A new language

There's lots of talk about listening to our bodies. I hear the talk on television about workout intensity...I hear the talk in yoga class... I hear the talk among life coaches. I have been trying to listen to my body for a while but just this week I realized how amazing it is to really hear what my body is saying. It's as if I have been listening in one language and my body has been communicating in another, and this week, finally, I have begun to learn the language of my body.

In the past, I have listened to overt signals from my body. My toes hurt. My calves are cramping. I feel blocked in my stomach. These were real signals and my body communicated effectively, like a sailor waving bold semaphore flags. The signals were hard to miss. Sometimes they were easy to interpret (semaphore isn't that complicated) but other times I was off track.

What I have learned to hear over the past weeks is a deep knowing. My body is using more subtle semiotics. For example, I woke one morning feeling normal (which for me includes a tinge of anxiety). I went about my morning tasks and as I was walking from the kitchen to the dining room, I felt a deep sense of peace. I distinctly noticed it and observed it and briefly wondered why. Shortly after, a family member phoned with good news.

On Friday, I struggled through yoga class. I had to sit out poses. I turned red. Tears eked out of my eyes. I realized that there was a message in the signals my body was sending me but I focused so much on just getting through class that I did not try to understand what the signals were. Today I learned that, at the exact time, I was in yoga class, the final piece of settling my mother's estate fell into place.

That our bodies hold wisdom, that our bodies communicate physical pain, that our bodies hold memories of past injury, is becoming more accepted. My experience bears this out. As I have learned to listen to my body, through therapy and through activity, I have released much of my past. Perhaps, the deep knowing language is available to me now only because I have unclogged the transmission highways over the past nine years. This language of knowing is new to me It is nice to imagine that this knowing is a reward for hard work. I am like a first grader reading a primer, sounding out words. There is inherent joy. Drawing conclusions about why I have learned a new way of reading my body now is premature and unnecessary. I am just grateful for being and communicating.