Table of Contents | Reading time: Approx. 9 minutes
Table of Contents
Listening to Somatic Signals in High-Stakes Decisions
The call was expected. I’d already had several conversations with the production company, and things were progressing.
But each time I moved one step further forward, something tightened in my chest. Each time I went to bed having agreed to the next stage, my sleep fell apart. My mind was still reasoning, still listening to the well-meaning voices around me saying go for it — the exposure would be brilliant for your business.
Something beneath all that reasoning had already given me its answer. It just took a while for the rest of me to catch up.
The moment I finally made my decision to walk away, my whole body exhaled.
I’ll tell you the full story in a moment. But first, I want to talk about why the body so often knows before the mind does, why we’re conditioned to ignore it, and what it actually looks like to bring it back into the conversation — especially when the stakes are high.
If you’ve ever wondered how to trust your intuition — really trust it, rather than second-guessing every signal — this post is for you. The answer isn’t about following a feeling blindly. It’s about learning to read the body’s signals accurately. And that’s a skill, not a gift.
Why the Mind and Heart Sometimes Get It Wrong
There’s a persistent idea in spiritual and personal development circles that the way to navigate difficult decisions is to follow your heart. And I understand the appeal. But there are some real problems with it that I think are worth naming honestly.
Your heart isn’t always listening to your higher self. Neither is your mind. Both are, in large part, products of your history — your personal experiences, your conditioning, the stories you’ve absorbed from family, culture, and everything that shaped you before you were old enough to question any of it.
When the stakes are high and pressure mounts, our emotional responses can kick in fast, bypassing considered thinking entirely. That’s not following your heart; that’s the emotional brain reacting to an old script.
There’s a reason so much marketing is designed to hit your feelings first. Science is fairly clear on this: we like to think we make logical decisions, but most of the time, our choices are emotionally led. Feel more confident. Look younger. Be the person who finally has it together. We believe we’re being rational. Often, we’re not.
In 25 years of practising Reiki and working with clients as a therapist and coach, I’ve noticed that when people come to me stuck or struggling to make a meaningful change, the energy is almost always concentrated in one place: the head. When we begin to shift that focus — when we include the body in the conversation — things quite consistently start to become clearer.
When Synchronicity Shows Up Twice
Then there’s the question of synchronicity. Many people in spiritual circles treat a meaningful coincidence as a definitive yes from the universe — a sign to follow through, no further questioning required.
I’d invite you to consider another possibility: sometimes synchronicity is a test, not a green light. An invitation to ask yourself — have I actually learned this lesson yet?
That’s exactly what happened with the TV show.
Several years ago, I was first approached by a production company wanting me to provide a Reiki session for some of their contestants. I made my position clear: I’d only consider it if Reiki — and I — were going to be shown in a fair light. The offer quietly disappeared.
Jump forward a few years. The Covid lockdowns, a struggling economy, the relentless pace of change in digital marketing. I found myself having a rare wobble — wondering whether I should have taken that opportunity when it first came. I shook it off.
Then, within days of that thought, the same production company contacted me again.
If I’d been listening to my body, I’d have known immediately what to do. Instead, I found myself listening to people close to me who said I should go for it. They had good intentions. But they didn’t know my business the way I do — and that, as any solopreneur will tell you, is one of the lonelier aspects of working for yourself.
In a moment of self-doubt, I began engaging with the company again. And with every step forward, my body recoiled. My sleep suffered. Something in me was making it harder, not easier, for things to proceed. I can feel my body reacting even now, just writing about it.
Eventually, I recognised what was happening. I made a real decision — not the kind you make while still waiting for permission — and the moment I did, everything settled. My body softened. The call confirming the filming date never came.
When I looked back at my journal from around that time, I found something worth noting: in the weeks before the second call arrived, I’d already written about needing to trust myself more in my decision-making. The synchronicity wasn’t a yes. It was a question. Do you trust yourself yet?
What Somatic Intelligence Actually Is
Somatic intelligence is your body’s natural ability to sense, process, and respond to information — often before your conscious mind has caught up.
