If you’ve been coming to my class or have had a Wellness Assessment with me, you will have heard me asking for a Body Check.

Your body has a lot to say to you, and when it talks, we benefit A LOT by listening to it rather than by dismissing or complaining about it.

The Body Check is taking a moment to pay attention to what’s happening inside of you, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. You don’t have to look hard for it or make something up. You just need to pay attention to what’s calling out at the moment while you are listening. More often than not, your body is calling out, and you aren’t listening.

Here are some examples of what comes up for people when I say, “First thing in the morning when you wake up. Body Check.”

I’m not ready. I dread the day ahead of me.

I’m stuffed up and I can’t breathe.

I feel rested. The morning is the best part of my day.

I feel my lower back pain.

My neck hurts.

I don’t know. When my alarm rings, I jump out of bed and hit the shower and start my day.

In the Wellness Assessments, I ask for a body check at 4 different hours of the day. Regular body checks will give you insight into what’s working and what’s not if you use them for what they are– your guiding system. If you wake up dreading the day, your body is telling you to make a change (i.e. diet, bedtime routine, ruminating thoughts, actions) so that you may wake up feeling good again.

If you’ve been sitting at your laptop for too long, your body may start to feel stiff, and you might feel emotionally cramped. Your body might be telling you that you need to get up, stretch, and drink a glass of water, or get some fresh air. Ignoring these signs, especially over time, will cause the body to stop whispering and start screaming. Or it can go into hiding and it will take a lot more to figure out what’s wrong.

If you take these signs to simply mean that you are aging, or that today just isn’t going well for you, or to complain about the ache, or identify with them in a way that is self-deprecating, then you’ve essentially dismissed your body’s intelligence that is communicating to you that a shift is necessary to move back into wholeness. Its messages are revealing and they wake us up to do something about it. These messages are gifts guiding us towards continuous self-love and self-care. The longer we wait to listen, the more challenging, chronic, urgent and expensive the “prescriptions” for change becomes.

Body Checks require tuning in throughout the day, for as little as 15 seconds, and paying attention to what comes up. The rest will happen on its own, because the more you start paying attention, the better you will hear your body’s messages. The better you hear, the more likely you will listen. The more you listen, the more you begin to trust yourself. The more you trust yourself, the better you feel about yourself. There is a cost to not stopping and plowing through the day. Disconnect from the body happens, and choices become artificial and externally oriented. Tune in. Feed the intelligence that is your body. Feed your Soul.