Your Body Knows Before Your Mind Explains

The Strange thing about intuition.

About a decade ago I read two books about the left and right hemisphere of the brain. One is called The Master and His Emissary. The other is called The Origin of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. They are interesting books, but I need to be honest. They are also very boring. Very monotonous. So I am trying to pull out the part that actually matters without making you suffer through every page.

The idea that stayed with me is that there may have been a time when human beings did not experience the voice inside their head the way we do now. Today, when something speaks inside of us, we usually call it intuition. Or we call it a thought. Or we dismiss it and say, “That is just me.” But what if people once related to that inner voice very differently? What if the thing we now call intuition was once heard as a voice from the heavens, a voice from God, a voice from nature, a tree speaking, an animal spirit speaking, or some larger intelligence moving through the body and offering direction?

I am not saying every inner voice is literally God speaking. That is not the point. The point is that there was a time when this inner signal may have been given more reverence. It was listened to. It was respected. It was not immediately reduced to random mental noise. Now we often do the opposite. We hear the signal and explain it away. We say, “That is just my feeling,” or “That is just my body,” and because it is “just me,” we treat it like it does not matter.

But maybe the signal did not disappear. Maybe we just stopped respecting it.

Learning to feel before you explain

A lot of modern life trains the logical mind to be in charge. School rewards logic. Tests reward logic. Most of our institutions reward the ability to get the right answer, explain it, defend it, and prove that it is correct. There is value in that. I use logic all the time. But logic is not the only kind of intelligence we have.

There is another kind of knowing that does not always arrive as a sentence. It might come through as a tightening in the throat, a cold feeling in the solar plexus, a collapse in the heart, a tension in the back of the neck, a warmth in the belly, or a feeling of being supported. It might show up before you can explain why. It might not give you a perfect argument. It might only give you a yes or a no.

There is a word for the ability to perceive what is happening inside your body. Interoception. Internal perception. Before you call something anxiety, fear, excitement, intuition, or instinct, there is sensation. Heat. Pressure. Tightness. Heaviness. Openness. Contraction. The body speaks in sensation before the mind speaks in language.

This is the first thing to practice. Close your eyes for a few breaths and scan your body without naming everything. Do not call it anxiety. Do not call it fear. Do not call it intuition. Just notice what is there. Where is there tension? Where is there warmth? Where does the body feel heavy? Where does it feel awake? Where does it feel quiet? Most people live in the explanation of their body instead of the body itself. They feel the label, not the raw signal. They feel the story that came after the body already spoke.

So the practice begins simply. Feel before you explain.

What yes and no feel like

Once you can feel the body before labeling it, the next question is very simple. What does yes feel like in your body? Not what is the smart reason to say yes. Not what would look good to other people. Not what makes sense on paper. What does yes feel like physically?

For me, one of the things I notice is that my shoulder blades feel supported. I feel lifted through my legs and shoulders, almost like something underneath me is holding me up. My body feels more available, more organized, more willing. For someone else, yes might feel like warmth in the chest. It might feel like more breath. It might feel like the jaw softening, the belly opening, or the body moving forward slightly. The point is not to copy someone else’s signal. The point is to learn your own.

Then ask the other side. What does no feel like in your body? For me, no can feel like my heart collapses. There is a sinking in the chest. Sometimes I feel it in the back of my neck. For someone else, no might feel like the throat tightening, the belly going cold, the breath getting smaller, or the body pulling back.

This is worth practicing with something simple. Think of something in your life that is a clean yes, something that does not require a lot of debate. Feel what happens in the body. Then think of a recent moment where you did something you knew was not right for you, but you did it anyway. Not to shame yourself. Just to study the signal. Before you did it, where did the no show up? Was it in your throat, your neck, your belly, your chest, your breath?

The body usually tells the truth earlier than the mind admits it.

The moment you override yourself

This is the part that matters most. Once you know what no feels like, you have to look at how you override it. Because most of us have a pattern. We feel the no, then the logical mind arrives with a very convincing argument.

Maybe the argument is, “I am probably just tired.” Maybe it is, “I am being dramatic.” Maybe it is, “I should be grateful.” Maybe it is, “This makes sense financially.” Maybe it is, “I do not want to disappoint them.” Maybe it is, “They probably know better than me.”

That is the moment where we abandon the signal. Not always in some dramatic way. Sometimes it is quiet. We feel the contraction, then we reach for the explanation that lets us ignore it.

This is why writing it down helps. Writing makes the pattern tangible. It lets the logical mind join the party, but only after the body has already spoken. Ask yourself, what is the sentence I use to override my body? For some people, it is tiredness. For some people, it is responsibility. For some people, it is being nice. For some people, it is money. For some people, it is logic.

You need to know yours, because the next time your body says no and your mind immediately says, “You are just tired,” there can be a small pause. That pause matters. That is where you either stay with the signal or abandon it again.

Waking the body enough to hear it

In the full Energy Body Awakening practice, we move from reflection into the body because it is one thing to talk about intuition and another thing to build enough sensitivity to feel it clearly.

We start by rubbing the hands together until they become hot, then rubbing the skin with pressure. Feet, legs, torso, face, skull, neck. The point is to wake up sensation and bring awareness back into the body. Then we use breath to build charge in the nervous system. We work with the navel and solar plexus, the place I think of as the command center. We shake the body to loosen the old program and get out of the need to be composed, correct, and controlled.

Then we use sound. A guttural sound from the belly. A hum with the ears covered. The sound Hung, repeated like a percussive strike from the diaphragm. These practices are not random. They are all ways of turning attention inward through sensation, vibration, breath, and movement instead of only trying to think our way into awareness.

After that, we feel the space around the body. The hands. The palms. The field in front of us. The ignored space behind us. You can call it aura, subtle energy, bioelectric awareness, or whatever language keeps you honest. I care less about the label than the direct experience. Can you feel more than you usually feel? Can you sense the body as something alive, responsive, and connected? Can you listen without immediately needing to explain?

That is the opening.

The practice after the practice

For the rest of the day, pay attention to the small signals. Not the dramatic ones. The subtle ones. The moment your belly tightens. The moment your breath opens. The moment your chest collapses a little. The moment your shoulders feel supported. The moment your mind starts explaining why you should ignore what you just felt.

That is the practice after the practice. Noticing the signal before you abandon it.

Ask yourself, what does yes feel like in my body? What does no feel like? What do I usually say to myself so I can ignore it?

That last question might show you more than you expect. Because your body may already be speaking clearly. You may just be more loyal to the explanation than the signal.

If you want to do the full Energy Body Awakening practice with me, it is inside www.SelfExpansion.app We go through the lecture, the journaling, the breathwork, the shaking, the sound, and the final meditation together.

You do not need to understand it perfectly before doing it. You just have to listen.