Fluent in thought. A beginner in sensation.

There’s a conversation going on right now between you and your body. It may be whispering to you, or roaring — or something in-between. This isn’t a spoken conversation because obviously your body doesn’t use words to communicate with you. It senses. Your body constantly senses what’s going on in and around you and like a radar it sends sensory signals of safety and threat so you know when to engage and when to pull back. When to reach and when to rest. When to speak and when to be silent.

This is not a cognitive kind of knowing. It’s sensory — so you have to be willing to feel your way to it. Ignore these signals and you’re overriding a navigation system designed to keep you alive, thriving, and at home in your body. Become skilful at the art of sensing in, and you open a direct line to the intelligence always available in your body.

In a world that rewards thinking over feeling, choosing to feel your way into a conversation with the rest of your body is a quiet act of rebellion. And what you might find is a source of information that may or may not align with what you’re thinking. Or what you’re saying.

As for that gap that sometimes opens up between what we feel and what we say? That gap might be exactly where consent and alignment — where real wellbeing — lives.

A practice

Want to feel what this is like?

Feel for your feet.

Feel for the sensation of gravity pressing through your feet, into the ground below.

Perhaps you notice the weight of your feet, or the temperature, or movement inside your feet.

There’s nothing you need to feel; nothing you don’t need to feel.

You’re simply having a go at sensing into your feet and noticing what, if anything, is showing up.

It’s normal for thoughts to be distracting. Just gently redirect your attention back to your feet and what’s happening in this part of your body.

To complete the practice, take any breath that feels good for you.

Take a moment just to be.

I like feeling for my feet because it moves energy from my head … to the rest of me. It’s a way of being in conversation with a part of my body that signals whether I’m feeling grounded — or not. And I love the way this practice always seems to invite a spreading sensation in the soles of my feet — as if they want to breathe in the earth that’s supporting them.

It was nice to practise with you — thanks for joining me.