Body Talk

How do you talk to your body and when? As a massage therapist, I hear a lot of body talk and am hyper aware of how I speak to my own body on a regular basis.

Often, I hear clients say “there is something wrong with my back” or shoulder or fill in the blank with the problem du jour. Sometimes, it’s the bum knee. Or the bad shoulder. This is obviously a common way we speak about pain. If something is causing us trouble, there’s something wrong with it. Right?

Well, I don’t believe the body is ever wrong. There is not one single part of your body that is wrong. Even the parts in pain or experiencing illness. Even the parts you think might offend someone. Not a single part of your body is wrong.

Now, this is all semantics.

Or is it? The language we use to talk about something can really flavor our experience of it. Long ago, I listened to an episode of Radiolab once talking about the relationship between language and our ability to see something. Their focus was on the color blue. There seems to be no evidence of the perception of the color blue until there was a word to describe it. It didn’t show up in language or paintings, it’s not even mentioned in the Odyssey. You can listen to that episode here Radiolab: Why Isn’t the Sky Blue. It’s well worth a listen. Anyway, I found that episode so interesting, because language and naming something can truly create our experience of that thing.

Including our body.

If we talk about our body like it’s wrong, will it ever feel right? And when it feels fine, will we even notice? Will it feel real or valid?

I’ve started trying to redirect my clients to focus on what feels good in their body. Not as a way to ignore the pain; Pain can be a very good indicator that a certain area needs a particular kind of attention. But rather, as a way to validate the body, so that they can tune in more easily to what the body is asking for and where.

I also try to be very conscious about how I speak about what I’m noticing in a person’s body. Very easily, a client can take what I tell them and turn it into their reality. Ever notice how a massage therapist will tell you “you hold all your stress in your neck”? And then what happens after? Every time you feel stress, your neck hurts or you have a headache. “Your back is so tight right here” becomes “my back is always tight right here”. Language can either inhibit or enable our ability to relax and live pleasantly in our bodies.

This obviously takes a lot of practice. Changing how we talk to ourselves is a huge challenge, reversing what is sometimes a lifetime internal narrative. I even struggle sometimes to redirect the language I use to describe parts of my body that I didn’t love for a long time. I am still clearing the energy on those parts of my incredible body that I sullied with traumatic language and emotional pain for decades of my life. Restructuring the way we talk about ourselves, our bodies, takes time and isn’t perfect.

When we validate the body, we can hear it better. We can see it better. When we validate, hear and see our bodies more clearly, we can give to ourselves more easily, create more of the life we want to live and enjoy a fuller experience of living.