How Do You Listen To Your Gut“Listen to your gut.”

This is a phrase often used here at LTYG, but what exactly do we mean by listening to your gut – and how can one actually do so?

Remember, our second brain lies in the gut! So there’s great importance to listening to it and letting it tell us what it needs and wants. That’s why leaning into your body wisdom is crucial, but many have a hard time implementing it…

The Body IS the Subconscious

Why can leaning in and listening to your gut/body be so difficult? One thing I’d like to mention is that our minds can often separate from our bodies. Now, I don’t mean physical separation, but rather our consciousness becoming disconnected from the body.

Many people see their minds and bodies as two different things…when in reality they are one. This is often why, with Western medicine, some treatments don’t work for people – especially those with IBD. This is because health is approached as one identity – the physical symptoms alone. Not what is actually CAUSING the problem in the first place, which would be the message/trauma behind the disease, pain, etc.

As Jini always says, “The body is the SUBCONSCIOUS.”

The mind and body communicate to deliver your body’s messages. These messages can be pain, inflammation, infection, symptoms, diseases, etc. These examples all signal some issues at hand within the body which are unresolved.

The body affects the mind and the mind affects the body, so the two are always linked. If there are unresolved emotional wounds, our bodies will scream at us with physical symptoms! Especially with chronic illness, the question we want to ask is not why do I have these symptoms, but what is my body trying to tell me?

shoutingThis separation can be very harmful for many reasons, but most importantly makes it impossible to listen to our own intuition because there is no wholeness of our mind and body. For example, how can you communicate with someone when they are very far away from you (without the use of cell phones, etc.)? Similarly, when things are separated or far away from each other communication is impossible, thus our intuition can’t tell us the information we need for health. If you are curious to learn more about this idea, this flow chart depicts it perfectly.

Jini consistently speaks on the mind/body component of healing, so this means there needs to be wholeness before any healing takes place. That all parts of us need to be whole to truly master LISTENING to our gut and body.

Intuitive Blockages

When we cant listen to our own intuition, there’s usually an underlying reason (or reasons) why. One of the most common is abuse.

Childhood abuse can create self-doubt and distrust within a person. Sufferers often BLAME themselves for their experiences, mistrust their own intuition, and blame themselves and their bodies for what is going on.

If you don’t trust someone, it causes separation. You naturally distance yourself from that person because trust is broken, and if you don’t feel safe, then further separation happens. The ways we separate can come with judgmental, shameful, or stuck-in-a-box type thinking. We may talk really harshly to ourselves. We may try to be perfect and put ourselves to an impossible standard. We beat ourselves up.

When this happens to our bodies, there is no longer togetherness. Now we blame our bodies for anything that happens and distrust it. We can also apply this to physical ailments – we may blame our bodies for not healing, and not trust it, so then we can’t trust ourselves to heal.

Not Trusting Oneself

It can be really hard when we feel like our bodies are betraying us or sabotaging us and our efforts to heal. We may feel betrayed because no matter what we do we AREN’T HEALING. We may spend all this money, time, energy and still not attain the results we want. If you feel this way, you are not alone! It seems like this occurs all too often, and many people struggle with achieving true, root-level healing.

trustThe value of self-trust is that when we are able to lean into ourselves, we can take whatever symptoms we’re experiencing and learn from them. They can teach us what our body and gut need! So the answer to the above problem is to learn self-love and self-trust. That way, no matter what happens physically, you can tune in and find solutions. 🙂

In order to listen, one thing you may be missing is love for yourself. For example, when you feel love, support, trust, and nurtured by another person, that’s when open communication happens. If there is no trust or love, communication can be shut down – or never start to begin with. So what about our bodies? If we love them, we can listen and tune in to them, valuing and respecting what our bodies have to say. Otherwise, if we don’t love ourselves the messages probably won’t be clear, and we will use the messages as a form of self-hurt (like shaming ourselves for having symptoms/issues in the first place). 

When things are separated, as we discussed in the paragraph earlier, it makes things really hard to trust our own intuition. The problem is if we can’t trust ourselves, the separation gets further – and the whole cycle starts all over again.

The good thing about this is that once you are aware of the issue taking place, you can change it. So if trusting yourself is an issue, you can learn how to overcome this, which can lead to listening to the body and achieving healing.

When we lack self-trust, it’s almost impossible to look inside – then we cant listen to our gut and don’t receive any messages, which makes it really hard to heal. One way we can break this habit is by looking inward instead of away.

Example: Look inward for resources instead of external. Yes, it’s great to implement all these physical protocols, but before we do these treatments ask your BODY what it needs!

One thing my mentor once told me that I’ll never forget is, “Before you take any supplement treatment or pill, make sure you are doing it with LOVE.”

See, if we are shoving pills in our bodies (even if they are natural and good for us), but there is no love in the mix, they probably will do very little good, or make things worse if our bodies don’t even want that treatment. Make sure whatever you choose to do is out of love for yourself.

How to Gain Self-Trust

How can you do this?

Now, as you get more practice with this you can do as Jini and I do, which is before taking anything we ask our intuition what it needs/wants and how much of it to consume. My physician told me he does this every day. Each day he will hold the supplement bottle in his hand and see how his body responds as he holds it. If he gets a good feeling in his gut intuition he will take it, otherwise, he won’t. I thought this was a nice example of how important it is to check in often and see how your body responds to things before taking the same stuff for years – not even knowing if your body likes or needs it!

One thing is don’t force anything. If you have been hard on yourself your whole life, blamed yourself, haven’t trusted yourself…any additional force will only create resistance! You don’t want to push away further by forcing yourself to trust yourself, listen, etc.

