Over coffee, someone once said:
“We keep trying to think our way out of bodies we have forgotten how to inhabit.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Because the problem is not intellect.
Our thinking is extraordinary.
It gives us language.
Science.
Medicine.
Law.
Art.
Ethics.
Architecture.
Music.
Technology.
The ability to imagine futures, learn from the past, and speak across generations.
But our thinking can become distorted when we forget our animal aspect.
Our breathing body.
Our sensing body.
Our hungry body.
Our tired body.
Our startled body.
Our grieving body.
Our playful body.
Our body that knows when a room is tense before our mind has formed a sentence.
Our body that tightens before we admit we are afraid.
Our body that softens before we realise we trust someone.
Our body that says no before politeness says yes.
For centuries, many of us have been taught, directly or indirectly, to rise above our bodies.
Control it.
Discipline it.
Ignore it.
Outperform it.
Explain it.
Optimise it.
Distract from it.
Use it as a vehicle for achievement rather than recognise it as a living part of our intelligence.
And we wonder why so many of us feel anxious, burnt out, dissociated, ashamed, restless, numb or exhausted.
Not because our thinking is our enemy.
But because our thinking was never meant to operate separately from us.
As a human being, I am not a mind dragging a body through life.
I am a human animal with language.
A human animal with memory.
A human animal with imagination.
A human animal with conscience.
A human animal capable of love, meaning, reflection and choice.
But still an animal.
Still rhythmic.
Still relational.
Still dependent on sleep, movement, food, breath, touch, daylight, safety, play and recovery.
Sometimes maturity means developing our mind.
But sometimes maturity means returning to our body without contempt.
Not becoming primitive.
Not abandoning reason.
Not romanticising instinct.
But letting our body rejoin the conversation.
What am I sensing?
What am I bracing against?
What do I need to move, feel, digest, say, rest or release?
Where has my thinking become clever but disconnected?
Perhaps wisdom is not intellect defeating the animal.
Perhaps wisdom is intellect learning to listen to our human animal with respect.
Where in your life are you trying to solve with thought what may first need to be felt in your body?
One episode in a series I call: A coffee conversation worth having.