception, our body is telling us what’s going on inside of us, such as whether we’re hungry or thirsty.
Through proprioception, we’re noticing how we’re sitting or standing, where our feet and hands are, and how our body is positioned.
Through nociception, our body is telling us where we hurt.
Through neuroception, our body is trying to understand what’s safe and unsafe in our environment.
All of that is going on inside of you, right now, as you’re reading this.
That’s a wealth of information, and we'll never be able to listen to it all. But if we’re disconnected from ourselves, as is often the case, we can easily lose touch with what our body is telling us.
We can push through when our body is telling us to stop. We can tell ourselves something (or someone) is safe when our body knows it isn’t. We can ignore our need for sleep or food.
But we can learn to speak the body’s language, and because our body is always talking with us, we always have opportunities to practice how to listen. Psychotherapist Aundi Kolber suggests a number of ways our body can communicate with us:
Feeling suddenly chilled or warm
A sense of tingling in our hands
Butterflies in our stomach
Tension in the chest or shoulders
A desire to run away
A bouncing leg
A racing heart or quickness of breath
Sudden anxiousness or alertness
Feeling a heaviness in your body
Feeling boxed in or trapped
Learning to notice these sensations helps us understand our body’s languages. In fact, I spend a good part of my coaching sessions asking clients to key into these experiences.
You can do this right now, too. Take a second, close your eyes, and gently draw your attention up from your feet through your body and up to your head. What do you notice in your feet, ankles, legs, seat, torso, arms, and jaw? What might feel tenser than usual? Looser? Comfortable or uncomfortable? Warm or cold?
Once we have that information, we can become curious and explore where those experiences could be coming from—and what we might be needing.
And once we can do that, we can lead more sustainably, for ourselves and others.
Want to learn how to listen to your body more? Book your free Discovery Session here.
