Ep 113: The Art of Listening to the Body

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Truth and Transcendence brought to you by BeingSpace with Katherine Llewellyn.

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Truth and Transcendence, episode 113.

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Today I want to talk about listening to the body.

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I think we've all heard this idea of it's really great to listen to our body, listen to what it's trying to tell us, and that is useful information.

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But what does it actually mean?

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I was chatting to someone the other day and she said I can't listen to my body, it's not saying anything, there's nothing there, my body isn't picking up sensations, there's no feeling there, which, of course, isn't true, because the only way to have no feeling at all is just to be dead.

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We all have some, there's some sensation at any point in time, and we all know this.

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But how often have we ever said I can't hear anything from my body, I'm not feeling anything?

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In particular, have you ever asked someone how do you feel?

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And they say fine, how do you feel in your body?

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I don't feel anything.

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And part of this is to do with the fact that we are so accustomed to asking ourselves is there a problem or is there something wrong?

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And if there isn't a problem and there isn't anything wrong, then that's all we need to know, because then we simply proceed.

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There's a whole other side of the information which is not a question of is there something wrong, but simply the question of what is happening, what is taking place, what are we feeling?

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And on the other end of the spectrum, many of us are used to things like are we feeling particularly good or ecstatic or, for example, feeling sexually aroused?

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That's a feeling that most of us are familiar with noticing and responding to in whatever way.

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So very commonly in our particular culture, people tune into when they feel some pain or discomfort.

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If there's an absence of pain or discomfort, very often there simply is nothing going on.

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They're not feeling anything, unless they're at the other end of the spectrum, in the state of high ecstasy or arousal or some other sense of really positive experience.

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So the very large portion of experience in between those two extremes that we're not even thinking about, many of us, and we're not even tuning into.

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So that's a lot of information we're ignoring.

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And one of the things about ignoring information is that we then become less able to tune into the information when we want to.

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So we will learn how to talk, for example.

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We've learned how to interpret the sounds people make when they're speaking.

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We've done that, whether intentionally or unintentionally probably largely unintentionally to begin with, and now we're very tuned into that.

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If somebody starts speaking, it's not a series of unintelligible sounds to us.

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We can understand it.

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It's not an effort for us.

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But if we'd been living on our own in a jungle somewhere and then suddenly, at the age of 35, we meet other human beings and start listening to them, it means nothing to us and at first it might even sound like a barrage, or even we might think it sounds like nothing at all Because we've not tuned in, we are not practiced in listening to that, we are not astute in listening to that, and the same thing applies when it comes to listening to the body.

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So why would we want to listen to the body?

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Well, in my view, the body is an absolutely marvellous monitoring device.

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The body picks up all sorts of sensations from the outside Heat, cold, touch, wind, all sorts of different sensations the body experiences on the inside.

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We can feel stuff on the inside.

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We can feel things moving around.

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We can feel our stomach gurgling.

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We can feel what.

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We can feel, that tightness in the body.

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We can feel fear inside the body.

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We can feel excitement.

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We can feel arousal, warmth, attraction, repulsion we can feel all sorts of things inside the body.

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When we're not practiced at tuning into the body, we only feel those things when they become quite extreme.

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And when they become quite extreme we are then at risk of being victim to what we're experiencing Because it's intense, it can be overwhelming.

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So one of the downsides of not tuning into the body when the sensations are milder is that when we then do notice something, we are thrown out of a position of feeling comfortable and in control.

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It's intense, it's extreme.

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Whereas if we are tuning into the body on a general basis, noticing shifts in feeling, temperature, emotion, sensibility, smell, touch, intuitive sense which we pick up in the body, if we're doing that on a regular basis and if it becomes part of our practice, then when a very extreme or severe experience occurs, we are already much more fluent in the language of experience.

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We're already much more accustomed to noticing our experience through the body and, as a natural consequence of that, we are more fluent at taking that information and using it to make choices.

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Whether or not we do that awarely, we are for sure doing that and in fact, even when we're not tuning into the body, there's still a conversation going on between the body and our consciousness at the level below our awareness.

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So we are constantly making choices and decisions, in every moment, in every second.

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We just don't necessarily notice it, we don't necessarily wear on it.

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This is something people experience to great pleasure and joy, actually, when they undertake dance.

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So when we're learning to dance, let's say, we're learning a step like the waltz or the merengue or something like that.

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We're learning steps, we're learning a rhythm, we're learning to shift the weight of the body in certain ways, and when we start to do that, it feels foreign for most of us.

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Some people are naturals, but for most of us it feels foreign, challenging, difficult, possibly disturbing, possibly scary, possibly upsetting.

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As we go through that experience of feeling not very capable, and then we start to become more capable and when we become more capable we are able to let go and surrender more to the body, and the body then picks up on the rhythm, picks up on the swaying and the leaning and the shifting of weight and the transference from one foot to the other and the interaction with the partner.

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So it becomes less a matter of will and effort and becomes more an intuitive, beautiful flow that we're experiencing and enjoying and loving.

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The same applies when it comes to the whole question of listening to the body.

