An invitation of reconnection

I spent most of my life believing that my body was something to manage.

Hunger? Wait until lunch. Tired? Push through. Anxious? Ignore it and keep moving.

I didn't realize I was doing this until I started training as a somatic coach and someone asked me, "What does your body need right now?"

I had no idea.

Not because I wasn't paying attention, but because I'd been trained—like most of us—to override those signals. To wait for permission. To trust my brain over my body.

How We Learn to Disconnect

If you grew up in America and attended public school, you might remember a time when your bodily needs were managed rather than listened to. You learned to monitor your hunger, your thirst, your need to move or rest—and then wait until it was "appropriate" to acknowledge them.

Raise your hand.
Wait for permission.
Hold it until the bell rings.

This wasn't malicious. It was logistical. But over time, it taught us that our bodies were inconvenient. That the signals they sent—I'm tired, I need to pee, I'm overwhelmed—were problems to be controlled, not information to be trusted.

And as we got older, that conditioning deepened. We learned to equate our worth with productivity. To push through exhaustion. To feel guilty for resting. To believe that if we just worked harder, planned better, optimized more, we'd finally feel okay.

What We're Actually Looking For

I think what most of us are searching for—beneath the self-help books, the productivity hacks, the meditation apps, the therapy sessions, the fitness routines—is permission to stop performing.

Permission to feel tired without calling it weakness.
Permission to not have an answer.
Permission to be exactly where we are, without needing to fix it.

But we can't get that permission from outside ourselves. Not really.

Because the voice that tells us we're not doing enough, not healing fast enough, not "there" yet—that voice is ours. And it's been running the show for a long time.

The reconnection we're looking for isn't out there. It's already here. It's just been waiting for us to stop long enough to listen.