For as long as I can remember, people have told me to listen to my body. It was practically the soundtrack of my childhood. I heard it from nurses, from my mother, and most recently from my cardiologist, who said it with the same energy as someone offering ancient, mystical wisdom. Going to a high elevation? “Listen to your body.”
It sounds gentle and intuitive. It sounds like something you’d hear during yoga while someone rings a tiny bell. But for me, that phrase has never meant serenity. Listening to my body has always meant one thing: prepare for impact.
My body has never been a calm inner compass. It has been a 24-hour breaking news alert system. “This just in, you might be dying…” Numbers. Readings. Symptoms. Side effects. Every twinge a possible emergency. Every flutter a potential disaster film in the making. .
“Is this a headache or a stroke?”
“Chest pain or arthritis?”
“Am I tired or am I fatigued?”
And my personal favorite: “Do I have a blood clot?” A diagnosis I have never had in my entire life, but a theory my brain presents with the enthusiasm of a kid showing you their newest treasure.
After years of this, listening stopped meaning awareness. It became surveillance. It was less “inner peace” and more “airport security.” And thanks to the alphabet soup of C-PTSD, OCD, ADHD, and other neurological party tricks, that vigilance was cranked up to maximum volume.
To be fair, I was born with a complex heart condition, so paying attention mattered. Small shifts really did mean something. But somewhere along the way, I began to believe my literal survival depended on catching every flicker of sensation before it turned into catastrophe. My body became a project, and I became a project manager who never got a day off.
Eventually, something rewired itself. I stopped recognizing my body as a place where emotions lived. Sensations were never just sensations. They meant illness or medication changes or tests or occasionally “Hey, for real though, you might be dying.” A racing heart was not fear. Tightness in my chest was not sadness. My body wasn’t allowed to feel; it was only allowed to signal.
Even professionals played into this without meaning to. A dull ache? More tests. A weird flutter? More medication. A moment of discomfort? Let’s throw in a scan for fun. No one, including me, considered that my body might also be speaking in the language of emotion.
By the time panic attacks appeared, I’d spent years responding to every sensation as if it belonged to my heart. So when the symptoms started, the doctors and I followed the same script we always had; tests, scans, monitoring. It wasn’t until we ran out of physical explanations that we finally realized: my body wasn’t warning me about my heart. It was trying to tell me I had feelings I’d never dealt with, and my mind was tired of waiting it’s turn.
Now, when I try to feel my feelings, I often get static. What I hear is the echo of a system that kept me alive but no longer matches the life I’m trying to live. Any detachment I experience is not apathy. It is survival being a little overzealous and not knowing it can clock out now.
Even the most basic emotions can hit the old alarms. I rarely assume I am having a feeling. I assume I am having an event. The smallest beep from a microwave or phone still makes my brain behave like it is back in the hospital, ready for a plot twist. It is very Lost in Space. My mind goes full B9 yelling, “Danger, Will Robinson,” and my system responds as trained: shut it down, stay calm, stay alive.
These days, I am trying to listen differently. I am learning to notice the quieter signals: the warmth of a blanket, the gentle rhythm of breathing, the moment of contentment when a room feels safe. I am teaching my body that not every sensation is a threat and not every feeling requires medical intervention. Some things can simply exist without becoming a diagnostic mystery.
People love to tell those of us with lifelong medical conditions to be strong. But strength does not always look like vigilance. Sometimes strength looks like unclenching your jaw, and relaxing your shoulders. Sometimes it looks like rest. Sometimes it is trusting that your body can communicate without sending up a flare. A whisper can be just as wise as a wail.
I am not trying to unlearn survival. Survival has been my longest relationship. I am simply trying to expand it, to let it include moments of ease and belonging and maybe the occasional emotion without the immediate assumption that the end is near.
So when something rises in my chest now, I pause. I breathe. Take a quick look at my vitals, just to satisfy the tiny intern who lives in my brain. (I am still me guys.) But when everything comes back normal, I remind myself that a feeling can simply be a feeling. A heartbeat can simply be a heartbeat. And sometimes the noises I once treated as danger are nothing more than the ordinary soundtrack of being alive.
Maybe this is the real meaning of listening to my body. Not scanning for illness, but noticing the quiet whisper of an emotion before I mistake it for something medical. Not bracing for danger, but letting myself recognize sadness, or joy, or fear, or grief as themselves. I spent most of my life believing feelings were symptoms. Now I am learning how to tell the difference, and even more than that, how to let emotional feelings exist without rushing to diagnose them. It turns out my body has been trying to speak in many languages, and I am finally learning to understand more than one.
Capes And Roller Skates 