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- [00:00]
Gemma Spagh
Foreign this is Open Mind. Welcome to a brand new week. Here is your Mantra I trust that my body knows what it's doing. I'm Jemis Beg and every Monday I give you a simple but powerful phrase to consider this bring into your life a philosophy to guide you in the week ahead and hopefully even beyond. At Open Mind, we value your support, so please make sure to share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow Mantra to help others discover the show. For more exclusive content, monthly bonus episodes, early access and ad free listening, join our Open Mind plus community on Apple Podcasts each month. You guys know I also love to respond to your questions, comments, dilemmas in our bonus episodes. So leave a comment comment on this episode or you can DM me on Instagram at Mantra Open Mind if you'd like to be included. Stick around. We'll be right back after this short pause. Fall is the season of cozy layers. 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To take advantage of this offer, book Your appointment by December 31, 2025 for complete terms and conditions and to book your appointment, just visit smilegeneration.com mantra that's smilegeneration.com mantra okay, let's get right into it. It is time for this week's Mantra I Trust Knows what It's Doing now before we get into this episode, just want to let you know we will be covering topics pertaining to body dysmorphia, health anxiety and our relationship with food. If that is something you are sensitive to, I totally understand that this episode may be hard, so feel free to skip it altogether. Go and listen to one of our other 40 plus mantras. Or you can come back later when you feel like you're in a better space. But just a reminder to take care of yourself. But onto this week's mantra I trust that my body knows what it's doing. The truth is, I think a lot of us don't fully trust our bodies and we most certainly do not talk about it enough. We doubt its signals, we question its instincts, and I think sometimes we even feel betrayed by it. This is especially true if you've experienced health anxiety where every sensation feels like a warning, every ache feels like a symptom of something bigger. Instead of seeing our body as wise and self regulating, we start to see it as unpredictable, as fragile, maybe even unsafe. Health anxiety is such a wild set of feelings to have. It's also known as hypochondria. It's this persistent fear that something is seriously wrong with your health, even when medical reassurance or evidence suggests otherwise. Now, it's not just like the occasional worry about a symptom. It's an ongoing preoccupation with the idea that normal bodily sensations might be a sign of illness. A headache means you have a brain tumor. A racing heart means you're going to have a heart attack. The anxiety isn't really about the symptom itself, but about what the mind imagines that symptom means. What it feels like is, I think, also a heightened state of vigilance, almost like having your internal alarm system constantly being set off by by your own body. Every twinge, ache, flutter, it gets magnified. You become hyper aware of sensations that most people would overlook. And actually, the act of paying attention makes those sensations feel stronger. This is often paired with compulsive reassurance seeking, Googling symptoms. Constantly being on WebMD, checking your pulse, booking doctor's appointments, asking friends and family what they think. That may temporarily calm you down, but it ultimately reinforces the cycle of worry. At its core. Health anxiety is just so exhausting because you're not just managing your body, you're managing the what ifs that spiral out of control so rapidly. It's that sense, I think, of never being able to fully relax or always scanning for danger, always feeling unsafe in your own skin. For many people, you know, this also carries a deeper emotional weight. Your fear of mortality, fear of losing control, fear of the unknown. But of course, you don't have to have health anxiety to know what I'm talking about and to know this sense of fear, or maybe unease. Sudden changes in things like our weight, our energy levels, our physical appearance, our skin, our muscle strength, even getting sick out of nowhere and feeling like it's taking longer for us to recover can leave us feeling kind of panicked that things are not working as they should. Of course, those moments feel scary because we rely on our physical body for so much, and our health is, I think, the most important and most precious thing that we have. Here's something we have to mention. Sometimes things are actually going wrong, and that's really scary to acknowledge. That is a fact of life as well. But despite things going wrong, your body is doing all that it can behind the scenes to take care of you. And you need to take care of it as well. The body is often far more capable than our anxious mind gives it credit for. It breathes without being told. It heals cuts and bruises without us telling it to. It fights off infections, it