Have you ever gotten weak at the knees and felt like your body couldn’t hold you up? Like you couldn’t even breathe? And the feeling came out of nowhere?
One of those experiences when your body had such an immediate and visceral response before your mind even had a chance to catch up? Something so intense and physical that you felt the truth of it before you could think about it?
Well I have. I’ve felt this way three times in my life.
And it took these three different moments of feeling completely weak at the knees and gasping for air for me to realize the path that I needed to take.
More importantly, my body told me what was right and what steps I needed to take next.
The body can hold so much knowledge, so much more than most of us realize or even feel. It speaks to you even when you’re not listening. Sometimes we try to mute our body. We ignore the little messages. Some try to medicate it. Others might try to get it to do what our brains want it to do. How dare the body tell us that we need to turn right when we thought our lives depended on turning left?
And in those cases, the body just gets more and more aggressive, like it’s saying, “You’re going to sit down and listen to me!” I love that, and I find it so fascinating. That’s when things get real!
Part of the work that I do in the Salimpour program is teaching my students how to listen to their bodies. To tap into those deep sensations so that they can use them to be honest and real on stage, but also honest and real in their lives.
We’re really trying to listen to what our body is trying to tell us.
And as I grow older, I’ve been through so many different phases of my body. Now, I’m getting to know my body as a 50-year-old body. It’s so much wiser now. And I know how to listen so much better than I did 10, 20, or 30 years ago.
At the end of the day, my body is way smarter than I am. Every day, I’m really trying to connect to pathways, letting my body take the lead. Where are all my cells pointing me right now? And I’m doing my best to follow.
So, I want to ask you: Are you truly listening to your body? Take a moment and tap into what you’re feeling. What is your body trying to tell you? Perhaps it’s been trying to tell you something for a long time… you just need to be quiet enough hear it.