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The mind-body connection is how your body communicates with you—not just through stress, but through signals, responses, and wisdom your mind often overrides. Most people have been taught to ignore these signals and push through. Here's what the mind-body connection actually means, why we're disconnected, and what changes when you start listening.

Hello and welcome to Find Yourself, Change Your Life. I'm your host, Mary Clavieres. This podcast is here to help you rediscover yourself and become the leader of your life, however you want that to look.

For today's episode, I want to talk about what the mind-body connection actually means. There's a lot of times where it's used as a buzzword or used for an entryway into learning a little bit about your mind. It can relate a lot to stress management or even things with mind-body practices like yoga, which is great. So great. I love yoga for exactly that. It brings me back into my body.

But what I want to talk about here and what I mean when I talk about it on this podcast is something a little bit deeper. It's really about that next layer or level down within your connection between your mind and your body. And it's about how you listen to your body, even when your mind is trying to have the say or being really loud, which can be challenging to do honestly because the world is so noisy.

What the Mind-Body Connection Actually Means

The mind-body connection is how your body communicates with you constantly. It's not just about managing stress or doing yoga (though those help). It's about recognizing that your body is always sending you signals, giving you information, and trying to guide you. The problem? Most of us have been taught to override those signals and let our minds run the show.

Your body knows things your mind doesn't. It responds before your mind can analyze. It holds tension in specific places for specific reasons. It literally makes you stop when you've been pushing too hard. And when you learn to listen to it… really listen it completely changes how you navigate life, make decisions, and show up in the world.

This is what I want to take you through today and share a couple of examples around it because it has been so impactful for me and completely changed how I look at life, how I operate, even how I work and how I work with clients. There's so much power in this work.

When Your Body Won't Let You Ignore It Anymore

I know I've shared some stories in the past from my own experiences on this podcast about my mind-body connection and times when I've learned things from it. Like the time when I woke up one morning and I felt like all my teeth were going to fall out and I didn't know what was happening. I literally ran to the mirror and checked and was looking at all my teeth. I had so much pain in my jaw. It was insane.

Turns out I was grinding my teeth due to stress, which I realized was one of those big moments where I realized, okay, actually things work so much differently than we think they do sometimes. And that was one of my moments. So I know I've shared that on the podcast before. If you haven't heard it, that's a tidbit of it, but you'll hear it on some other episodes.

But it's really about seeing that actually, when we try to keep pushing, our bodies will tell us. They will tell us to stop, and they will sometimes make us stop in a certain way. And so that's part of what I want to talk about.

The Power We Don't Let Ourselves Believe In

I've always been interested in this work. Years ago, actually, I can't remember how long ago, but quite a while ago, my dad actually introduced me to the work of Joe Dispenza. And I always thought his story was so interesting about he was actually hit by a car during a triathlon, I think it was, and he broke vertebrae in his spine, and he was going to have to have spinal surgery. And they said, you know, he might be paralyzed and all of this stuff.

And he ended up repairing all of the broken pieces in deep meditation work while he was stuck in the hospital bed over months. It was several months, and he would lay there and be in deep meditation, and he healed his body. And you hear stories like this, and I just always think it's so interesting. I feel like we have so much more power than we allow ourselves to believe.

Our logical mind doesn't really want to believe it. I say that as someone that has an engineering degree and worked for a long time in very practical, logical ways. And I realize that actually it's not only about that, it's about merging that or bridging that with the things that we can't really see the same way or might not know the same way and bringing those two worlds together. That's why it's incorporated into so much of my work now.

This story with Joe Dispenza was so interesting to me because I was like, all right, there are ways it is possible to heal. And what does healing look like? And what does that mean for us? And I do believe that it looks different for different people. And you don't need to have that type of experience. His work has gone on to study that more deeply and work with people in these deep meditative states and everything. It doesn't have to be that, but I just find it so interesting and such a great reminder of how powerful we are, how much is possible that we might not even believe in.

Why We're Disconnected From Our Bodies

So when I talk about the mind-body connection here, it's really about learning to understand and perhaps become open to the fact that there are other things helping you and working with you and supporting you in some way, and that it's not all logic all the time. Now, a lot of these things can be considered very woo-woo. It can also be considered very scientific or somewhere in between. That doesn't matter so much.

What matters the most to me and that I feel is important to share with you is that when you're open, when you're open to learning things different ways, when you're open to receiving information and kind of filtering it through your system. Of course you have to see what feels true to you or not, it's always your choice, but when you're open to that, that can open the door to so many other possibilities for you.

And so when you start to pay attention to how your body is trying to communicate with you and you start to pay attention to your body as this being and work with it and not just try to force it and push it through things all the time, it's a completely different experience.

