Listen to the Whispers

What?

When something is off with your body (physically or mentally) your body will whisper before it screams. In fact, most of the time your body will whisper for as long as it can before it gives up and just plain yells at you.

Winter can bring a lot of seasonal illnesses (again both in your body and mind) and it’s our job to pay attention before things get haywire.

It’s also easy (especially right after a big holiday of excess) to become numb to those cues, those whispers. You know that feeling, when you’re living a bit healthier and you do something that’s not so healthy, how much more do you feel that? How much more does that food choice, activity choice, or lack of sleep choice affect you when it isn’t your day-to-day?

It’s like drinking alcohol after time away from it, it hits you harder (and different) than when you’re drinking more often. Or if you haven’t eaten out in a while and then you do, the way the salt sits on your tongue (maybe even dehydrates you), your belly feels more full, you feel more tired from the processed food. Same goes for your brain, same goes for sleep patterns, same goes for too much or too little exercise—you get the point.

Your body and your brain will tell you what you need, but first, it will whisper. And if you can help yourself before your body/brain has to scream, the far easier and quicker that fix tends to be.

Here’s an example, when my brain is hurting, it will start with little things—more annoyances at daily tasks, a cloudy feeling behind my eyes, and a little bit more of a challenge falling asleep. If I can catch these cues at a whisper, I can add in a little more meditation, a little more routine bedtime, more movement, or a chat with my husband or therapist. If I miss those whispers, things start to spiral and before I know it, my brain is screaming something like, “Everything is ruined,” “You aren’t good enough, smart enough, successful enough or a good person.” For those who suffer, you know the drill.

It’s interesting when I look back at pictures during a spiral, I can always see it in my eyes. Of course, it’s tough to do in the moment, but when I look back, there is always, always a blankness in my eyes that isn’t normally there. More tired eyes, less life.

Same with the body, that little pinch in my hip from running too much starts as a whimper, if I don’t start icing, stretching more and foam rolling, sciatica can creep in. One time I didn’t listen for so long that I spent several months unable to sit for long periods. I had to makeshift standing options for everything I could, and on road trips I had to stop every hour because the only thing that would help the pain was standing. I took one of the worst work trips of my life during that time on a nonstop flight from Nebraska to Florida, head down between my knees, deep breathing, my only option to try to slow the pain when I couldn’t stand.

So how do we tune into the whispers? Surprise! Mindfulness really helps. 🙂

Mindfulness creates awareness, awareness creates more alignment with what’s going on with those whispers, and it helps you tune in quicker to the need for a course correction. It doesn’t stop the need from entering your life (and I don’t think anything would permanently of course) but it helps tune into the needs sooner before your body or your brain has to scream at you.

Mindfulness meditation that uses a body scan can really help. It helps train you how to focus on the whispers, it helps you check in with every part of your body and every corner of your mind in a safe, quiet space. That’s why if you attend one of my yoga or meditation classes in winter, we’re going to do a body scan.

Once mindfulness becomes a larger part of your daily life, you might be surprised by the outcome.

Food that doesn’t serve your body may not taste as good; you might really recognize how that lack of sleep is showing up in your work, your relationships, or your physical tasks; you might be able to feel that brain cloud on the horizon and works towards a solution before the storm of depression hits.

You might just learn how it feels to be the very best version of you.

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A woman is running with two dogs in a park.

Balancing a Brain that’s Fighting Back

By Katherine Warren • April 6, 2025

Your brain will straight up lie to you. There’s no way to sugar coat that, friends, there just isn’t. But your brain also creates beautiful ideas and inventions, and well, everything you see that surrounds us. It’s the power of the AND. Your brain is the king of the “and.” The first step in finding balance is recognizing this. The second step is discerning the beautiful part of your brain from the beast. The third is not reacting to, judging or negotiating with the beastly part. It’s tough, tough work. It’s lifelong work. And even if your friends start calling you things like the “definition of balance” (a term so kindly bestowed on me by some friends recently). You’re still gonna have to work your a** off on this part for the rest of your life as you sway back and forth, in and out of balance. Does it get easier? Yes and no. The beauty of understanding the feeling of balance is that you don’t have to rely on your brain so much. You know how it feels to be in a place of solid, grounded peace, no matter what your brain is shouting you “should” or “could” be doing. The harder part is that the more you find balance, the more likely it is that you are upleveling your life. Your focus and pure presence have likely brought about more of whatever you define as a successful life--mentally, physically, or materially. That uplevel can mean those brain lies cut a little deeper, make you question every decision you make to protect your peace. If you’ve learned to sit with that pain in your belly, it might fight a little harder to make you pay attention to it. It might put up a bigger fight to try to force you to listen to those untruths. This is when you have to remind yourself, your brain will straight up lie to you. Under no circumstances should you negotiate with these thoughts. That’s where spiraling lives, that’s where lack of balance lies. Sometimes holding hard to your balanced routines will do the trick.