I want to talk about something that sounds simple but isn’t.

Listen to your body.

You’ve probably heard it a hundred times. From a therapist, a yoga class, an Instagram post, a well-meaning friend. And if you’re like most people, some part of you quietly thinks: I don’t actually know what that means.

That’s not a personal failure. I think most of us were never taught.

There’s a reason for that, and it goes deeper than any one family or any one generation.

Our ancestors understood something about the body that modern life has slowly moved away from. Ritual. Ceremony. Movement. Sound. These were body-first practices — ways of knowing and processing that didn’t start with language. They started with the hands, the feet, the breath, the hips swaying in rhythm. The body led. Words followed when they were ready.

But as the world shifted toward productivity, efficiency, and cognitive achievement, the body got quieter in our lives. Not because it stopped speaking. Because we stopped being taught to listen. The more we were rewarded for thinking, analyzing, and performing, the more we learned to lead with the brain. And the more we led with the brain, the further we drifted from the body.

This isn’t about intelligence being the enemy. You can be deeply cerebral and deeply connected to your body. As a doctor of psychology, I live in both of those worlds. But the truth is, our culture has overwhelmingly favored one over the other. And that has cost us something.

Here’s what I want you to notice, though. You already listen to your body more than you think.

Think about hunger.

Sometimes it’s 3:00 in the afternoon and your stomach tells you it’s time to eat. You didn’t look at the clock. You didn’t decide to be hungry. Your body told you, and you listened.

But sometimes it’s 3:00 and you’re deep in something — work, caregiving, the never-ending list — and your body says the same thing, and you override it. You push through. You keep going. And then at 9:00 at night, your body catches up. You feel sick, shaky, depleted. Not because the signal wasn’t there. Because you chose your thoughts over your body’s truth.

And sometimes the opposite happens. It’s 3:00 and you’re not hungry at all, even though the clock says you should be. Your body is telling you something different than your schedule. And if you’re paying attention, you notice.

That’s listening with your body. You’re already doing it. The question isn’t whether you know how. The question is whether you trust it when it speaks — or whether you override it because the world taught you that thinking should come first.

And when we override it too many times, something shifts. The body gets quieter. Not because the feelings are gone. Because it learned they weren’t welcome. It stops sending the signal — the same way your body stops sending hunger signals when you don’t eat. It’s a kind of emotional starvation. And it’s worth sitting with, because that’s where so much of our disconnection begins. More on that soon.

This is where it connects to how we parent.

When your child is upset and you ask, “What’s wrong?” — that’s leading with language. And sometimes it works. But sometimes your child doesn’t have the words yet, or the words don’t match what their body is actually holding.

What I try to do with my daughter is simpler. I prompt her to notice what’s happening in her body before I ask her to name a feeling. I might say, “Where do you feel that right now?” or “Does anything feel tight or heavy or buzzy?” Sometimes she can point to it. Sometimes she can’t. And that’s okay. I’ll offer a few options — “Maybe your chest? Maybe your stomach?” — and sometimes she’ll say, “Oh yeah, that’s it.” Sometimes she’ll say nothing.

The point isn’t accuracy. It’s awareness. It’s building the habit of checking in with the body first, before the brain takes over and tries to sort everything into words.

Over time, that awareness becomes something she can trust. Not because I taught her feelings. Because I helped her notice that her body already knows them.

And this is what I want to offer you too.

You don’t have to become a different person to listen to your body. You don’t need a meditation practice or a somatic certification. You just need to start noticing what’s already there — the way you already notice hunger, or exhaustion, or the feeling of walking into a room where something is off.

Your body has been speaking your whole life. The work isn’t learning a new skill. It’s unlearning the habit of overriding what you already feel.

A Small River & Ember Practice The Body-First Check-In Try this once today. Not during a hard moment. Just in an ordinary one. 1. Pause before words. Before you name what you’re feeling, stop. Put your hand on your chest or your stomach. Just notice what’s happening in your body right now. Tightness? Warmth? Heaviness? Buzzing? Nothing at all? All of those are information. 2. Let the body answer first. Instead of asking yourself “How do I feel?” try: “What does my body know right now?” You might not get a word. You might get a sensation. Stay with it for a few breaths. 3. Offer the same to your child. The next time your child seems unsettled, try leading with the body instead of a question. “Where do you feel that?” or “Does anything in your body feel different right now?” No pressure to answer. Just an invitation to notice. Then, quietly: “We’re together.” This is how we begin to rebuild something our culture moved away from. Through small, ordinary moments of paying attention to what the body already knows.

If you want one line to carry with you this week: “Listen with your body first.”

For the Grown-Up Heart

Sit with these — not to answer right away, but to notice what comes up:

•  When my body sends a signal, what do I usually do? Listen, override, or explain it away?

•  What is one thing my body has been telling me this week that I haven’t fully heard?

•  When I was a child, was I encouraged to notice what my body felt, or was I taught to lead with words?

•  What would it look like to give my child permission to not have words yet?

P.S. If the last letter about the outside not always matching the inside stayed with you, this one picks up where it left off. That letter was about not naming too fast. This one is about what to do instead — listen deeper, with the whole body, before the words arrive. We’ll keep building on this. Stay close.

A gentle invitation: Hit reply and tell me — when was the last time your body told you something and you actually listened?

With warmth,

Tenisha

River & Ember

Born of a Mother and Daughter’s Rhythm