regulates hundreds of processes we don't even notice when we're caught in worry. It's easy to forget that this physical form you inhabit is built for survival, even when things may not be going well. But what we're talking about here are times when we are okay, we are just perhaps misreading or perhaps misinterpreting our body so that the signals it sends us, the way it's trying to help us, gets ignored. This is such an important point. Most of us aren't battling a serious illness, but we are just rather disconnected from our bodies. We override its signals because we think that our schedule, our ambitions, or our ideas of productivity or what we think our body needs should take priority. We think we know better than this. Like Brilliant, ancient system that has been perfected over years and years and years. And over time, this leaves us mistrusting the very cues designed to keep us healthy. One way this shows up is around hunger and food. Instead of listening to natural signals like stomach growls, dips in energy, or cravings, we impose external rules on ourselves, only being allowed to eat at acceptable times, ignoring hunger to stay on track with a diet, even when it's costing us psychological peace of mind, drinking coffee to suppress our appetite. We adopt diets because some guru has said they are the best, when actually, unless you have strict needs or allergies or medical conditions, what is simple is best. What our body asks for is what it should receive. Balance, nutrients, goodness, fats, carbs. This pattern around hunger and food is one of the clearest examples of how we lose touch with our body's natural wisdom. At its core, hunger is not the enemy. It is a finely tuned biological signal designed to protect us, to make sure that we have energy and the nourishment that we need to survive. But instead of respecting that, many of us have been taught to see hunger since childhood, since our teen years, as something to control, suppress, outsmart. We follow arbitrary rules about when and what we should eat. We count calories instead of noticing satisfaction. And we prioritize discipline over intuition. And in doing so, we are essentially telling our body, I don't trust you to know what I need. I'll let my mind or an outside voice decide for you. The danger here is physical. It's also psychological. When we repeatedly override hunger cues, our body learns that it cannot rely on us to respond. This erodes the natural feedback loop between sensation and satisfaction, leaving us either chronically undernourished or swinging to the other extreme of overeating. Once restriction becomes like truly unbearable, food then begins to take on an emotional load. It becomes loaded with guilt. It becomes associated with control or morality, good versus bad, rather than what it really should be, which is a source of nourishment. The result is not just a mistrust of food, but a mistrust of ourselves. We stop believing that our body is capable of guiding us, and instead we place authority in external sources. Influences, wellness trends, diet books, the external validation we think we will receive from our body, looking a certain way when internally we are probably miserable. What's often overlooked is how intelligent your body truly is. Cravings are not just random, they are messages. A sudden desire for salt can signal electrolyte imbalance. A pull towards carbs might be the body asking for energy. A craving for rich foods could be that your body needs fats to support brain health and hormones. So again, by dismissing and shaming these signals, we lose the opportunity to understand ourselves on a deeper physical level. And instead of honoring the body's quiet wisdom, we flood it with rules and noise that only create more confusion. You know what another big element of this is? Sleep. Sleep is another big area. Our bodies give us such clear signs when it's time to rest. You know, drooping eyelids, sluggish thinking, irritability. We know when we are tired. But modern culture often treats fatigue as something to fight against. We have to load up on caffeine, we have to push through deadlines, or we end up binge watching shows until late at night, Convincing ourselves that we can make up for it later. This entire mindset and cultural mindset that devalues rest and that frames it as a weakness or an inconvenience Is truly not doing us any favors. And in doing so, we ignore one of the body's most fundamental healing processes as well, Sending the message that, again, we don't believe it knows what it needs. The irony is that the very things we're trying to achieve by staying awake, Whether it's productivity, creativity, connection, they are deeply dependent on sleep. A well rested brain processes information more efficiently. It finds solutions to more creatively. It maintains a stronger emotional balance. It's better able to regulate itself. You know, the body also uses sleep to repair tissues, to balance hormones, to consolidate learning. So when we do treat sleep as expendable, we are not only ignoring one of our body's clearest signals, but also stripping ourselves of