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When we start trying to do it, it can seem like an effort, it can seem pointless, it can seem time consuming, but if we continue to practice it, we get to a point where our conscious awareness is picking up on the information that is constantly being communicated by the body, and it's doing it intuitively and consistently, which means we're being flooded with all of this wonderful information which feeds our intuition, it feeds our sense of emotional vividness and experience, it feeds our capacity for joy and grief and fear and excitement and happiness and love and horror and all of the other experiences are fed by the ability to connect into the body and listen to the body.

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So some of that can be uncomfortable and of course that's one of the reasons that so many of us do not listen to the body, because we live in a world which is all about avoiding discomfort and we don't like some of those feelings and we don't like necessarily being in a constant state of awakeness to what we're experiencing.

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However, if we do practice opening to that, there comes a point where life gets another layer of colour.

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What we're hearing around us, people's voices, the birds, the surroundings, the leaves in the trees, all of those things that we're listening to and hearing start to take on a more musical quality.

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There's greater beauty to be experienced in the world when we are open to a much wider range of our sensibilities.

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So there's an definite advantage to that, on top of what I mentioned before, which is the information allows us to be much more intuitive and intelligent about what's going on around us and within us, and information is incredibly powerful and useful for making choices, which, of course, is what we want to be doing all the time in our lives.

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So how do we practice listening to the body?

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Well, right now, wherever you are you may be driving or you may be sitting listening.

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Whatever you're doing, there's probably no reason why you shouldn't just gently think about your left big toe Probably perfectly safe for you to possibly even move your left big toe and just notice whether that feels easy or difficult.

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Notice whether that toe feels restricted, whether it feels free, whether it has enough space around it.

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If you just think about the pad of that toe, how is it feeling?

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Is it comfortable, is it feeling tight?

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Is it hot, is it cold?

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When you flex that toe.

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How do the joints feel?

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Is there an ease as you move the toe?

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Do you experience greater aliveness in that toe, or does it just feel painful?

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Or are you just having a thought which says this is stupid and ridiculous and I'm just not going to do it?

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And all of that is information.

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Now, for some people, when they start to move their big toe and then their other toes wriggle them around, it just feels really really nice, and for other people, when they start to do that, it feels really difficult and tight and tense.

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And those things are both information about your body, and that's just a very small part of the body.

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If you take your attention to your belly now and if you're in a position to put your hand on your belly, that can sometimes be of assistance, and perhaps even putting your hand on your back opposite your belly, so your two hands are facing one another and just feel the feeling of your hand on the belly.

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How does it feel?

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Does it feel heavy?

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Does it feel light?

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Does it feel dry?

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Does it feel moist?

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Does it feel hot?

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Does it feel cold?

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And how does the belly actually feel?

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How does the hand feel touching the belly?

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Does it feel comfortable, easy.

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Do you notice there's some tension in your arm as you hold your hand in that position?

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How's your elbow feeling?

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How's your shoulder feeling?

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How's your upper arm?

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How's your breathing as you're doing this?

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Are you still breathing easily and comfortably, or have you stopped breathing while you're concentrating?

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Order this information from the body.

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In any moment you can tune in and listen to something in the body and if you find that there are whole tracts of the body that you can't seem to tune into, then just ease in towards those areas from the areas that you can tune into.

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So, for example, if you're only able to easily tune into your right hand, let's say, let's explore your right hand, move it around, notice how it's feeling when you stretch it out, how does that feel when you clench it, how does that feel?

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And then into the wrist, just moving the wrist gently.

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And if you can't feel anything in the wrist, just stroke it gently with the fingers of the left hand, very, very gently.

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And then press with the middle finger of the left hand on the wrist as experiment.

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Feel what that feels like.

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How does the wrist feel?

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Is it delicate, is it strong, is it solid?

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And then just let the awareness.

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Move up the forearm gently.

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Can you feel what's happening on the inside of the forearm?

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Maybe stroke that forearm and feel what that feels like.

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You'll notice if somebody else is physically near you, if they touch you.

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You may notice a sensation when someone else touches you, maybe a pleasing sensation, maybe a displeasing sensation.

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Again, that's your body feeding your information.

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So I'd like to invite you over this next coming week to practice listening to the body, tuning in to what the body is telling you, and maybe even if you do use a journal, maybe even setting aside a small piece of space on the page each time you write a new journal and just note down what you're noticing as you tune into the body.

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And if you're someone who already tunes into the body and who already finds that useful and enjoys that, I would invite you to see whether or not you could encourage somebody in your circle, someone you love, perhaps to tune into their own body more than they already do, and perhaps give that person some examples of how you do that and how you learn to do that and why you learn to do it.

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And if it was something you've always done intuitively for your entire life, maybe share about that as well, because I'm going to suggest that if we were all much more in touch with our bodies, we would all be more intuitive, more intelligent, more sensitive, more compassionate and more self-compassionate, and that could only be a good thing for the world.

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So I hope you found this little episode interesting and useful.

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Have a wonderful week and I will see you next time.

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Thank you for listening to Truth and Transcendence and thank you for supporting the show by rating, reviewing, subscribing, buying me a coffee and telling a friend.

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If you'd like to know more about my work, you can find out about mentoring, workshops and energy treatments on BeingSpaceworld.

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Have a wonderful week and I'll see you next time.

Ep 113: The Art of Listening to the Body

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