How To Actually Listen To Your Body

‘Listen to your body’ - easy, right? Except we’ve been taught to override it for decades. As people-pleasers, perfectionists, carers… this doesn’t come naturally. 

I’ve been teaching yoga and somatics for over a decade and practicing for twenty years, and here’s how you begin listening to your body again: 

Practice pausing and listening first. If you’re constantly distracting yourself with your phone every time there’s space or potential boredom, you’ll find this harder. Don’t reach for your phone, don’t multitask. Brush your teeth / boil the kettle / wait for a bus and tune in — how am I feeling right now? What’s going on for me?

Feel more. Sounds small but it’s not. We’ve been taught to smush our feelings down in order to crack on and not upset anyone. What comes up when you ask those questions above? How can you allow yourself to feel it all a bit more? Graduate from feeling it while you brush your teeth to journalling about it, talking to someone about it (if only yourself), sitting with it in a way that feels nice. Do this often. And don’t be afraid.

Read this next: How to Stop Numbing Your Emotions

Rest without guilt. Taking time out doesn’t work if you’re hating yourself for taking it. Doing less is what we need more of, not productivity or optimisation. And inside good rest comes feeling and healing.

Set boundaries. A weird one to add to a listening-to-your-body list, or actually a deep way of honouring your body? Exactly. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you need. It’s uncomfortable, but often that means it’s the right thing to do. You come first, please. And you can’t be setting boundaries if you have no awareness of how you feel and what’s right for you.

Listening to your body more is like a workout: practice daily and you’ll get better.

All we’re doing is relearning what it means to be a human in an increasingly unhuman world. Listen more, respond accordingly, honour the process.

Hope this helps. Share with someone who could use a hug right now.

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