When the Body Speaks: What Physical Sensations Can Teach Us About Emotion
Our bodies hold a lot of information — more than we’re willing to notice.
Not because we want to hide it, but because most of us were never taught how to understand what the body says. We learned how to silence symptoms, push through discomfort, and keep going.
Everything around us rewards that. Work, family, deadlines, obligations — it’s all about keeping “the machine” running. There’s rarely space to pause and ask what our bodies might be trying to tell us.
The body doesn’t stop talking just because we stop listening.
What Pain Is Trying to Tell Us
Cognitive and somatic (body) research recognizes the interplay between mind and body. Our emotions aren't just in our head — they can cause physiological experiences. When we don’t have space or safety to process something, the body can step in to hold it.
That holding might feel like tension in the jaw, a knot in the stomach, a stiff back, or a fatigue that no amount of rest seems to touch. These sensations aren’t random, and they aren’t defects. They’re messages — and pain is often the language the body uses when it needs to be heard.
Pain has a bad reputation in our culture. We treat it like an error to correct, something to eliminate before it slows us down. So we pop an Advil. Stretch it out. Distract ourselves. Go back to work.
But pain isn’t a malfunction — it’s information. It’s how the body alerts us that something isn’t working as it should. Even more, pain builds resilience and adaptability.
To ignore pain is like deleting an email from your safety team because you don’t want to deal with what it says. You might get temporary relief from the notification disappearing, but the underlying issue is still there — and likely getting worse as it sits idly.
Why Avoidance Feels Easier
Avoidance makes sense. Discomfort is… uncomfortable. And we’ve built an entire culture around escaping it.
We scroll, self-soothe, stay busy — anything to keep from feeling what our bodies are trying to show us. But comfort culture has a cost. The more we chase relief, the less capacity we have to stay with what’s real.
We forget that pain isn’t an enemy or something impeding our productivity. It’s the body doing its job and showing us where to turn our attention.
Replacing Numbing with Listening
Listening to pain doesn’t mean resigning ourselves to it — it means learning from it. It means recognizing that pain has purpose: it points us toward imbalance, misalignment, or unmet needs.
When we stop treating pain as a problem to solve and start relating to it as communication, something shifts. We stop waging war against our own bodies and begin building a partnership with them.
Your body isn’t betraying you. It’s speaking to you.
A Way to Listen
If you want to practice listening instead of silencing, try this:
Pause for a moment. Close your eyes. Breathe slowly. Notice what’s happening in your body right now.
Really feel what you notice. Maybe it’s tightness in your chest, a heaviness in your shoulders, a restlessness in your stomach. Whatever it is — notice it without judgment or attempting to change it.
Get curious. Ask: Have I felt like this before? or How do I feel towards this sensation?
Respond with compassion. Don’t try to fix it. Just acknowledge it. Sometimes the simple act of noticing is what allows things to shift.
This isn’t about chasing comfort — it’s about rebuilding connection. Over time, curiosity and compassion help you translate what your body’s been trying to say.
A Closing Thought
Our bodies aren’t trying to ruin our plans, make us unproductive, or slow our progress. They’re trying to keep us well.
When we stop numbing and start listening, we discover that pain isn’t the enemy — it’s the invitation. An invitation to care for ourselves in a way that doesn’t just silence what hurts, but trusts there’s meaning in what we feel.