When you do begin trusting yourself, you can do so softly and gently – leading to wholeness, and therefore better health!

Self-Hate

self hateIt’s surprising how many people deal with this, and even more so how many people don’t realize they hate themselves…but walk around with it every day! Frustration often occurs when we’re not healing, so sometimes we can HATE our bodies because, with all we are doing, they still aren’t responding to treatment. It’s almost as if the person who hurt us (from childhood trauma, a painful experience, etc..) is doing it again through our body since our is body constantly hurting us with sickness and pain.

But once we are aware of self-blame and self-hate, we can find ways to change those limiting beliefs and release them. Jini’s Lazer Tapping is one BIG way to do so, and it has been such a blessing and powerful tool in my life.

Jini created this game-changer healing course “for her readers and others who are struggling with chronic health issues, disempowerment, lack of abundance, unsupportive relationships, and boring in-a-rut lives. Because our unresolved/unhealed crap holds us back!”

I highly encourage you to join Jini for a free session so you can experience Lazer Tapping for yourself! You can choose from:

  • Release emotions in your gut that are causing physical symptoms
  • Improve self-confidence, release “I am not ____ enough”
  • Learn to feel okay saying “No” and set healthy boundaries

Lately the session on releasing emotions in the gut causing physical symptoms has been the most helpful to me. You can join Jini for one of the above free sessions here. 🙂

Listen to Your Gut

Once we’ve addressed the aforementioned blockages, now we can tune in…

While you do this, make sure to prioritize yourself: your safety, your boundaries, your health – everything. Take responsibility for yourself and make YOU your #1 instead of waiting for a person or situation to change. Come to your OWN rescue.

This is a form of self-care! Self-care has to be prioritized in order to listen to yourself. The more you practice self-care, the more those other blockages we discussed earlier can begin to diminish – because this can lead you to learn to love yourself, leaving you in a healthy spot to now begin this journey of listening to what your body has to say.

When first trying this, there is definitely a learning curve, but after some time you’ll be able to do this even with distractions around, as it will become second nature.

Here are a few tips to help you tune in to your own intuition:

  • It’s always nice to start out with deep, slow breathing. Be in a quiet area, and let your body loosen up.
  • If our body is in pain and hurting, we should first recognize that and be very loving towards it. Recognize and acknowledge what is going on, even if that requires stating what is going on out loud. It obviously wants your attention! So, validate it first.
  • Don’t force anything to happen or come up, just tune in and ask your body what you are feeling. Where is the pain? Is there anything you need to know about this pain? What does it feel like? Where is it? What is its message?
  • Don’t pressure yourself to bring up messages if you aren’t feeling or hearing anything from your intuition! I did this a lot. I pressured myself to bring up stuff thinking that was the only way I would heal! This pressure made me stressed, doing the opposite of what we are trying to do.
  • Things may come up that are uncomfortable, but ALWAYS use gentleness and compassion toward yourself.
  • Embrace your flaws! Until you embrace the parts of you that are broken, all the parts of you, you aren’t truly loving yourself. I used to think that until I FIXED these parts, I couldn’t love myself, but actually, the way you fix these parts is by loving them!
  • If going into your body is too scary at first, why not look at it from afar? Imagine looking at yourself, just noticing.
  • You can also try the SWAY technique! SWAY is a really fascinating technique where you ask your body what it needs. Standing with two feet on the ground hold the supplement in your hand (or whatever you need clarity on) close your eyes, and if your body sways forward it’s a YES if it sways back it’s a NO. The science on this is fascinating if you decide to research it.
  • The more you listen, the easier it gets – and the messages get clearer!

And these are just some of the numerous things that can help us listen to our intuition…

Positive Affirmations

If you read my post on the power of positive affirmations, you will know that this healing tool can be used for anything and everything – and it can really help in healing! I list a few positive affirmations in there that you can use, but I wanted to list a few here as well that apply to listening to our bodies. These affirmations are also a great basis for tapping, which I have used during many of my personal tapping sessions.

The following positive affirmations can really help to make that shift into wholeness of mind/body:

  • I listen to my body.
  • I honor the wisdom of my body.
  • I trust my body from head to toe.
  • I love my body even if _______ (insert the ailment, pain, or trauma).
  • My body is an intelligent system – a health-making system!
  • My body knows how to support itself.
  • I believe in my ability to heal.
  • I choose to be healthy, and I recognize my body and I heal in our own time.
  • I choose to be whole.

Jini’s Suggestions

Jini created some guided meditations and tapping sessions which I think are fabulous in relation to this topic. These can help you release the trauma that helps form the blockages we discussed, so you can LISTEN TO YOUR GUT!

The above statements for tapping or affirmations are just to get you started into connecting the two systems, but we want to make sure when tapping we are actually reaching the visceral level. That is why doing a session with Jini is going to be beneficial to get to that deeper level – and access both mind and body!

Jini offers this tapping session that can be particularly helpful: “Releasing Trauma From Abuse”

And this powerful guided meditation: “Place Your Consciousness Inside Your Body”

These two sessions can really be beneficial for what we discussed, but really any of Jini’s sessions can be helpful, as she designs sessions to reach both levels of our mind/body.

While you are listening to your mind and body….let me know what your thoughts on this post are! I’d also love to hear about how you listen to your intuition – do you have any rituals you perform to help you better tune in with your body? Drop a comment below and let’s share!

As always, happy healing – and remember to always listen to your gut. 🙂