the very energy and clarity we need to live fully. I think rest, in the broader sense is also something we resist Even when our body is signaling beyond tiredness, But a sense of burnout through headaches, muscle tension, low mood, we push ourselves harder, and we implicitly believe that rest equals laziness. Fatigue is actually a source of wisdom. It is absolutely a very clear sign from our body that we are not taking care of it. When we continue to ignore that, again, it erodes our trust in our body's great wisdom and guidance. If we truly believe that our body is always working in our best interest, the entire relationship we would have with ourselves would shift. Instead of viewing symptoms, sensations, discomfort as threats, Instead of viewing fatigue or hunger as something to suppress, we might begin to see them as communication, you know, messages designed to protect us and to kind of call us back into balance. I think this perspective transforms the body from an adversary to an ally. We are in unison. It would also, I think, soften the anxiety that so many of us carry. Much of our health related fear comes from interpreting the unknown as catastrophic. If we do then trust that the body is inherently wise and self regulating, we wouldn't need to jump to worst case scenarios. Instead we could just sit with not knowing. We could be grounded in the belief that even if we don't understand why a process is happening, it is still unfolding with purpose and that trust would free us from constant hypervigilance. Believing in the body's benevolence would also change how we treat it day to day. We might move from punishment to partnership, from pushing it past exhaustion, starving it of nourishment, criticizing it harshly to feeding it well, resting it when it asks us to moving it with care, and also respecting its limits at a deeper level. I think this brings us a lot of peace. It brings us this sense of unison and a relationship between our mind and the space that it occupies, that being our body. Okay, when we come back, I'm going to share a little bit more about how this mantra has shown up in my own life, plus some journal prompts and further tips. So so stay tuned.
- [15:38]
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- [16:26]
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- [17:00]
Gemma Spagh
Welcome back. Now that we've looked at the meaning behind today's mantra. I trust that my body knows what it is doing. It's time to get personal with you guys and share some of my own insights and reflections about this phrase. I mainly feel like I don't have this trust in my body or I am ignoring my body when it comes to tiredness and when it comes to pushing myself beyond my limits, thinking I know better, overriding it until it kind of really does show me who's boss. A quote I love is, listen to your body when it needs rest or it will choose rest when it is most inconvenient for you. And oh my gosh. Well, well, well. If I have not learned that lesson probably one too many times. This is a random story, but I remember at the start of last year, I kept getting tonsillitis. It was like ridiculous. And tonsillitis, I always feel like it's like an illness you get as a child. And here I was, like in my 20s getting it constantly. And guess what I would do instead of resting, I would just keep working. I would keep working. I would keep seeing my friends. I would try and keep exercising. And as soon as I started feeling just a little bit better, oh, I would just ramp things back up to 150%. I didn't go to the doctor when I should have. I didn't take time away when I needed to. I didn't do preventative things. And then I would just get so frustrated and stressed and annoyed when I'd lose my voice, which I obviously need for my job. When I wasn't able to work, when I wasn't able to go out and do things, not acknowledging my own role in this process of healing and in listening to my body, I was in many ways fighting against my body. I was sabotaging all the ways it was done, desperately trying to communicate with me and help me and push me in the right direction. This all changed when I went on holiday and I was in New Zealand and I got tonsillitis. And I was kind of forced to rest like there was nothing else to do. I couldn't go to work, I couldn't record episodes. I couldn't see my friends because it was just me and my boyfriend on holiday. And I kind of realized, like, this isn't something I need to push through. I can kind of just let myself be sick. I also went to the doctor throughout all these times of getting chronic tonsitis, I did not go to the doctor. This doctor gave me antibiotics. Guess what hasn't come back since? Because I rested, because I finally listened to it because I did what was right. This was a valuable lesson, definitely something. I'm trying to apply it more to my mental health now. Just noticing that you can think and feel one way about your symptoms and about what your body is capable of, but it's going to show you pretty clearly what it needs from you and what it is actually capable of and not capable of fighting against it is