Your Body Has the Answers
Uplevel your self care by becoming an expert in you
“Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.” — Buddha
Self-care advice is everywhere, do you ever become dizzy with information overload and wonder, “how do I discern what is best for me?”
There is an art to building my inner knowing, which makes self-care a transformative experience. Below is my journey of discovery.
In this human life, with these imperfect, ever-changing bodies, we have two choices: pay now or pay later. We can pay now with effort, attention, and thoughtful choices with our whole-being wellness or pay later with new or compounding health issues, emotional turmoil, and relational chaos.
To experience our best life — body, mind, and soul — we must be awake to what we need to thrive versus simply survive.
How-to books and articles on the interwebs are overflowing with ‘self-care’ to-dos.
One friend of mine takes a nightly bath, another loves monthly massages. All wonderful and worthy habits and rhythms, however, one key element is often missing from the physical act of ‘self-care.’
What I see over and over again as a movement therapist, this missing element is what matters most, especially in those with persistent physical pain.
What’s this missing piece? A tenderhearted compassionate, sense of caring for oneself.
Embodiment is Key
Science tells us the doorway to knowing ourselves in a deeper way is to feel and sense our inner landscape. Simply put, we must become more embodied. Dr. Hilary McBride, author of The Wisdom of Your Body, defines this as “a coming home — a remembering of our wholeness, and a reunion with the fullness of ourselves.”
And in that remembering, Hillary explains, “you’ll find that your body already knows the answers about how to live a full, present, connected, and healthy life.” I like to think of this as a inner wisdom, an inner knowing that comes from soulful listening.
As a recovering perfectionist myself, for years I lived in a place of almost non-existent self-compassion. After somatic-based healing and a good amount of EMDR-infused therapy, I slowly began to realize self-compassion was the foundation of what I needed to find freedom from my wounds and sorrows.
Truly caring for myself and building a deeper embodied sense of inner wisdom was what progressed my healing journey most. And not just the healing of my physical body, but also the healing of my heart and soul that were being chipped away at by a nasty inner critic and indifferent tone.
And one of the many silver linings of my personal experience, is that now I have the ability to easily spot this lack of self-compassion in others. It might be in a disappointed sigh or unsupportive narrative.
Building Your Inner Knowing
The beautiful truth is, this tenderhearted embodied sense of compassion can be learned or in some cases re-learned. And as you cultivate your inner wisdom, you begin to sense what it is you need most in this moment, in this season, in this circumstance, in this stage of life. Ultimately, you become an expert in you.
Caring for yourself becomes a personal experience and not something you do because it worked for your friend or so-and-so wrote about in their New York Times Best Sellers List book. You become an expert in you through compassionate, tenderhearted embodied awareness, curiosity, and exploration.
It might look like noticing that you need to make space for some rest and restoration before hitting the wall of burnout. Or maybe it’s rolling out your yoga mat for a gentle class in place of your typical power style. Maybe you make the un-fun decision to protect your sleep by skipping the late night out for drinks with friends. Or you step into an uncomfortable conversation to resolve a conflict to restore a felt-sense of peace.
You begin to listen to your inner wisdom, “to live a full, present, connected, and healthy life.” Open-heartedly. Compassionately. Tenderly. Minus any judgment or harsh words or expectations.
This is what turns your checklist of obligatory, rote practices of ‘self-care’ into a deep transformative experience for your body, mind, and spirit.
Today, right now, what is that for you? Take a few smooth breaths and listen.
