3 Questions to Help You Tune Into Your Body
3 Questions to Help You Tune Into Your Body
Have you ever found yourself following a diet plan or a protocol only to get bored or only last a few weeks before you “fall off the wagon” or revert back to your old way of doing things? Do you feel like you do ok when you’re on a strict guideline but the minute life happens and you travel, go out to eat or have a stressful day you fall back into old habits? Does it feel like you’re really black and white about your health and like you’re either being “good” and adhering to a plan or you’re being “bad” and doing whatever you want?
It can feel like a really frustrating cycle of trying something, falling off, trying something, and falling off. If you’re felt this way you’re certainly not alone!
Many of us do well with protocols where someone tells us what to do and we follow that plan. But this means that when we stop doing the protocol or veer off track, we feel lost.
When the focus is on diet plans or protocols that we must follow, we rely on this external cue to tell us what to eat, how much to eat, what to do, etc. While it can be helpful to have guidelines and a plan when we are trying to accomplish a goal or improve health, solely relying on these external guides can have the unintended effect of disconnecting us from what our body is trying to tell us about what it needs.
If we follow a plan that restricts calories, for example, we rely on that caloric number to tell us how much more we are “allowed” to eat. The signals we get from our bodies like hunger and fullness cues, energy levels, digestion, etc. take second place to this external guideline.
Even in the case of a healing diet or supplement protocol from a doctor, if we get a list of things we need to do on a daily basis without connecting to how those things are actually affecting our body, we continue to rely solely on these external guidelines for how to care for ourselves. When this protocol or plan is over, or if it didn’t have the intended effects we wanted, we don’t have any information about where to go next and we’re left going back to square one.
Sometimes we need specific protocols to support us during different phases of our healing journey, but in order to cultivate sustainability in our healing journey, what we really need to do is become experts at listening to what our bodies are telling us and turning inwards.
“Listen to your body” might be an annoying phrase that you can’t quite wrap your head around. It’s in the same family as, “reduce your stress” or “self-care” or other phrases that sound so nice and simple, but can be hard to pin down when you’re actually trying to achieve them.
Listening to our bodies has become a vague and somewhat challenging task because we've gotten so used to looking outside of ourselves for information and guidance on how to feel better.
Instead of constantly searching and looking outside of ourselves for the answers, I want to talk about how to look within as the only way to really figure out what works best for you and your beautiful body.
Here are 3 questions to start this process of tuning into the body
1. How do I feel?
This question can also be expanded a little more. You might also ask: Where am I holding tension? What are my symptoms? What is my energy level? To feel into the answer to this question, you may need to pause, stop, take inventory and breathe.
2. What do I need?
Based on the answer that you get by asking yourself “How do I feel?” you can then ask yourself what you need based on this? Answers that come up for you when you ask yourself what you need might be things like: rest, something to eat, letting out your emotions, a long walk. When you answer this question of what you need based on how you feel, you’ll get a very different answer than “I should”. Be careful of “shoulds”, and if they do come up when you ask yourself what you need, then come back to these two key questions.
3. Can I give myself that?
This is where the dynamic comes into play where we might feel the “shoulds” or conflicting emotions. When you ask yourself this question, take the responses that you got when you really tuned in and try to really honor your body, what you’re feeling, and your needs. See if you can start developing a practice of saying yes when you ask yourself this question of “Can I give myself that?”.
Other tools that can help you tune in
5-second body scans. Before meals to ask yourself these questions to help you continue the process of strengthening this connection.
Getting quiet. Silence isn’t empty. It's full of answers. Breathing and meditating allows us to clear mental clutter so we can more fully listen to the signs and signals our bodies are trying to give us. I like the apps Calm or Insight for introductory meditation, or I practice my favorite 4-7-8 breathing technique.
Complete a 5-day food/symptom journal. This is a great way to start the process of noticing how what you put in your body makes you feel. You can download it by going to: http://www.christinatidwell.com/blog/symptomjournal
These 3 questions might sound simple, but they are SO powerful. This is a process, and it's like strengthening a muscle, so be patient with yourself! Let me know in the comments where you're at with this process of tuning in. What do you notice right now if you do a 5-second body scan? What comes up? If you complete your 5-day food journal and come up with some interesting insights, let me know!
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If we haven't met before, I'm Christina Tidwell, founder and owner of Live Well with Christina. I'm so excited that you're here and have begun to delve into your health and wellness journey! Here at Live Well we help people with autoimmune disease take control of their health through nutrition, lifestyle shifts and personal empowerment.
If you suffer from:
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Symptoms of autoimmunity
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