honoring body – The Healing Modalities

It’s your partner.

How many of us really know how to connect with and listen to our body’s signals and messages?

Most of us didn’t learn how to do this. In fact, we were often taught the opposite:
—to push through when we’re tired,
—to ignore pain in favor of productivity,
—to treat our bodies more like machines than living partners in our lives.

We learn to override, dismiss, and silence the messages our body sends us—until, sometimes, it’s too late.

For me, it took emergency open-heart surgery to understand just how disconnected I had become from my body. My recovery became the beginning of a deeper relationship with it—one built on listening, respect, and care. I realized that not knowing how to honor my body is part of what brought me to that crisis point in the first place.

I used to feel guilty for resting when I didn’t feel well, like I was being “lazy” or “irresponsible.” But guilt while resting only adds stress, not healing. I was resisting what my body needed—and calling it productivity.

Resting while feeling guilty isn’t actually rest. It’s conflict. One part of us says, “Slow down.” Another part says, “Keep going.” And while we lie there physically still, our minds race, criticizing us for not doing more. No wonder we don’t feel restored.

Sometimes, it’s not just discomfort with resting—it’s discomfort with being alone with ourselves. The thoughts we’ve avoided by staying busy suddenly bubble up when we slow down.

But what if we met that moment with compassion instead of criticism?
What if we said to ourselves: “I am choosing to rest and care for myself. This matters. There is nothing more important in this moment.”

This applies beyond rest too—it applies to what we eat, how we move, how we hydrate, how we breathe, and how we speak to ourselves. Every choice is an opportunity to treat our body as a friend rather than a servant.

I began asking myself simple but powerful questions:
➡ At what cost?
➡ What do I need right now to care for myself?

Sometimes the answer was water, or a slower pace, or canceling plans after a long day. Sometimes it was simply pausing to breathe and remember that I’m not a machine.

The truth is: when we ignore our bodies, we disregard ourselves.
Caring for your body is not indulgence—it’s responsibility. It’s a form of self-respect. It’s a daily act of honoring your life.

We so often long for love, care, and appreciation from others. But are we offering those things to ourselves?

In the past, I thought that pushing past my body’s needs was being responsible—getting things done, being strong, earning rest. But now I know: true responsibility includes caring for the vessel that carries us through this life.

When we start treating our body like a partner—not a problem to manage, or a machine to control—we begin to experience a whole new relationship with ourselves. A more respectful one. A more loving one. A more sustainable and healthy one.

Your turn:
– What might change if you treated your body as a partner, not a servant?
– What can you do today to connect more with your body’s wisdom?
– Are you willing to pause and ask: “At what cost?” and “What do I need to care for myself in this moment?”

What happens when you start listening?

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Slow down and listen.

What’s the difference between sensations and feelings/emotions in our bodies?

Sensations are physical feelings: a cramp, muscle soreness, tingling, an itch, a stiff neck, hunger, thirst, a bruise, or anything that could be called “painful” is a sensation in the body. Sensations in the body travel to our brain and we recognize them as physical sensations, like pain, discomfort, cold, hot, etc.

Feelings and emotions (I use these interchangeably) are vibrations in the body that are caused by our thoughts. For example, happy, sad, anxious, excited, overwhelmed, worried, scared. Our brains create these vibrations by thinking thoughts.

The way these both work together sometimes goes like this:

We feel a sensation in our body that is “a little painful” and a thought might be, “That feels weird” and then the feeling/emotion it creates could be anxious, worried, or scared. And because we don’t want to feel that way, we might dismiss the emotion along with the sensation. We return to whatever we’re doing or working on, and if we feel the sensation again, we continue to dismiss it as something we’re too busy to be concerned about.

Eventually, our body is like, “Hey, I was trying to get your attention earlier, but you didn’t listen. Now I’m going to shout at you so you really hear me and pay attention.” This is when the pain or sensation gets very intense to the point where we can’t ignore it and may even need a trip to the emergency department to handle it.

What often is more likely for most of us is that we’re so unaccustomed to listening to our bodies that we don’t hear the smaller signals at all. Until they’re big signals.

Before it gets to that point–and sometimes it may be unavoidable because our bodies remain mostly miraculous mysteries, even to most doctors–we can learn to listen to and attend to our bodies. But first, we have to be willing to attend and feel and listen.

I’ll offer what I do and it may feel strange or “woo-woo” at first, so feel free to adjust to what feels comfortable for you, if you’d like to start connecting with your body more:

When I feel a sensation that I label as uncomfortable or even painful in my body, I check-in with it. I’ll put my attention on the area, breathe, and silently inquire,”Hi my dear, I feel that and I hear you. What message do you have for me?” And just be with that area of my body for a bit.

Maybe the pain or discomfort will subside or maybe it will remain. I just attend to that area for a few moments and see what there is to see. And then later at night before I go to sleep, I’ll spend more time with it, if needed. I’m also open to calling my doctor, acupuncturist, or massage therapist, depending on what I think I need.

This is not to say that we need to be overly worried about every sensation in our body. But we can be open to attending to and connecting with our bodies more. To listen with care.

When we feel pain or discomfort in our body, we usually turn away from it, dismiss it, ignore it, disregard it. Or we “put it off” until we have time to “deal” with it.

Our bodies are our allies and companions. We wouldn’t be able to do almost all of what we do in our lives without our bodies. They are our partners and deserve our care and attention, just like we’d give to a companion or partner we love.

When we can start to attend to our bodily sensations even more, we’ll strengthen our connection with our body and be able to “hear” its messages to us. Not only will we feel more connected, but we may also decide that taking actions to feel healthy and good in our bodies are priorities in our lives. And engaging in those actions become joyful habits instead of dreaded chores.

We’ll have our ever-changing bodies for as long as we’re alive. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a loving, respectful relationship with it?

Your turn: Are you open to “hearing” what your body has to say to you? What might happen if you started seeing your body as a companion, partner, friend, ally in this glorious life you’ve been given? What is one thing you can do today to slow down and connect with your body? Maybe even give it some love and attention by acknowledging all that it has done and does for you?

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Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help create a more meaningful life in which you start committing to yourself and show up the way you want? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

Tag: honoring body

Your body is not your servant.

What does your body say?