Listening to My Body is a book about sensations and feelings and how to learn to pay attention to them. Each couple of pages gives examples of how specific experiences make us feel and how our bodies react to them. The book also includes ways to practice noticing sensations and feelings in our bodies as you read along.

Gabi Garcia reminds us that we “yawn when [we’re] tired,” “get goosebumps,” and that our hearts tap and pound, and “I can listen to my body for clues about how I’m feeling about the things happening around me.”

Some of us know our bodies better because of Lent, Holy Week, and church. We lean into grief, stillness, quiet thoughts, emotions, and concerns that we may have neglected. We learned that every inch of our bodies can be used to praise God. We have danced through the most difficult things. We have found relief, release, and our help in singing, sweating, and swaying in service. I recently told my spouse, “I have to go to church on Sunday. I can’t watch it on the stream. I need to feel that place vibrate in my bones to get through these hard times.”

For some of us, Lent, Holy Week, and church were the exact times and places we lost our connection to our body. We were told to focus on the promise after this life rather than the pain of this world. We learned to ignore, “beat” or tame our flesh. We learned to believe that longing, pleasure, and sensuality were only about sex and sin. Some of us learned to ignore our bodies in service and sacrifice to the people around us. Unable to eat at work. Unable to sleep taking care of a loved one. Choking back feelings to keep peace or employment. We’ve been trained to be severed from the feelings and sensations that are so natural, normal, and healthy. Some of it was purely to survive. Some of it has persisted in ways that have left us trapped, ignoring the fragile gift God has given us.

That fragility is not merely a weakness to overcome. It is a reminder of our collective need to notice, affirm, and share the sensations and feelings we have. We are squishy and ephemeral. We are complicated systems that can sense the slightest changes around us. We can be eviscerated by a virus and miraculously survive trauma, surgery, accidents, and bearing children. Some of those things we simply cannot control. All we can do is face them. Together. Naming our needs by recognizing our sensations and feelings and showing up for each other. Other things are absolutely in the realm of preventable experiences caused by injustice or greed. In those instances, we know our needs and face them the same way: recognizing our sensations and feelings and showing up for each other.

Our bodies are a gift worthy of protection and nourishment.

I’m a “what if” kinda Christian when I read the Bible. It helps me find ways into action and ways to live. What if Jesus and his crew read this book before Passover? The author says that sometimes we are struggling through our day just because a physical need isn’t met. Sometimes, our feelings and our physical needs collide (cue Jesus and the fig tree). Maundy Thursday happens over and after a meal. After traveling. After setting up and washing up. Seated and resting. Tired. Hungry. Excited. Cranky. Hot. Comforted. Delighted at the taste of the food. Sweating. Nervous. Stomach turning (or “a kitty chasing ping pong balls”). Sad. Confused. Squirming. Jealously. Hot ears. Clinched jaws. Raw throats. Twisted brows. Teary eyes. Laughter. Shouting. Tense muscles. Thundering heartbeats.

“My mom once explained to me that sensations and feelings are like the waves in the ocean. Some come crashing in, while others roll in gently, and they always come and go. We can’t stop the waves from coming, but we can pay attention to them so they don’t knock us over.”

I don’t believe the point of our faith is to conquer our feelings or our bodies. I do believe it is there to help us respond to them both in compassionate ways that match the savior we claim to believe in. When someone is afraid, how are we grateful that fear is warning them about something we need to change? When someone is hot, do we lean on hospitality, access to safe cool spaces to live, and an ethos around climate change? When someone is in pain, are we making their day less arduous and the care they need affordable, accessible, and free? When you are nervous, can you name it, share it, and get the company you deserve? Can we find sacredness in how it feels to bite into a crisp and juice grape? Can we celebrate rather than vilify the comfort and elation of feeling the skin of someone who respects you against your skin? Can we tell a child that the first ways they engage the world are some of their best tools for the rest of their journey? Because all any of us have is our sensations and feelings. All our reason, faith, and thinking are void and inapplicable without them.

And I am so glad that this book, and so many others we’ve stocked the house with for The Kid* are making that connection early. For safety, and delight. For sadness, and exuberant joy. To know when to ask for help and to know when help can be extended.

I wish I could remember the first parent I heard say it. “One thing not enough people warn you about when you have a child is the number of kids’ songs that get stuck in your head that you otherwise wouldn’t even know existed.”

One of my child’s favorites is a song called “Poop-a-dee-doop” from Slumberkins (AppleTV). The Kid adores this song about one character, Bigfoot, needing to use the bathroom at their friend's house. But it’s the first line that rings in my head all day. “My body is a wonderful body.” The song goes on to talk about all the things our bodies just know how to tell us to do. Laugh, sneeze, burp, and poop.

Nobody is somebody on this side of the veil without a body. And nobody should ever be neglected or lose the gifts we were so lovingly crafted with.

Don’t be so heavenly-minded that you’re no earthly good.

The Eternally Broad Love of God

An Emotion-Filled Letter to My Niece