Guest Post Written by: Melissa Wessner

“If you listen to your body when it whispers, you won’t have to hear it scream.” 

So often, I talk to women who are fighting with their bodies. They complain about the things their bodies are doing, and they believe that they or their body must be broken. While I understand how people can come to these conclusions, I’d like to offer an alternative perspective and approach. 

The Wisdom of Our Body

Our bodies are wise…we just don’t always realize that.  Our bodies, and the physical and emotional responses we experience in our bodies, provide us with really helpful information about how we’re doing and how we are experiencing the world—if only we would listen to it. 

Instead of listening to our bodies, I sometimes find that people force their bodies to keep going, even when their bodies are tired, and even when their bodies are clearly pumping on the breaks. 

It’s in these moments when we fight with our body. We get upset with it for not keeping up, rather than listening to it and responding with appropriate care and kindness. 

Accessing Your Body’s Wisdom

One simple way that we can begin to access our body’s wisdom is by listening to it and being curious about whatever it is saying to us. 

For example, if I notice that my knee is aching, that is my body trying to alert me to something.  When I pay attention and show curiosity, I might realize that I injured my knee during my recent hike.  In this moment, I am faced with the decision to be kind to my body or to fight with it.

Fighting with it might mean judging my body for the injury and then forcing it to go out on another strenuous hike the next day because that was the plan anyway.  Responding compassionately to my body might mean putting ice on my knee or giving it the needed rest.

Only one of these responses will send the message that I am listening to my body and that I want to treat it with care. 

While this concept might sound simple, I find that we are often out of touch with our bodies or are forcing them to go in directions that run counter to their needs.

Sometimes our bodies pick up on things before we do, and so there are times when we force our bodies to persist in a given direction, even though that runs counter to our body’s inner wisdom.

I’ve seen women force themselves to pursue a new venture because they think it will please someone in their family or make them feel more accomplished, only to find that they experience low energy and low motivation as they pursue this new endeavor. 

Listening to Your Body

Listening to one’s body with curiosity might give us some information about how we’re really feeling about this new endeavor. Once we listen and gain understanding, we are yet again faced with the decision to listen to our body’s wisdom and respond accordingly or to persist with the plan in spite of our body’s messages simply because we are insistent on following it.   

When we listen to our body and respond kindly and compassionately to its needs, we send the message that we are attentive and responsive.

We send the message that we can be trusted. 

When we don’t listen to our bodies, however, we find ourselves back in that place of struggle. We force our bodies and judge them, and move forward with decisions and relationships that might not actually be serving us.  On more than one occasion, I’ve seen this result in people getting sick, even to the extent of needing to be hospitalized. 

As wise women, it’s important that we listen to our bodies and pay attention to our body’s efforts to communicate with us, knowing that our bodies offer us wisdom too.  

Melissa Wesner, LCPC is a Certified Brainspotter and Brainspotting Consultant.  She is the Founder of LifeSpring Counseling Services, a group practice in Maryland that strives to provide hope, healing, and empowerment through the collaborative process of therapy.  She is also the Founder of Intentional Practice, a consultation practice, and the co-host of the Protecting Your Practice podcast. 

Elizabeth Cush is a women’s life coach, a therapist, and the creator and host of the Woman Worriers and Awaken Your Wise Woman podcasts. She’s also the founder of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and has been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps women bring forth their inner gifts and live with more authenticity, ease and purpose. Click here if you'd like to know more about working with Elizabeth.

photo by @schimiggy—unsplash