Should I listen to my mind or my body?
Q: I understand the idea of connecting to what is going on in my body, but how do I know when I should listen to my body or my mind?
I’m sure you’ve experienced this more than once, even before you knew about embodiment: your body says one thing but your head says another. Or maybe there’s two parts of you who feel different ways.
Your mind says let’s get up in the morning and exercise. Then the morning comes and your body says, mmmm let’s stay in bed!
Your body says this job is giving me so much anxiety, I am really stressed out and it’s affecting my health. But your mind says this job is stable and has health care and besides you’ve invested so much into it, it would be foolish to quit.
Your body says I feel so attracted to this person. But your mind says, I don’t know, there are some red flags.
Part of you wants to go back to school to pursue a nursing career. Another part of you wants to open a yoga studio.
This is such a common dilemma! How do you know what to do in this situation?
The body never lies.
As a feminine embodiment practitioner and teacher, I believe this is true - the body never lies.
The body’s experience – the internal felt senses – are always relevant. They are always valid and worth paying attention to. They always have something to say – some truth or wisdom.
However, when it comes to making decisions, of course it’s more nuanced. Even in the examples up above, it’s not obvious what the right decision is.
Maybe you have your own situation in mind right now where the way forward is unclear, and “the body never lies” doesn’t help you know what to do!
Let’s dig in to five things that could be going on when there’s this head-body disagreement and how to handle it.
1. There is a deeper truth that hasn’t been contacted yet.
This is the most important point and the real heart of the matter!
Missing the deeper truth is going to be a factor in nearly every situation where there is internal disagreement.
Below the surface, there is a deeper truth – some clarity or wisdom – that you haven’t been able to contact yet.
Quite often this internal disagreement happens when we are trying to solve the problem at the level of the mind using logic or analysis. We find ourselves going around and around, turning the problem over different ways, talking to different people, making lists of pros and cons, trying to figure it out. We get stuck in analysis paralysis.
So how do we connect with the deeper truth?
By opening to feel what’s present in the body. Whether it’s desire or resistance or confusion. Being with whatever sensation is present is the path to clarity.
It may take some time for this truth to emerge. There may be many layers of emotion, story, tension, or limiting beliefs to move through. But deep down, in this beautiful heart of yours, lives your authentic truth. When you contact your essential self, you discover your clarity and your inner knowing.
2. If you don’t know whether to follow your head or your body, it’s possible you are in the space of the unknown.
It might be that it’s not time for your truth to emerge yet. You might be uncertain or feel this internal disagreement because you are in a time of chaos or the unknown.
This often happens when we go through major growth or transformation, when we are in the process of expanding into some new aspect of ourselves. It can also happen when we hit a rock bottom (like a death, or job loss). Or it could be on a much smaller scale when we are simply still in a decision making process.
In this space, that the decision can seem foggy and unclear. Or it can feel like the rug has been pulled out from underneath. Like the foundations of everything we know have been shaken.
It can be an uncomfortable place to be. The desire is strong to get out of this place! And yet it might not be time yet for your clarity to come. Certain things – internal or external – may need to shift or fall into place before your essential truth can emerge.
When you’re in the space of the unknown, the process can’t be rushed any more than you could hurry a caterpillar’s transformation. The thing to do is to simply be there. Be present with what’s happening in your body, with the sensations of being in the unknown. I’m making it sound easy, but it can be really challenging.
The practice of being with the unknown can show you a lot about yourself. Over time, you might even find you can enjoy the unknown because it can be a liminal space of magic where new possibilities are being created.
Eventually your clarity will start to emerge from the depths of your heart.
3. If your mind and body don’t agree, it’s possible your mind is stuck playing out stories, limiting beliefs, habits, or programming that aren’t really yours.
It’s possible that your body may know the truth, but your mind is stuck holding onto stuff that isn’t really yours. Your mind might struggle or resist your body’s truth, or even be unable to admit it because it’s carrying so many “shoulds,” fears, or limiting beliefs.
For example:
I should stay married even though I’m miserable in this relationship.
I should invite Uncle Rick to Thanksgiving even though he crosses my boundaries every time he comes.
I have to work myself to exhaustion because you can’t get ahead if you don’t work hard.
This one is tricky because sometimes these beliefs and stories are so deeply ingrained it can be really hard to feel your essential truth underneath them.
