Coming Back to Yourself: What Happens When We Start Listening to Our Bodies?

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to come back to ourselves. Not to reinvent ourselves, fix ourselves or become a better version of ourselves. Simply to notice where we are, how we got here and what we might need.

As we move towards autumn, I notice a shift in the conversations I’m having with people I coach.

Often, there’s a sense of “I’ve done a lot.” Achievements, decisions, deadlines, change, caring for others, adapting to whatever has been asked of them. Summer was busy and hot, and I sense for many there is also a lot of tiredness underneath it all.

There is a quiet realisation that I’ve been running at this pace for quite a while.

This is often where coaching becomes an opportunity to pause. To step out of the doing for a moment and come back home to yourself.

What season are you in?

I’ve been thinking about how often we expect ourselves to live in perpetual summer. To keep growing, producing, achieving, being energised, having ideas and making things happen.

But nature doesn’t work that way.

There is a time for growth and expansion, but there is also a time for harvesting, reflecting, releasing and resting. Autumn offers us a beautiful metaphor for this.

And I wonder what happens when our bodies are ready for autumn, but we keep trying to live as though it’s summer.

When we’re tired but keep pushing. When we’re longing for space but fill our diaries. When something in us is ready to pause and reflect, but we keep looking for the next thing to achieve.

Perhaps we interpret our changing energy as something that needs fixing, rather than something worth listening to.

Coming back to the body

A body-aware approach to coaching creates space for a different kind of conversation.

Rather than immediately asking “What do I need to do?”, we might pause and ask: What am I noticing? What feels energising? What feels depleting? What might I need right now?

This isn’t about assuming that our bodies always have a simple answer, or that rest is the solution to everything. Our wellbeing is shaped by much more than individual choices. The demands placed upon us, our relationships, our work, our resources and the environments we live in all matter.

But having the space to notice ourselves can be a powerful starting point.

Sometimes we don’t need another strategy, another goal or another thing to achieve. Sometimes we need somewhere to stop. Somewhere we don’t have to perform. Somewhere we can acknowledge what we’ve been carrying and listen for what might be needed next.

This is one of the things I value most about coaching: creating a space where someone can reconnect with themselves, rather than immediately trying to change themselves.

You don’t have to be in summer all year

Perhaps this autumn is an invitation to ask yourself: What season am I in?

What have I achieved that I haven’t stopped to acknowledge? What am I ready to let go of? What needs more space? Where might I be trying to create summer when my body is asking for autumn?

There is no right answer, and there is no need to rush towards one.

Maybe, for now, simply noticing is enough.

Because coming home to ourselves doesn’t always begin with knowing what we need. Sometimes it begins with becoming willing to listen.

A question to sit with this week:

What would it look like to work with the season I’m in, rather than constantly asking myself to be somewhere else?