So much of the time we are taught to push through things. We are taught to be productive at all costs. We are taught to follow this exact path. This is what you should want. This is what you should do. And over time, we override our bodies. We stop listening. We try to operate just from the mind. We're like, the mind knows, we're on it, we're going our way. Check, check, check, check all the boxes.

But what happens is when we don't listen to this, and this is why I feel that a lot of people end up in their 40s or 50s with some type of midlife crisis. That's the label it's been given. But it's really about that something's not in alignment anymore because actually all those things you were striving for or following were from somebody else, and that's not what you really want, or you want to learn something else, or you want to grow in a different way.

And so often we're told to just shove that down and not pay attention to it. And then we get to this point where it's like our body screams at us and says, hey, what about me? Pay attention to me. And actually, we're in this together. And if you don't stop, I'll make you stop. That can happen. So it's like me with the teeth story. I felt like my teeth were going to fall out, so I was like, all right, now I'm paying attention to this. And it was how I was managing, or at the time not really managing my stress levels, and I just kept trying to go, go, go. And that's not a great way to do things, to be honest. Can you do it? Yes. But is it a great way? Definitely not.

What Your Body Is Actually Doing

So what the body is actually doing is trying to communicate with you, but chances are you've been overriding it in some way. And a way that I've really learned about this and have been shown to see things differently is through my children and also through Human Design.

I've shared this story before too, when I learned about how my younger daughter is meant to make decisions from her sacral center, which is one of the 7 decision-making styles. I use Human Design as a tool for that. But when I learned about that, that her decisions actually come from her body's response to yes/no questions, I used to always tell her, tell me what you want. Use your words. As she was growing up, use your words.

And when I learned this about Human Design, it completely shifted everything because I started to look at her instead because actually her body is supposed to respond. If she's responding with words, this is for her style, her unique decision-making style. If she responds with words, that means she's overriding her body and responding with her mind. And this was when she was still little. And I was trying to—it was before I could really teach her. But kids do these things automatically. That's the other part that's so fascinating.

So what I started to do was I started to look at her when I was asking her a question. I have to support her with specific yes/no questions to get the most aligned response from her. But as I would ask the questions, I would look at her to see what her body did, if she was more like, uh-huh, or if she—because it can come out as noises but not really words of yes, no, but it could be, uh-huh, or, uh-uh, or she might shrug her shoulders or she might squirm. Her body would respond for her.

And when I learned that, it was so incredibly mind-altering for me that I was like, oh wait, okay, there's something here with all of this that's so different but so powerful and not what we're used to. And I did a whole decision-making series. It starts with Episode 48 on this podcast. If you have not listened to it, I highly recommend checking it out. You can get your Human Design chart, learn your decision-making style, and then follow along for that specific episode.

All of that starts with Episode 48, so I'll put it in the show notes too for you to check it out because it's very, very powerful when you start to learn to work with, for example, making decisions from your mind-body connection instead of from your mind. It completely changes the game. Completely changes the game.

How We Suppress Body Signals Over Time

So this is an example of how your body wants to work with you and how it's trying to work with you. But then through all the different reasons and all the different expectations over time, that usually gets missed. It usually gets pushed down. It says, not right now, I need to do these other things. Not right now. That doesn't make sense. We try to make sense and reason and logic out of everything instead of following, for some people, that might be their intuitive or their instinctual hits of what to do or not do.

And so when we suppress all of that, at some point it tries to really grab our attention by doing something more dramatic. For example, again, like making you feel like all your teeth are going to fall out. So it's something that I feel is just such a big part of how to change how you move about life and how to change how you interact with your life that will help you with navigating change in your life.

So all those different things that you might navigate, whether it's a different job or new job opportunities or making a move or starting a business or pivoting a business, any of these things that you're kind of going through, anything in your relationships that you're going through that's working or not working—it's about when you live from this place of being in tune with your mind-body connection, you kind of get out of the mind, you connect back with the body, and you work with things all together. You operate so differently, and that allows you to operate and change your life in such a different way.

What Changes When You Start Listening

This first part is becoming aware of it, and then how do you work with it? And then how do you integrate it? Last week's episode, I talked about the 4 phases of going from overwhelmed to aligned. If you haven't checked it out, Episode 59, and that one goes in more detail of the different phases and where you may look for different types of support and so on and so forth.

But all of this with what the mind-body connection actually means will then shift how you look at your life and how you operate in your life. I know it sounds big. It sounds big, but it's true. That's how it works. Because we're so disconnected most of the time and we've turned that off over time and we've shoved it down. And once you start to open back up to this, it completely changes what opportunities can come to you, what possibilities are there for you, how you may achieve or reach more of the goals or the dreams that you have in life, or the things that you really want to do. It's from being open to working with all of this in a different way.

