When Listening to the Body Is Mistaken for Blame

Listening inwardly begins with becoming willing to hear what the body may be expressing.

For twenty-four years, I have been exploring the possibility that physical symptoms may carry energetic meaning through the feelings, thoughts, and beliefs held within us.

I did not begin by believing it.

In fact, when I had physical challenges and first encountered the metaphors offered in Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Body and later in Karol Truman’s Feelings Buried Alive Never Die, my culturally conditioned ego often responded immediately:

No! That is not true for me.

But instead of stopping at that first reaction, I became willing to play with the possibility. I did not have to believe the metaphor. I did not have to accept someone else’s interpretation as absolute truth. I only had to become honest enough to ask whether some part of me recognized what my conscious mind initially rejected.

Again and again, when I moved beyond the conditioned “No” and allowed myself to explore the emotional metaphor, something opened.

• Sometimes I discovered a feeling I had buried.

• Sometimes I recognized an experience I had mentally dismissed but had not truly released.

• Sometimes a physical symptom changed.

• At times, something that appeared to be developing seemed to reverse or disappear.

Symptoms associated with my scoliosis once left overnight after I reached the emotional truth my body appeared to be expressing for many years.

That was not the only time.

A Simple Experiment in Listening to the Body

Sometimes the body’s message is not mysterious. It may simply be saying: this is too much.

A simpler, more everyday example is the common cold. Louise Hay associates colds with overwhelm, and that overwhelm may not be mysterious or deeply buried. Around the holidays, for example, the body may be coping with more sugar than usual, crowded schedules, shopping, social obligations, disrupted sleep, and the pressure to accomplish too much at once.

The first response may still be: No. I am fine. I am not overwhelmed. But what happens if, instead of arguing with the metaphor, we become honest enough to acknowledge:

"Yes, I do feel a little overwhelmed. Thank you, body. I hear you."

For me, that has sometimes been enough for the cold symptoms to recede, occasionally supported by immune-boosting supplements while I also respond to what my body is communicating. Over time, symptoms receded more rapidly when I accepted what my body was trying to tell me and took action on every level—physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.

I have not had a cold in twenty-two years.

I do not offer that as a guarantee that another person’s cold will disappear, or as proof that every cold carries the same meaning. I offer it as part of the lived pattern that has taught me to listen rather than dismiss the metaphor before exploring it.

The body may be responding to physical strain and emotional or energetic overwhelm at the same time. These layers do not have to compete with one another. Eating differently, resting, taking supportive supplements, and acknowledging the feeling can all belong to the same response.

The point is not to find something we did wrong. The point is to recognize what may be true now—and meet the body with honesty rather than resistance.

What We Ignore Does Not Disappear

What is pushed aside does not necessarily disappear. It may only find another way to be heard.

We have been conditioned to believe that if we ignore discomfort, push it aside, or stop giving it attention, it will eventually disappear. Yet what is pushed under the rug has not necessarily gone anywhere. It may simply have been silenced.

The body can be much like a child trying to tell us something. If the child is dismissed, ignored, or told to stop making a fuss, the need does not vanish. It may become louder, retreat beneath the surface, or find another way to be expressed. But when the child is genuinely heard—Yes, I understand. I see what you are feeling—something can soften.

Listening to the body does not mean dwelling negatively on a symptom or feeding it with fear. It means giving honest, compassionate attention to what may be asking for acknowledgment. Paradoxically, that kind of positive attention may allow the message to recede because it no longer has to struggle to be heard.

Over the years, the pattern repeated often enough that I could no longer dismiss the body’s metaphorical language simply because it was not part of the conventional worldview.

What helped me was not certainty.

It was openness.

You Do Not Have to Believe It

This is the part that is so often misunderstood. When I share the possibility that the body may hold buried emotions or express them symbolically, I am not saying:

You caused your illness.

You did something wrong.

You failed to heal properly.

I am saying only:

Would you be willing to look?

You do not have to believe the metaphor when you first read it. I often did not. The ego may reject it immediately because the conscious mind has already constructed a different story. It may say, I am not angry. I am over that. That did not affect me. I forgave them years ago. I have already let it go.

But releasing something and separating ourselves from the feeling are not always the same. We may believe an emotion is gone because we no longer consciously feel it. We may have learned to rise above it, explain it, forgive it, spiritualize it, or move forward without ever fully allowing it to move through the body.

The metaphor offers somewhere to look.

It is not a verdict.

It is not an accusation.

It is an invitation to become more honest than the first conditioned response.

Perhaps the metaphor will not resonate.

Perhaps it will lead nowhere.

But perhaps, beneath the immediate “No,” something in the body will quietly say:

Yes. There is something here.

That is all I am asking people to consider.

Not belief.

Not blame.

Openness.