Unapologetically listening to our bodies

Trusting yourself again isn’t something we talk about enough in therapy. Not just boundaries or coping skills or communication—but the thing underneath all of that: how do you actually know what’s right for you?

Not what sounds good. Not what keeps everyone else comfortable. Not what avoids the awkward conversation. I mean you. Your body. Your gut. That quiet inner voice that says, “this feels right”… or “absolutely not.”

We throw around the word intuition a lot, but for many people, especially those who have experienced trauma or spent years putting themselves last, that word doesn’t always land. Being told to “just trust your gut” can feel frustrating at best and impossible at worst. Like, which part of me am I supposed to trust? The anxious part? The overthinking part? The part that keeps choosing the same patterns over and over?

So instead of intuition, I like to think about it as an internal compass. Your body, no matter the damage or the pain we have put it through is still feeding you information.  Information that is vital to being able to love, feel, express and learn as we are meant to.  Telling us who is safe and who is not.  Being able to trust our intuition or our internal compass, our body in all of its wonder is magical.  Embrace with me the pure appreciation for that wonder and enjoy the magic it brings with them some mystery. 

The truth is, most people are used to ignoring themselves. Saying yes when they mean no. Staying quiet to avoid conflict. Convincing themselves something is fine when it really isn’t. I see this often, clients who will go to great lengths to avoid confrontation, even if it means completely denying their own needs. I totally get it. Sometimes it really does feel easier to disappoint yourself than risk upsetting someone else. But self-abandonment has a cost. It just shows up later, usually as resentment, burnout, or that low-level feeling that something is off and you can’t quite name why.

Most people weren’t born disconnected from themselves. At some point, they learned to override that internal compass. Sometimes it was subtle. A trusted adult saying, “you’re fine,” “don’t be dramatic,” “just do it,” or “that’s not a big deal.” And even if it was a big deal, you learned pretty quickly that your internal no didn’t matter. Other times, it wasn’t subtle at all. Choices were taken away. Your voice wasn’t safe to use. Listening to yourself may have actually created more problems instead of protecting you.

So you adapted. You got really good at reading other people, anticipating reactions, and choosing what felt safest instead of what felt true. And that worked for a while. But eventually, that disconnection shows up in relationships that don’t feel right, in decisions that look good on paper but feel off in your body, in that quiet, persistent sense that something is missing.

This isn’t a failure. It’s a learned pattern. Which means it can be unlearned.

Part of that process is getting curious about what a yes or a no actually feels like in your body, in your belly, in your throat, your toes even. Not the logical answer, not the one that makes sense, but the felt sense. A yes often feels open, steady, or grounded. A no might feel tight, heavy, or like your body is quietly bracing. And no doesn’t always feel confident or empowering. Sometimes it feels inconvenient or uncomfortable. It’s still a no.  What a confusing fucking thing right?!?

One simple practice I come back to often is reconnecting with what truth feels like in the body. Say out loud, “my name is ___” and “my age is ___.” Pause and notice what happens internally. Then say something that isn’t true, the wrong name or the wrong age, and notice again. Most people can feel a shift. Truth tends to land a little more solid, a little more settled. That’s your body recognizing alignment. It’s a reminder that your body does know the difference, even if you’ve been out of practice listening.

One of the hardest parts of this work is accepting that discomfort is unavoidable. You don’t get to skip it, you just get to choose your version of it. You can choose the discomfort of staying quiet, ignoring your needs, and keeping the peace while slowly building resentment. Or you can choose the discomfort of speaking up, setting boundaries, and saying the thing that feels hard in the moment but leaves you feeling more aligned afterward. Both are uncomfortable, but only one builds self-trust.

If you’ve been feeling disconnected from yourself, there’s nothing wrong with you. You adapted. You learned how to read the room instead of reading yourself. You learned what was safest, not what was truest. And now, you get to come back to yourself slowly, gently, and sometimes a little uncomfortably.

Your intuition isn’t gone. Your inner compass isn’t broken. It’s still there, waiting for you to listen again. And the more you do, the clearer it becomes.

Be the adult you needed—the one who didn’t talk you out of your no or your feelings just because they were uncomfortable.