The Faulty Wisdom of the Faulty Body

discerning somatic wisdom from mental interpretation.

“Listen to your body”

I’ve been troubled lately by the growing realization that my body, in fact, does not have all the correct answers. Even when I look at that sentence, I resist its implication—I’ve been working so hard for so long to listen to my body, to rebuild trust and communication with it after divorcing myself from its cues. The advice “listen to your body” is pretty standard, as is the practice of using how you’re currently feeling to generate decisions and explain why you’re saying yes or no. I do really think that becoming more attuned to your body and its signals is an important venture, and that living more from the body instead of the mind is generally a good thing. Bodies contain an enormous amount of wisdom, and if we can tune in to that wisdom, we are bound to navigate life with a lot less resistance.

The catch is that it is very difficult to isolate anything; in this case, the body from the mind (and everything else that surrounds us). Everything we experience is necessarily and inextricably connected: the messages of the body (feelings and sensations) cannot be isolated from how the mind interprets them. Or at least, it is difficult; I haven’t figured out how to reliably do that.

It may be the work of a lifetime to learn to discern between body wisdom and mental interpretation. Also, sometimes the body isn’t wise at all; it can be very reactive, and stuck in the past or the future. The feelings or sensations in your body are not really meant to be trusted at face value: they’re usually only little pieces of a greater picture of clarity, meant to be considered over time, or in relation to something else. If you listen too closely to every little deviance from feeling “good” you have, and try to figure every feeling out, you’ll probably go crazy.

I’m not ready or willing to give up on the idea that the body holds answers—I think it’s still true. You can certainly learn what yes and no feel like. But, not all of the body’s signals are true, and they don’t all mean something. Bodies are strange and faulty, and the way our minds and moods interpret what’s going on is not always accurate. You could have a stomachache because you’re anxious about a party later that will turn out to be a great time, or because your body is trying to tell you not to go. Or you might just be hungry. It’s about how you interpret the signal, and how you relate to your interpretation.

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It feels silly to admit, but I really have gone around believing for long periods of time that the thoughts I enjoyed were “flashes of intuition” coming from the wisdom of my body. Makes sense: if you want to believe something, your mind will do a very good job at finding evidence and creating reasons to believe it.

The problem is, my mind creates many terrible thoughts, many of which are untrue. When I have compulsive thoughts and subsequent feelings about people I love dying or something similarly terrifying, the last thing I want to do is label that a “flash of intuition.” When I’m tired or underfed or in a sour mood, my thoughts are especially untamed and awful: they do not reflect my body’s wisdom, but rather a state of mind fueled by feeling physically low.

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Ram Dass says the two most important things of spiritual practice is to “1. Quiet the mind… 2. Relax the body.” To the extent that you are able to do these things, I think they work pretty well to get you somewhere closer to your relative truth and peace. I think it’s less that the body holds your answers than your body being a conduit for intuitive wisdom that can help you live a life that feels most rewarding and satisfying (etc.) to you.

The wisdom of my body, as I experience it, doesn’t really involve words or thoughts—it does not mean trusting what I heard in my mind. Trusting my body means trusting myself to live in my body, here now, rather than trying to figure it out.

The body is not to be cracked like a code, but felt and experienced. And yes, you should listen to your body, mostly, along with the awareness that the body’s job is not to tell you what you want to hear, and that what you hear is often the neuroses from your mind; not wisdom at all.

Maggie