Can You Hear the Voice of Your Body?

Can you hear the voice of your body?
These days we often hear ‘connect with your body, connect with yourself, listen to your body’… But what exactly does this mean?

Isn’t my body me?
Am I not already myself?
How can I connect with myself?
Do I have to make a special effort?

I am alive, I have emotions, thoughts, choices, personality, am I not already naturally connected to myself? Do I have to connect with myself in order to connect with someone else? Can a person be unaware of themselves?

What does it mean to connect with the body?

Connecting with our body means experiencing what is going on in our body, our body’s unique agenda, its feelings of pleasure, pain, anxiety, fear, etc. simultaneously with it.

The agenda of our body and the agenda of our daily life are sometimes, unfortunately most of the time, out of sync.

The daily list that we have to complete in our daily life and the needs of our body at that moment may not coincide.

Yes, they may not always coincide, life will not always be a rose garden. But if we do not recognise these ‘non-coincidences’ we are not witnessing what our body is going through.

For example, you travel abroad for work; to a city that everyone dreams of… People around you think you are very lucky, you will not spend a penny out of your own pocket, what could be better?

You think you are very lucky too, you have worked hard all these years to get into a good high school, a good university, a good job and now you are reaping the rewards of all your efforts.

While you are packing your suitcase, you feel a pain in your stomach, your arms and legs feel as if they could not support you, but you do not pay attention to all these things and let them pass by. On the plane, in the hotel, at meetings, you have a constant pain in your stomach.

It is a tough meeting, but you get everything you want accepted on behalf of your company, you are proud of yourself, after the meeting you have dinner at the most famous and expensive restaurant in town on the company’s account, you celebrate, your hands and arms are numb, you do not think about it, all your attention is on the ‘well done’ you will receive.

When you return to the hotel, your head is a little dizzy from the champagne, your heart is pounding, your body is tense, your stomach hurts and you are thinking about the next step in your career.

There are two systems within a human being that have completely different agendas; body and mind…

Have you experienced similar situations where you feel different mentally and physically?

Mentally (in terms of thoughts) you feel very well, but your body reacts differently?

The way our body perceives life and the way our mind perceives life are different.

While the mind sometimes acts strategically with social norms, ‘should/shouldn’t’ patterns, the reactions of our body are more sincere, clearer, more specific to our true ‘nature’.

The body cannot act strategically in the face of an event, even if it wants to, it cannot.
The body cannot be kind, it cannot plan the future, it cannot take wise steps, it is ‘what it really feels’ at that moment, in the face of that event.
The mind, on the other hand, has a rational mind, it is strategic, it is a planner, it can grit its teeth, it can endure pain, it can ignore everything for the sake of a goal.
When there is synchronicity between our body and mind, we are the best. But if there is a separation between what the mind feels and what the body feels, look here:

Where is your attention, in your body or in your mind?

Meditation or focusing exercises are one of the most practical tools for ‘this look’.

Moving your attention to your body, limbs, organs, noticing your feelings and states here without judgement and not making up stories about the situations we notice can be an important tool for us to connect with ourselves.

To be able to just notice the tiredness without saying ‘I work hard, how tired I am, at least I can get the money I deserve, what will be the end of working so hard…’.

The main rule of this game is to bring attention back to the body when the mind wanders.

How to do this? Body scanning meditation is a very comfortable and easy to use practice for this. After a while of integrating this meditation into your life, it becomes part of your daily life and can be practised spontaneously. For example, if you are sitting in a chair working at a computer, you will feel the need to relax as your awareness begins to develop and you will give yourself the opportunity to relax your shoulders, hands and jaw.

When we enter a place, a community, a job, etc., even noticing and hearing the sensations in our body has a calming effect on our nervous system. Just as a mother/father who sincerely embraces a child crying with excitement or fear has the same effect on the child, so noticing a heart beating with excitement, a stomach cramping with stress, shoulders clenched with nerves has the same effect on our own system.

Here is another practical suggestion;

When you open your eyes in the morning, how long do you stay in bed? Do you get out of bed immediately?

Do you do something as soon as you get up? For example, go to the toilet, wash your face, look at the phone, etc.?

Do you wake up spontaneously or with an alarm clock?

Is there a physical difference between the two ways you wake up?

How do your feet, legs, hands, arms, shoulders, stomach, chin, the feeling between your eyebrows feel when you wake up? Some of us might say ‘I wake up very energetic’ and some of us might say ‘I wake up very tired’…

Where does this energy, tiredness or different states manifest in our body?

Is it all over the body or just in certain areas?

And when you wake up in the morning, do you carry in your body a reflection of the day that has just begun, a reflection of the pre-planned daily flow? For example, a meeting that you anticipate will be difficult, or a meeting with a dear friend that you haven’t seen in a long time?

In your belly, throat, shoulders, heart?

Notice how a thought that goes through your mind affects your body. For example, let’s say you open Instagram and you feel very jealous of someone in a post you see.

Where do you feel this jealousy in your body at the moment?

What are the reflections of that feeling in your body?

How does this feeling come to you, with what kind of movement, or how do you feel when you receive very good news?

Let’s turn the game around: what goes through your mind when you feel physically well and strong?

What are you thinking about?

These are games we can play anywhere.

Experts say that whatever happens to us in daily life, good, bad, worrying or reassuring, our body is also affected by these events. If our body is fit, flexible and strong, we can be more robust and resilient in potentially turbulent situations in daily life.

Of course, we do this connection work in a compulsive way, constantly asking “What’s happening in my body, are my fingers tense? Is my throat on fire?” but in the form of gentle introspection.

Observing the relationship between our body and mind, accepting our mental and physical states and being able to stay with those states in a compassionate, patient and understanding way… This is all meditation…

And just to connect with ourselves.