I’m realizing how much time I spend in a sort of one sided communication with my body. I feel like I’m quite aware of my physical/energetic self after many years of internal martial arts and other somatic practices but I still don’t pay attention to what these various sensations may be communicating to me…I’m aware of them but it’s like I’m not listening most of the time, at least not in a nurturing and deep way. I’m still quite judgmentally critical of unwanted sensations I realize and I desire to be more compassionate and learn to really listen to what these ‘whispers’ are saying…
Thanks for this Concept Rick…the way you’ve written it really brings it alive.
One of the All Time Greatest benefits of body guidance is that we begin to realize how much in-advance information we’re getting about the experiences to come!
“It’s a NO.” (I do it anyway.) Oh, now look at that smirk… yeah… my body was aware that I would be feeding something that would not bring us closer in the healthy way. Useful!
It was that way with food for me for a long while. “I want THAT!!” (feeling of NO in my body). (Eat it anyway). Poof, wow, wasn’t worth the immediate hit of pleasure for 2 days of discomfort – even though I really “needed” that immediate hit of pleasure.
If we didn’t judge ourselves for “not” following body guidance, we’d realize how:
Resilient we are! We can go against body guidance quite often and survive!
Guided we are! We can get input on a NO, and we can even learn to discern different flavors of NO. It’s actually quite fascinating, and sometimes we don’t develop the discernment if we’re black and white about it.
I live every day with actions that are a YES for my head (or wallet) but not for my heart or gut. What I find is that there are qualities of timing, allowing, re-tuning, re-perceiving… energetic differences my heart and gut and groin need in order to nod YES – whereas my head might know the logic but be missing the energetics.
Thank you @gibbysan and @Glenn for the positive feedback on this being useful. I am feeling that YES to flesh out the concepts for thriving between now and the end of the year. Sometimes, though, the only quiet time I get for a draft like this is 10pm or so… when body is tired. Still, in its guidance I find it so much easier to tap into the activation energy needed when I have others who take the concept and apply it and refine it through sharing.
These words from Rick are SO potent for me too Dru!! So beautifully stated. I might even say from experience that this is not only an expectation of our entire body but a fundamental requirement. Otherwise the result will be dis-ease in some manifestation…physical/emotional/spiritual.
We’ve been taught by medical science that we can rightly divide the body up into separate and somewhat independent systems or pieces. What a dangerous and unhealthy idea! But it is just an idea…it’s certainly not reality. We are a singularity. How can it be otherwise? We came from a single cell that then became 30 trillion cells…all from a single source. All our thoughts, beliefs…everything we are can trace it’s origins back to that single cell. And we are still a singularity. It’s only language that can lead us to think we are made of bits and pieces. The function of language is to deconstruct…to turn the world into bits and pieces. But…embedded within our very being is the knowing that we are a singularity…and ultimately we are an uninterrupted singularity with everything I believe.
It’s useful to acknowledge that the ripening of a change happens differently and at varying points based on ones nature, the change, and the connections we have with others and our own inner guidance.
For me the “meandering no” is a clue – “Not a YES for me right now.”
It may or may not ripen into a yes or clarify into a no. If this is a sacred decision, the meandering NO is… actually a NO. Because it not a YES.
I find it quite hard to believe for my self that my meandering no means it isn’t a yes. People sometimes reflect that to me: and whilst sometimes there is a truth to it I can feel, other times it isn’t. I feel like I am way further down the chain of baby steps of finding things - even if tiny - that are a yes. So that I can begin to know what a yes really is for me. I have so many no’s and lack of clarity around most aspects of life. Daily or otherwise. That finding a yes seems much more potent a path to finding me.
From the very beginning of my life I felt my body speaking to me. It was seldom quiet. As a child I didn’t know that my body was talking to me. All I knew is that I FELT I felt so much. When I tried to communicate my feelings I was so misunderstood.
“Mother I feel nervous.” “Little girls don’t have nerves,” she replied. Hmmm, what was I feeling?
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I told my teacher as my stomach was gripped with pain.
“You just want to get out of class,” she scolded.
I had to go to the bathroom and when she wouldn’t let me my stomach rebelled, then I was shamed for what came out.
“Why can’t you go to things three nights in a row?” My coach asked me in therapy when I told him I don’t schedule three meetings, dinners, get-togethers three days in a row. I had no explanation except I knew my body would rebel. Now I know its a combination of being highly sensitive and having PTSD and I accept it. I need space to regroup, to wind down. I trust myself better knowing my body’s language.
I found masturbation as a child. I had no idea what I was doing but it felt good and feeling good was important. But for some reason I was ashamed and hid it. I don’t remember ever being told it was wrong or being caught but I sure didn’t want to get caught doing it or talking about it.
Yes having a deeper trust in myself and my feelings have helped my thriving and I’ve been using better boundaries. I’m very grateful
Bless you for sharing this, Jean. I may not understand the cause of my child’s reaction or feelings or sensations or what comes through their extra sensors. I’m grateful that so many of the kids books we have here talk about feelings, that they are okay, that there are ways to learn to co-regulate and self-regulate. Egads, that would have been nice to have as a 2 year old! Adira does.
In this way I am aware that the intense NEEDS you felt, I felt, to have more wisdom around us to support our sensory gifts has… happened! Not evenly, of course. Kids and adults are still being told that what they feel is wrong, or mistaken, or not useful.
I just know the work we continue to do reinforces emotional freedom… and beyond the freedom the kind of knowing that comes from having the space to get clear and be clear and live from that clarity as much as possible.
I sure would love to read some of these feeling books that Adira has. I remember how much fun I had reading to my granddaughter. We would make up stories and I would type them up and print them out so she could illustrate them. I still have some.
Thanks for sharing Jean. Rick, just sent that book recommended to my nephew in GA. Thanks!
I recently vaught oart of the new documentary about Judy Blume, the young adult author. Her books made such a difference in my life when i was a kid. She named things no one talked about and helped remove so much shame for so many of us. I highly recommend the documentary about her no matter what your age. And i recommend all of her books, too. Are you there god? It’s me Margaret.
I loved and read everything by Judy Blume too, Dru. There is a wonderful documentary called Judy Blume forever on Amazon Prime. I’ve watched it once and it was so good I’m going to watch it again. I want to see Are you there God, the movie when it comes out in streaming.
Body guidance definitely brings “data” – meaning, it brings awareness and information that helps reveal more of the whole picture, the whole situation, the options and landscape of our emotional world.
We’ve elevated “logic” and sensory data that is in our head as having primacy. But that is, indeed, like saying eyes are superior to ears… so superior that eyes can REPLACE and even overrule what our ears hear.
This is a core aspect of discernment. “These sensations I am feeling that I am labeling fear… are they a signal that the territory is unknown and I need a bit more Presence and Awareness… or am I picking up active threat?”
I know we can perceive the difference in our body. The “consultation” between head, heart, gut, and groin – and the rest of us, too – reveals differences in primal, survival threat… and fears arising from the part of our cognition that is aware that outside our comfort zone, we are less skilled and more vulnerable.
Thank you 
I felt so much. When I tried to communicate my feelings I was so misunderstood.
