Did you know that if you don’t listen to yourself first, as a priority, before you stop and listen to what other people have to say, what society has to say, what the world has to say, you’ll end up pushed aside, forgotten, and basically invisible?
That’s why I’m going to explain why listening to yourself matters, and why it’s so difficult for many people.
If this isn’t a problem for you, no worries, I’ll see you next week with the next newsletter.
But I’m sure that even if you think you know how to listen to yourself, at some point you’ve been dragged along by the tide of what other people tell you is what’s happening to you, or what you feel, or what you should do with your life, so I’d encourage you to stay and read to the end.
Look, I’m going to give you an example.
It’s the story of a woman who had a really bad experience with a nutritionist. And what changed afterwards wasn’t “luck”. She’d started learning to listen to herself, so she could recognise when something didn’t feel right, and stop going back.
She told me about it like this. She said: “What a difference it makes when someone actually cares. What a difference in the way they treat you, in the way they speak to you, in the way they listen.”
The difference came down to one key point: identifying her emotions, giving them the importance they deserve, and acting in line with what she felt.
And again, take this to your situation, your problem, your context. Don’t drown in the details of this story.
She was comparing that appointment to other appointments she’d had before, and to what proper care is supposed to feel like. That first appointment is the one I want to focus on for a moment, because it’s where the whole lesson is.
This woman has been learning for a while how to do this very important thing: listening to herself, learning to love herself. Because loving yourself starts with listening to yourself.
Listening to that little voice we have inside, paying attention to those physical sensations we have in our body, call it intuition if you like. Those signals that can be more implicit or more explicit, depending on the person, but they’re there, and they act like guides.
Emotions serve as a compass, telling you whether you’re on the right path or whether you’re getting lost.
On the path towards what, you might ask? The path can be towards being at peace with yourself, as in being alright where you are, or it can also be the path towards a project, the path of an adventure. And that’s exactly what happened to her.
She told me that as soon as she walked out of the consultation with that first nutritionist, she started to notice things inside herself, emotions that on another occasion she would’ve completely dismissed, she would’ve brushed past them and kept acting like an automaton and continued with the rest of her scheduled appointments as if nothing had happened, as if that interaction with that person hadn’t caused the discomfort it really was causing her.
And that’s the important part. She’s been learning for a while how to relate to herself better.
And that means starting to listen to what you’re trying to tell yourself, the signals coming from inside, even if they feel completely inconsistent with what they “should” be.
So, after that first appointment, she started taking notes, started asking herself, “OK, how did I feel when I left?” Then she did an observation exercise, and recorded what she was feeling with curiosity, putting judgement aside, and I insist, putting aside that “it should be”.
Some of the things she noticed were: feeling completely destabilised, dismissed in her own way of doing things, not supported. The nutritionist was rushing her, insisting that she follow a particular diet and take a series of supplements, without having a thorough conversation about what the symptoms were.
When she left the clinic, she felt a lot of anxiety in her body, a very unpleasant feeling that made her feel uncentred, as if the ground had been taken from under her and she didn’t know where to step.
She continued her story saying that the nutritionist decided on her “diagnosis” in a few seconds and gave her a standard diet, a template she’d probably given to dozens of people before. She complained because there were things that were incompatible and not practical to follow. The nutritionist got nervous and moved on to giving her a list of ingredients so she could build her own diet. Then, back home, she spent a couple of hours with ChatGPT helping her get a structure, a structure the nutritionist should’ve taught her. She also thought it was ridiculous that she had to check with AI after paying a health professional. “What was the point?” she said.
And that was the moment she knew she wasn’t going back for a second appointment. [restrict paid=”true”]
She didn’t feel good after that first appointment. That interaction with the nutritionist made her feel like there was something wrong with her. It didn’t make her feel supported in a health process that required proper guidance and follow-up from a health professional. When she left the consultation, she had a feeling of unease, and she didn’t know how to put it into words, she couldn’t identify it, she could only feel the discomfort in her body.
And you have to listen to that information. Because your body is giving you information all the time, even when you’re not consciously looking for it.
We’re a whole: mind, body, and purpose. Don’t forget that.
Her body was telling her: this doesn’t feel right.
She was starting to learn to listen to herself, to be able to say: “There’s something about this experience I don’t like, and I don’t feel good, I don’t feel supported, I don’t feel listened to, I don’t feel properly advised by a professional I’m hiring.”
That acknowledgement didn’t happen immediately. Like I said, she’s in that learning process, it takes time.
So when she walked out of that room, her first instinct was to turn it on herself. To place the discomfort on herself, to place the blame on herself. Like: if I’m not going to follow a diet like this, that must mean I’m the problem. Because this is what’s normal, this is what everyone does, this is the treatment for this particular thing. So how am I not going to follow it? There must be something wrong with me.
As I said before, you don’t wake up one day and suddenly decide, “I’m going to be more in touch with my emotions”.
This is something you we learn in childhood, and if you did, most likely you won’t have this problem in adult life. But if you find yourself in difficult situations and, in short, it’s because you haven’t listened to yourself and you haven’t trusted your own judgment, then it’s something you’ll have to learn sooner or later.
Otherwise, what’s the alternative?
To feel and pretend you’re not feeling what you feel? Pretend you don’t feel that discomfort, pretend you don’t feel you’re not being taken into account, pretend you don’t feel you’re being respected, or pretend you’re not being guided towards what’s best for you?
But you have to listen to it.
And your body is giving you the message because the rational mind is very clever at making us believe things that aren’t true, at giving us mental battles, at saying that the problem is you, because you’re the one who can’t adapt, you’re the one who can’t do that, and so on.
Everything starts with listening to yourself, especially to what your body is saying. Because when your mind stumbles into a negative thought pattern, it will make you believe that you are the problem.
But your body is giving you a different message. It’s telling you that this experience feels uncomfortable, that you’re feeling discomfort, and that’s where you need discernment.
It helps you know whether you’re going against yourself just to be accepted by everyone else and not cause conflict.
When you always adapt to everything, against what your emotions are actually telling you and pointing you towards, you end up betraying yourself.
But you can come out of that, and you can learn, little by little, to listen to yourself.
Because if not, what’s the alternative?
If you want a solid guide to reconnect with your body and actually hear what it’s been telling you, I recommend this book: The Wisdom of Your Body by psychologist Hillary L. McBride. Here.
Love,
Noemi [/restrict]
