The Body Does Not Lie

A guiding principle of my work is that the body holds vital information that we cannot access through our thoughts alone. Many of our most painful memories, emotions, and traumas are held in the body, and became stuck there when we were unable to process them at the time they occurred.

Our bodies are a living record of our history and life experiences, and listening to our body can provide a wealth of information. According to @bessel_van, “You can be fully in charge of your life only if you can acknowledge the reality of your body, in all its visceral dimensions.” To heal we need to access both our physical and mental material.

The body is a gateway to our inner world and the unconscious. It expresses parts of ourselves that our minds may be unaware of or may be attempting to keep underground. The mind can fool us, but the body does not lie.

Paying attention to our physical sensations illuminates the truth of our present moment experience. When we learn to listen to our body it can be a source of guidance, insight and wisdom. However, many of us live at a great distance from our bodies. Traumatic experiences can cause us to disconnect from our bodies when our felt-sense was too painful to bear. Instead, we confined ourselves to the safety of our minds.

Using somatic awareness, we can slowly learn to regain a sense of inner safety so that we can re-enter and re-inhabit our bodies more fully.