going to get you nowhere. Working with it in unison is going to get you to a place of healing, of wellness, of health much quicker. Here are some of the ways that you can practice this. Firstly, notice discomfort and tension. Feeling like crap, Feeling off, feeling foggy. That's not always something that you can just push through. These are signs, they are telling you something. The challenge is that we're often taught to normalize these states and to see them as like just the cost of being busy or ambitious, but feeling chronically off. I don't know if anybody's told you this, that's actually not how you're meant to feel. I need you to do some deductive investigating. Maybe start tracking certain behaviors, tracking what is causing this, tracking your sleep, tracking if there's certain foods that are creating weird sensations in your body so that you can kind of get out of this constant state of just feeling lethargic or bad. Secondly, just honor the natural rhythms within your body. One of the most powerful, yet underrated ways to build trust with our body is to just listen to it and to listen to how it is flowing and how it is operating through life. Our biology is organized around cycles daily circadian rhythms that regulate sleep and wake, hunger, digestion, energy and rest. Circadian psychology is the study of how our body's internal clock shape not just our physical state, but our thoughts, our mood, our behavior. These rhythms dictate when we feel sleepy, when we feel alert, when we release hormones like cortisol and melatonin, how we metabolize food. So I really want you to take some time to learn what your circadian rhythm might be or learn the general circadian rhythm that humans operate on. It's so fascinating that once you get into this, you understand how important the timing of our behaviors are, how important it is to rest and eat and expose ourselves to light and exercise at certain times. When we follow these ingrained natural patterns with some degree of consistency, we do see that our body can operate better and we reduce the stress load on the body. Without consistency, the nervous system is kind of left guessing, never quite sure when nourishment is going to come. When rest is going to come when it needs to be prepared for the next activity. And this uncertainty can trigger a subtle but ongoing stress response, leaving us increasingly anxious, increasingly fatigued, and less resilient over time. Thirdly, find ways to show your body like some deep, deep love. I think this is really rooted in ritual. Find a ritual that will allow you to connect with this physical vessel that you operate within. Do exercise you enjoy because it feels fun. This has been my approach to running recently. I've fallen in love with running because I'm not forcing myself to do it and because I'm not forcing myself to do it in a way that I don't enjoy. And it's completely changed my relationship to exercise. Do some dancing. Compliment your body. Compliment your arms, your legs, your form on how capable they are, how much they do for you. Thank it for its service. Also, really take your time with like certain hygiene practices that also embody self love. Prioritize like the everything shower that you may enjoy, taking a moment to really slow down with your skincare or when you brush your teeth, really notice how beautiful and wonderful your body really is. Have a good sleep ritual. This is like the most important form of self care that I think is on this list. Sleep is your lifeline. Sleep is life. You don't understand how important it is until you don't prioritize it. So please make sure that you are not using screens before bed. You are not drinking caffeine at 9pm, you are not staying up on your phone even when you can feel your eyes start to fatigue. Do the things that you need to so that sleep doesn't feel like a chore, it feels like something you can slide into. Also, I think it's important to at times try a body scan. Meditation. I think if you have health anxiety, this may not be great for you, but if you don't, this is a brilliant mindfulness practice that helps you reconnect with your body just by paying attention to it in a way that we're often asked not to do. Because modern life is so busy, it's super simple. You just find a comfortable position. You can either lay down, you can sit, close your eyes, start to really breathe and feel that breath in your body. And then begin at the top of your body, bring your attention to your head and your face and just notice where sensations sit. Notice where there's tension, where there's warmth, where there's tingling. Keep doing that as you move downward and just don't label it as bad, just labeled it as something that is happening. Just notice it and then come back to your body feeling more aligned with what it's trying to communicate with you. All right, those are some of my tips. We've explored what it means to trust our bodies. When we come back, we're going to talk about how to put that into practice with our deep thought of the day and some journal prompts. So stick around for more after this. Quick Ready.