Simple Ways to Start Reconnecting

How many times do you get up in the morning and just jump right into your stuff, or you scroll? I mean, I do this. I have done this. It's a habit that I have tried to break in different times, different phases. It works better than others, but you pick up your phone first thing because it's right there, or you just get up and you're like, all right, I got to go, and get ready.

How many times do you actually stop to say, hi body, what do you need today? What do you need in this moment? And I can tell you when I do that, when I stop and think about that, most of the time my body says, oh, I really need a really good stretch right now. And I'll take a minute because I was just sleeping and maybe I was scrunched or different positions or whatever. And so I stand up and I take a few stretches just to tune in and reconnect with self.

Something like that is not what we're usually shown to do. We're in the minority if you do things like that. I hope over time, and I do think it's growing and more people do this type of thing and they're more aware of it now. But it's not something that's so common that everyone does because we've been taught for so long to not do those things.

So then it becomes how often do you check in with yourself throughout the day? How often do you check in with your energy, with your body? Do you take breaks? Do you see what your body needs? All of those kinds of things. And it can feel hard because life is noisy. There's so much noise around, there's so many things to do and all of that. But when you tune back in, actually, you realize you're just a being on this planet, spinning around in space. When you zoom out to that level, you can see things so differently. And it can be very humbling too, because it doesn't really matter what you're doing in that moment. It's about how you're being.

So this is what I mean when I talk about mind-body connection, what it actually means and how you can take this work deeper, how you can start listening. Because when you start listening again, it completely shifts things.

Where to Begin

So just start with awareness, no pressure on anything, but start with awareness and this intention to be more open and trying things out. You can try talking to your body. You can try, like I mentioned earlier, check out Episode 48 for decision-making. I find that that's a very easy place for people to start because it's very practical and also very impactful and gets you looking at your mind-body connection in a different way. So that's why I love to start with that.

You can check out Episode 48 for your specific decision-making style. I also have the Decision-Making Accelerator sessions if you want to go deeper with your chart and your work in that way. But start with some of these things that get you curious about paying more attention.

Or you might even reflect on what are some ways that I've experienced this in the past? Are there times when my body really told me to stop and I really had to slow down because I was in so much pain or discomfort or something? And usually it gives you a renewed sense then of a different way to go and a different way to be after that. So it's all connected. None of this is good or bad. It's not bad if you haven't been listening to your body in any way. This is just an invitation to take a look.

And now you've heard maybe different information that you can incorporate into your life in a different way, in a way that's more supportive to you and who you are and where you're going and where you want the trajectory of your life to go in some way. So again, check in with self, stay curious, be open. This path—life is so much more fun when you're open. It really is.

Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for listening and tuning in. I so deeply appreciate you. If you know someone that would find this episode helpful or maybe needs the little reminder about their mind-body connection, please feel free to share this with them. It helps the podcast be seen and heard by more people. So I appreciate you. Thanks again, and I'll talk to you next week.

Common Questions About the Mind-Body Connection

Is the mind-body connection just about yoga or meditation?

No. While yoga and meditation are helpful practices that can strengthen your mind-body connection, the mind-body connection itself is about how your body communicates with you constantly—through tension, responses, signals, and wisdom. It's about learning to listen to those signals instead of overriding them with your mind.

How do I know if my body is trying to tell me something?

Your body sends signals in many ways: persistent tension in specific areas (like jaw clenching or shoulder tightness), gut responses to decisions, energy levels that drop in certain situations, physical pain that appears when you're stressed, or even illnesses that force you to slow down. If you're experiencing any of these, your body is communicating with you.

Why have I been taught to ignore my body?

We're taught from a young age to be productive at all costs, to push through discomfort, to follow a specific path (go to college, get a good job, climb the ladder). This conditioning teaches us to override our body's signals and operate purely from the mind. It's not your fault—it's what society has trained us to do. But you can unlearn it.

What's the first step to reconnecting with my body?

Start with simple awareness. When you wake up in the morning, pause and ask: "Hi body, what do you need today?" Check in with yourself throughout the day. Notice where you hold tension. Take breaks when your energy drops. You can also explore your Human Design chart to learn your unique decision-making style—Episode 48 of this podcast walks you through that.

Can I really make decisions from my body instead of my mind?

Yes. In fact, your body often knows before your mind has time to analyze. This is called somatic decision-making or body-based decision-making. For example, my daughter's decision-making style (sacral authority in Human Design) means her body responds with yes/no signals before she can form words. When you learn your unique style and practice listening to your body, decision-making becomes clearer and more aligned.