The Listening Body

When symptoms are messages, not just problems to fix

Most people don’t ignore their body because they don’t care.

They ignore it because they don’t know how to listen.

By the time someone comes to see me, their body is usually speaking very clearly. Pain, tension, fatigue, recurring patterns that won’t resolve. The message is no longer subtle. It’s loud enough to interrupt daily life.

And yet, even then, the focus is often on getting rid of the symptom as quickly as possible.

Understandably so. When the body shouts, we want relief.

What is often overlooked is that symptoms are not random. They are not the body failing. They are the body communicating in the only language it has available at that moment.

The body speaks through sensation, restriction, rhythm, and pattern.

It speaks when something has been held too long, pushed through too often, or adapted around for years. But we are rarely taught how to translate what it’s saying. So we try to silence it instead.

In my work, I see a shift happen when someone stops asking, “How do I get rid of this?” and begins to wonder, “What is my body trying to tell me?”

That question alone changes the nervous system. It introduces curiosity instead of resistance. And when curiosity replaces urgency, the body often responds very differently.

Listening to the body doesn’t mean analysing every ache or making up stories about symptoms. It means creating enough safety and space for the body to soften and reveal what’s underneath the surface noise.

Very often, when the nervous system settles, the message becomes clearer. A pattern starts to make sense. A link is felt rather than explained. Something that’s been lived quietly in the background finally comes into awareness.

This is where real change begins. Not through force or fixing, but through understanding.

When the body feels heard, it doesn’t need to shout in the same way.

Symptoms may not disappear instantly, but they often shift. They soften. They reorganise. The body no longer has to work so hard to get our attention.

The listening body isn’t about doing less care. It’s about deeper care.

It’s about learning to recognise that the body is always communicating, and that relief often comes not from overriding the message, but from finally understanding it.