- [25:04]
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- [26:07]
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- [26:36]
Dr. Elizabeth Poynter
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- [26:50]
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- [27:03]
Gemma Spagh
Welcome back. Our mantra for this week is I trust that my body knows what it's doing. Our deep thought of the day really drives this home. Every heartbeat, every breath is proof your body knows exactly what it's doing. I don't Know who said that quote. But I do love that it talks about breath and heartbeat and all these things that naturally happen that can really allow us to ground ourselves. I did this really interesting interview the other day on breath work with this expert, and she was talking about how breath is like the universal medicine and like the universal truth of existence. Like, even the universe breathes, even the trees breathe. Even like the earth breathes, we breathe. And connecting with that in your own body allows you to connect with things around you. And I think this goes beyond trusting what your body is doing and trusting that you know there is a sense of stability in what the world is doing and that you can really see your place in it and feel grounded in your existence in that way. The same thing with your heartbeat, reconnecting with these parts that tell you, I'm here, I'm here, I'm present, I'm alive, is also uniquely, psychologically powerful. So I love that quote. Let's dive into our journal practice. Every mantra I think lands a little bit differently depending on what you're going through. So these prompts are really just to help you tune into and reflect on whatever thoughts, feelings, shifts are showing up for you personally. If journaling isn't your thing, that's totally okay. You can also just answer these questions in your own head. But just take a little moment to reflect on these prompts. First, what experiences have shown you that your body is more capable than you once believed? Next, how does your body communicate its needs to you right now? And ask yourself, are you listening? And finally, what is one signal your body has been giving you recently? And how can you respond to it with trust instead of suppression or resistance? Now that you've made that space to reflect, let's give your mind just a little moment to rest. In just a second, you're here. A music track. I just encourage you to take this opportunity to process this week's reflection in whatever way feels right to you. No pressure or expectations from me. You can literally think about whatever you want. And if this isn't something you connect with, that's totally okay. Just Skip ahead about 30 seconds. But as you settle in, keep our mantra in mind. I trust that my body knows what it is doing. As the music plays, let this mantra to shape your thoughts, shape your breath, and take the time to connect with whatever it is bringing up for you. Beautiful. Alrighty. As we wrap up this week's episode, I want to share a few final thoughts about this mantra. I trust that my body knows what it is doing. Trust is something we talk about a lot on the podcast and it doesn't just happen overnight. I think really embodying this mantra is a series of practices where you push aside what the world wants you to do, what society is asking you to do, and you honor the relationship that matters the most, which is the one you have with yourself and the one you have with your body. Our bodies have been carrying us, protecting us, working for us for their and our entire existence, even when we didn't notice it. Give yourself and give your body some love for that, trust that it is able to handle whatever else is happening in your life life if you just give it space to do so and you listen to it. So as we move forward this week and beyond, choose to treat your body with patience. Choose respect, choose confidence in it. And I think that you'll find a huge change coming about. Thank you for joining Mantra an exclusive Open Mind Original Powered by Pave Studios At Open Mind, we really value your support, so please share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow Mantra to help others discover the show. For ad free listening and early access to the show, make sure to join Open Mind plus on Apple Podcast. I'll share another mantra with you next Monday. Until then, keep showing up for yourself and your journey. I'm Gemma Spagh. See you next week. Mantra is hosted by me, Jemispeg, and is an Open Mind Original Powered by Pave Studios Videos this episode was brought to life by the Incredible Mantra team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Stacy Warrenker, Sarah Camp, Jen Passavoy and Paul Lieberskin. Thank you for listening.
- [32:18]
Liberty Mutual / Experian Advertiser
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Liberty Mutual / Experian Advertiser
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Gemma Spagh
Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.
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- [33:14]
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