You said. The universal signal, that you are NOT fine.

The one thing that is so beautiful and magical about us humans is our ability to dream up things that don’t exist. We are the only species on earth that tells jokes too, which feels like an achievement :D. No wonder we like to stick around in our heads. In our heads, everything is possible. There is solution to everything. And when there is no solution, there is explanation. Logic.

Our bodies, on the other hand, are not so good at telling stories. They are also not very good at not feeling things.  When something happens in our lives, the joy, the pain, the connection, the anger, the ear – our bodies know these emotions – we were born with datasets of generations before us encoded in our bodies. Emotions happen in our limbic brain before we even know it in that newer, fancier frontal cortex part of the brain, that makes us human.

When we were babies, emotions would come and go.  We feel them, we act on them, we forget them, we move on. We were masters of being with our emotions. Masters of being in the present moment. Things get more complicated now when we are grown up.  Our minds have lots of opinions.

So next time you say – I am fine. Pause. Maybe you are just great, and full of love and joy and connection and that’s great. Go give a hug to someone because our social brains are also wired to feel emotions of others in our tribe – so you will make someone a day. (Btw, I always love a good hug:)

But maybe you are not so great. Maybe you are choosing to ignore what is happening in you from the chin down. Next time you say, I am fine, but you find yourself caught up in a long story your brain is telling you – ask your body instead:

What is there for me to feel?  What wants to be known? It’s scary to ask at first, so don’t run away and stay with it – because it’s also such a relief to hear the answer your body gives you. Sit with the answer, be with it or move with it if it wants to move.

Our minds are magnificent, but so are our bodies. Use both them both daily as much as you can- our lives are meant to be lived fully.