Your Sensations Are NOT Complaints. They Are Information

What if our bodily sensations are exactly what our body wants us to know? The pit in your stomach might be a signal that you feel uneasy around someone. A clouded mind could be your body’s way of telling you it’s time to leave a situation. Anxiety rising in your chest and throat might be a sign that you’re longing to express yourself honestly.

As I often tell my clients, “I can help you regulate around most things, but should you?” We live in a culture that fears feeling anything but calm, neutral, and centered. Women, in particular, are socialized to be demure, prioritize others’ needs, and avoid making waves. But constant restraint and contraction in our bodies send important signals to our autonomic nervous system. It’s our job to learn how to listen to them without turning away.

Regulation Is Not Always About Calming

The idea that regulation means being calm is misleading. True autonomic regulation has little to do with achieving a calm state and everything to do with developing flexibility and responsiveness to internal and external stimuli. This flexibility is born from noticing, naming, and responding to our body’s internal signals, rather than turning away from them.

What Helps

When we can detect the early signs of a threat response – which I call a sense of energy shifting into overdrive (hyperarousal) or underdrive (hypoarousal) – it’s time to investigate how that shows up in our bodies. Instead of running away or trying to eliminate these sensations, ask yourself:

• What are your body’s first signals of these internal shifts?

• How do you know?

• What changes in your sensory body?

• What changes in your thoughts?

• What happens if you let your body know you’re listening, rather than chasing its messages away?

By staying with our sensations and feelings, rather than trying to regulate them away, we can develop a new sense of trust in our bodies. This approach allows us to cultivate interoceptive literacy and respond to our internal signals in a more compassionate and informed way. From this place, you can then assess with greater clarity what your body really wants you to know about these moments.

Have you ever wondered why so many women feel divided, conflicted, vulnerable, disconnected, or even filled with shame and blame toward their bodies? How do we move from being embodied, living, breathing, sensing, fully connected individuals to feeling divided, disconnected, and shame-filled toward our bodies?

We live in a mind-body-divided world, one in which bodies are devalued relative to the thinking mind. As the mind-body division collides with the image-obsessed world, we get pulled further away from our body’s truth, its nature. The more we stray from our internal, sensory-based, intuitive understanding, the more disconnected we become from our body.

Body disconnection is a global tragedy perceived as an individual one. When it persists throughout our lifespan, it can permeate our entire lives and become so mentally and physically ingrained that we start to believe that the thoughts we have, the feelings we experience, and the sense of disconnection and unease we feel in our bodies are our fault.

Without comprehending the reasons behind this widespread issue, you may continue to blame yourself for the ongoing disappointment and distress you feel with your body, leading to an endless cycle of searching for what’s wrong and trying to fix it. Many women find themselves trapped in an endless loop, seeking everything from the right foods and body size to optimal health, strength, energy, and the latest strategies for anti-aging or illness prevention. Even if we aren’t actively seeking solutions, we are constantly bombarded with messages urging us to make our bodies desirable to others rather than focusing on what feels good to us.

We lost touch with the nature of our bodies, long before we were born, when the mind-body divide or Dualism became a cultural paradigm. This dualism of mind and body, also known as the Cartesian split, is attributed to the French philosopher René Descartes, widely known for his declaration “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito, ergo sum). Descartes’ theory proposed that the mind (or soul) and the body are fundamentally different substances: the mind is immaterial and responsible for thought, while the body is material and governed by physical laws.

Prior to the seventeenth century, bodies were viewed as spiritual entities. Bodies were believed to be a connected informative source of sensation, reason, and wisdom, with the soul or spirit within the body seen as the motivating force behind physiological functions, cognition, and reasoning. This perspective aligned with ancient spiritual traditions and Indigenous cultures worldwide.

Viewing your body as an object is a direct result of the dualistic, reductionist view that encourages us to observe and treat our bodies as objects instead of as intimate parts of ourselves. Neuroscience, trauma research, and consciousness studies now validate and respect what the great mystics, Indigenous cultures, yogis, and spiritual teachers of the past have long understood: Our bodies and minds are deeply interconnected.

We can allow this connection within to come alive each and every day, in the smallest of ways, by redirecting our attention inward. Take the most mundane daily routines and habits you are already doing and start turning them inward to observe what happens inside. When you have a negative, scary or self-critical thought—what happens inside? Notice where and what shifts. When you are enjoying a moment—what happens inside? When you are sad, lonely—what do you notice inside as those emotions shift your internal experience?

Reconnecting with your body to allow the mind and body to work together, as they naturally are intended to do, is not as hard as you may think it is. That’s just it—it requires less thinking and more sensing, noticing, and feeling.

Body image is not just about what we see; it’s a complex mix of feelings, thoughts, memories, associations, and sensations that our brain processes and filters. The parietal lobe plays a crucial role in this process, attempting to make sense of the information it receives. Damage to this area of the brain can lead to confusion and distorted perceptions of one’s body shape.

The Neuroscience Behind Body Image

Research led by neuroscientist Henrik Ehrsson at University College London in 2010 found that the parietal cortex is highly active when we experience illusions about our body size. In one study, volunteers’ brains were scanned while they were presented with an illusion that made them think their waists were shrinking, known as the “Pinocchio illusion.” This research supports the idea that our brains compute our body size by integrating signals from the skin, muscles, and joints, as well as visual cues.

The Cultural Pressure to Shrink

Our culture often perpetuates the idea that we need to shrink our bodies to fit in and belong. This message can be particularly damaging for women, who are often socialized to prioritize a certain body shape or size from a young age. This cultural pressure can lead to a sense of disconnection from our bodies, known as disembodiment.

Disembodiment and Embodiment

Disembodiment is a state of feeling disconnected from our bodies, like our minds have drifted away. On the other hand, embodiment means reconnecting with our bodily sensations and experiencing our existence as a whole self. When we focus on our bodily sensations, we can calmly perceive ourselves from the inside out, without judgment.

The Power of Sensory Experience

Sensory communication plays a crucial role in body image perception. When we tune into our bodily sensations, such as our heartbeat, breath, and muscle tension, we can experience a sense of connection and calm. For example, consider moments of strength, joy, or laughter, where our bodies respond with physical sensations like flushing, thumping, or ease of breathing. In these moments, our mind quiets, and our senses heighten, allowing us to experience a tangible sense of connection.

A New Approach to Body Image

Next time you experience a difficult body image day, try tuning into your bodily sensations. Invest in your sensory experience, and notice what you see. By shifting your focus from visual cues to bodily sensations, you can cultivate a more compassionate and accurate perception of yourself.