Being disconnected from yourself looks like: -not standing up for yourself -saying yes when you want to say no -not knowing what you want -not knowing what you like -not having direction in life -putting others before yourself
This episode will share with you why it is important to reconnect as well as a tip for how to begin this process.
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Hello, my friends welcome back to the podcast. Let me ask you a question. What is your body telling you? Our bodies contain an infinite wisdom. I have seen this. Our bodies always know and they never lie. We can lie to ourselves and talk ourselves out of things, but the body always knows. It always speaks the truth. I have noticed in myself that I tend to override my body's knowing. I think I was almost like trained to do this-- to mind other people's comfort over my own. To essentially people please and put my own feelings on a back burner. In fact, I did this just last week. So at my bank job, we have to go into the office now a few times a week. And since I've been doing that and going in, there is one guy that always talks to me as I'm walking to my desk. And lately he started saying things that make me feel uncomfortable in my body. It gives me twinges in my body that feel like warning signs. And it feels like danger. Like the feeling that you get when you're walking alone at night and you feel someone following you. Like you know that feeling you get when you're walking alone at night and you feel someone following you? It's like that. But I've noticed that when I feel these things, instead of responding in a manner that would be appropriate to the feelings, I squash it down. I ignore it. I make myself giggle when my body wants me to say don't say that to me. I don't like this. I'm not comfortable. And then instead this training of 'must be polite at all costs' kicks in and I override my body's natural knowing, its natural protection. And I betray myself for the sake of someone else's comfort. And I'm always so disappointed in myself afterwards. I feel angry. I feel rage even. I feel like a prey animal. And I'm furious that this is even a thing, especially at work. I find myself not wanting to go to work. I find myself wanting to stand up for myself. But every time the fawn response kicks in instead. If you need a refresher on what the fawn response is or what that looks like, you can revisit episode 37 of the podcast called nervous system responses. As survivors of abuse, we tend to be especially disconnected from our bodies. And it was, for many of us, a survival technique. When things would have been too horrifying, too painful, too terrifying. We learn to check out of our bodies to make it bearable. And this is something that I became a pro at in my marriage. I developed the ability to dissociate at will. I can check out of my body whenever I need to. And this protected me. It made it so I could survive things that otherwise might have been too overwhelming. And for that I'm grateful. It has been hard to let go of that survival technique. The brain does not want to let go of the things that it used for survival. It's afraid we'll need them again. And that's why reconnecting to your body can feel so scary and even uncomfortable for us. Like if I try to meditate my skin starts crawling I can tolerate huge amounts of pain. I remember the dentist doing work on me without anything for pain. He was cringing and begging me to let him use something for pain because it was making him squeamish. But I was fine. I could check out and tolerate it. And my brain really resists giving this superpower up because it feels so useful. But part of healing is reconnecting to our bodies. Because healing and moving forward should not involve tolerating so much pain anymore. Part of avoiding bad relationships and moving forward is being present enough and in touch enough with your body so that you can feel and heed those internal warning signs. Because your body will tell you when something is wrong. You just need to listen to it. The body's messages are important. It helps you know what you want and what you like and what you don't want, what you don't like. The body gives us so much valuable information. Looking back, I can see how in order to even end up in my marriage in the first place, I had to override my body's knowing so many times. My body told me the truth. And I talked myself out of it. I overrode it. And the more I overrode it, the quieter it got. The harder it was to even hear my body's voice. Reconnecting is so important. Reconnecting feels dangerous to our systems, but it is actually safer. Connecting to our internal warning system is safety. One trick I recommend to begin reconnecting to your body is the next time you're at a restaurant and reading a menu, feel into your body for what it wants. You don't have to ultimately pick what your body wants, but just let it tell you. Ignore the urges to calorie count and look at the prices. Just focus on reading the menu items and feeling that internal Yes. And the more you practice feeling your body's Yes the more in tune with it you'll become. You also become more in tune with the body's No as well. Start listening to what your body is saying. And know that it is not something that you will become proficient at overnight. I have been working on this for years and as you can see, from what I've shared with you, I still have a long way to go. And that's okay. Right this is a process and I will tell you that I plan on honoring my body's feeling. I have noticed it and I will prepare myself so that the next time, no matter how scary it feels, because I know it will feel scary, I will honor my body's voice and say This makes me uncomfortable. I don't want you to speak to me this way. This is important work and my friends, I'm glad we could do this work together. If you'd like to work on feeling into your body, one on one together, you can sign up for a session with me. The link will be in the show notes. And if you'd like to read more about tuning into your body's internal warning system, I recommend checking out Gavin de Becker's book The Gift of Fear. I'll include a link to that in the show notes as well. All right, my friends, practice feeling into your body and listening to what your body has to say. Until next time, be well