Even once you understand that something is there that’s not aligned with your essential truth, the reality of leaving it behind can be complicated. Some of these beliefs are wrapped up in family, religion, or culture that can span many generations.
What you can do is keep meeting the truth of your body’s sensations and experience until your truth and clarity arise. Pushing away your body’s sensations and reactions doesn’t make them go away, it just prolongs the discomfort you feel. Being present with what is true in your body allows you to unwind the layers of tension that are hiding your essential truth.
A funny thing happens once you begin to fully embody your authentic truth: your life and relationships shift, sometimes in seemingly magical ways.
The truth you embody is like a thermostat – your external environment is created based on how the thermostat is set. What you embody has a resonance that ripples outward, and your life come into harmony with whatever you are resonating.
4. If your mind and body are saying different things, it’s possible the mind is keeping the body safe.
So far we’ve mostly talked about when the body knows something the mind doesn’t, but it’s also possible that the mind knows better than the body.
This is another way of saying your healthy inner masculine is looking out for your inner feminine.
The healthy inner masculine creates structures that honor and support the feminine.
This is how we are able to get out of bed to exercise even though it feels good to lay in. It’s healthy for our inner masculine to take care of our inner feminine in this way, otherwise we might stay in our pleasure all the time and get nothing done!
Even in this situation, the right decision of your healthy masculine arises from a deeper truth. And that deeper truth comes from the feminine depth in your body.
When your body wants to lay in bed all morning but your mind says it’s time to get up to exercise, which one do you listen to?
You need to contact your deeper truth to know the answer.
If you’re just forcing yourself to hit the gym because you think you “should” for whatever reason, but there’s no depth behind it, you’ll find discipline and motivation difficult, and probably eventually fall off the proverbial wagon.
But if the masculine structure of an exercise routine arises from your feminine depth, then you have a purpose, and a why to propel you forward into action.
Your deeper truth might be that you want to exercise so you can run and play with your kids, or you desire to feel energetic and healthy. Whatever it is, that deeper truth fuels your healthy masculine discipline and gets you out of bed.
Or your deeper truth might be that a structured exercise routine isn’t aligned for you right now. Your feminine depth might be telling you that free flowing dance when you feel like it is what you deeply desire. Or a gentle walk in the afternoon.
Your healthy masculine can then create the structures that honor *this* feminine depth that is your truth, and let go of the idea that you have to hit the gym first thing in the morning.
5. When the head says yes but the body says no.
What if your feminine depth is in place, but the truth of your body today is that you’re exhausted?
Do you still let your mind run the show and make you get up to exercise?
Quite often we do just that.
We override our body’s signals because of the “shoulds.”
In this case, it’s not our healthy masculine taking care of our feminine. This the toxic masculine we are carrying that’s overriding our feminine. The shadow masculine that makes us feel guilty and beat ourselves up if we don’t measure up to his unrealistic standards of productivity and performance.
Unwinding the toxic masculine and deconditioning our inner patriarchy is big work we are all going through to some extent right now at this particular time in human evolution. It’s happening in the collective, and it’s happening within ourselves.
Most of us have spent a lifetime being conditioned to override our bodies’ signals. Being taught that our bodies are unreliable and unpredictable, or even dangerous. This is especially true if you’re inhabiting a female or female-presenting body.
How many times have you dishonored your body’s no, or her boundaries? We’ve all allowed this to happen, we’ve all done it to ourselves. We’ve all ignored that little voice inside that said this isn’t right, and gone ahead anyway. We’ve all had times when we didn’t even hear that little voice until much later when we realized we were a ‘no’ to whatever was happening.
Learning to honor your body’s signals is a big part of becoming an embodied woman!
You have to first become skilled at hearing your body’s signals, and sensitive to your internal felt senses. That is where your truth and clarity arise from.
And the more you practice listening to and honoring your body, the more sensitive you become, so that you’re able to hear what’s in alignment with your body moment to moment, and be empowered to act from that place of truth, instead of only realizing later that something was happening that wasn’t ok for you.
So how do you know when to listen to your mind or your body?
Now we can come full circle back to the first point as the heart of the answer to this question – there is always a deeper truth, and this inner knowing arises from being sensitive to whatever is present in your body.
The body never lies. It’s more nuanced than that, but underneath all the layers is the essential truth of your beautiful heart. It’s from that feminine depth that you gain the clarity to move forward into action!
