Summer Read Along Chapter 8: Learning Your Body's Language

How to Treat Your Body Like a Sacred Text

It’s strange to consider how long a person can be alive not knowing how to read their own body.

But when our religious faiths separate our bodies from our minds, convinced that our thoughts are some grand superpower that transcend the physical matter that makes them possible, I guess I can see it.

And when our bodies naturally keep us from feeling them when we’re in danger (might as well not know your ankle is sprained if you’re running from a bear), I guess I can see it.

And when we become scared of the world through our own religious faith, scared of ourselves, scared of our bodies, I guess I can see it.

What a gift then, to be invited back home into our own skin as part of a recovery process.

What a gift to learn how to listen to sensations we’ve been experiencing our entire lives.

What a gift to speak peace, love, acceptance, back to our bodies not just as a way to heal, but because we must in order to keep living.

To be separated from our bodies is to be separated from life itself.

I hope this chapter invites you to listen more and differently to the many things your body is trying to tell you.

Journal Prompt: Think of a time when your body was sending you signals that you didn’t recognize—or perhaps ignored. What was happening at the time? If you could go back and respond with curiosity and compassion to your body in that moment, what would you say or do differently?

And don’t forget to drop questions in the comments for our Wednesday Q&A!