Somatic simply means of the body. And while the term might sound clinical, the experience of it is something most of us know intimately, even if we’ve never had a name for it.
You’ll have experienced this already:
- A tightening in the stomach when something doesn’t sit right
- A sense of ease and settling when a decision feels true
- A vague heaviness or resistance you can’t fully explain
- That quiet, unspectacular yes — not loud, just steady
These aren’t mystical signals (though you’re welcome to relate to them that way if it resonates). They’re your nervous system doing its job — processing information at a level that’s faster and less filtered than conscious thought.
The body responds first. The mind explains later.
Most of us have been taught, in one way or another, to override these signals — to dismiss anything that can’t be easily explained, to push through discomfort rather than pause and ask what it’s telling us. Over time, that habit makes decisions harder, not easier.
Think of it this way: would you buy a house having only seen two thirds of it? That’s what we’re doing when we rely solely on thoughts and feelings, and leave the body out entirely.
The Bit Nobody Talks About: The Difference Between Intuition and Fear
This is the nuance that most trust your gut advice glosses over — and it matters enormously.
Not every bodily reaction is a reliable message. Some of what the body produces is old fear, old wounding, old protective patterns that were once useful and no longer are. The work isn’t blind trust in every sensation. It’s learning to distinguish between a trauma response and a genuine somatic signal — which is, in practice, the real difference between intuition and fear.
What a trauma response tends to feel like
Urgent. Overwhelming. Like you need to act immediately just to feel safe.
You might notice your body tensing sharply, your mind racing, a strong pull to escape or shut down altogether. Your nervous system is trying to protect you — and it may have been doing so for a very long time. But it’s often responding to an old situation, not the one in front of you now.
What a genuine somatic signal tends to feel like
Quieter. More gradual. A knowing that deepens the more you attend to it.
It doesn’t demand immediate action. It simply persists, and becomes clearer the more space you give it. In my own experience with the TV show, the signal was exactly this — not a sudden alarm, but a steady, physical accumulation that grew the longer I delayed listening.
A practical way to tell them apart
Pay attention, and notice what happens when you do. Trauma responses tend to get louder or more scattered when you focus on them. Genuine signals tend to get clearer and more organised.
If you slow down and breathe, a real somatic message will usually settle into something you can work with. A fear-driven alarm will often amplify.
This discernment takes time and honest self-reflection. It can help to keep a simple journal of your somatic experiences — not to obsessively analyse them, but to build a personal reference. Gradually, you’ll start to recognise your own patterns: what contraction feels like when something is genuinely off, what fear feels like when something is right but unfamiliar, and what ease and readiness actually feel like for you specifically.
A Simple Somatic Check-In for Decisions (and Anxiety)
If this is new territory, you don’t need to overhaul anything. Start small.
The core check-in
The next time you’re facing a choice — before you analyse it, before you consult anyone — try this:
Close your eyes. Imagine saying yes. What happens in your body?
Then: Imagine saying no. What happens?
You’re not looking for a definitive answer in that first moment. You’re simply including the body in the conversation. Notice what comes up — tension, ease, a shift in your breathing, a feeling that’s hard to name. You don’t need to interpret it perfectly. Just notice.
This is also a useful practice when anxiety is running high and you can’t get clarity on what you actually want. The simple act of turning attention inward, without demanding an answer, can begin to settle the noise.
When you need to regulate first: 7-11 breathing
If you’re in a heightened state and struggling to access anything clearly, regulation comes first.
A technique I’ve used consistently — and which has genuine science behind it — is 7-11 breathing: breathe in to a count of seven, breathe out to a count of eleven. You can think of it as an equilateral triangle: breathe in along one side, out along the remaining two. The extended exhale activates the parasympathetic nervous system and begins to bring the body out of stress response.
Even stepping outside, taking one full breath in, and letting out a long slow sigh is better than pushing through in a heightened state.
Building the habit over time: mindfulness
For longer-term practice, mindfulness meditation is one of the most reliable ways to develop body awareness — not because it makes you perpetually calm, but because it trains the observer in you. You get better at noticing what’s happening in your mind and body without being swept into it. And that observer capacity is precisely what you need to read somatic signals clearly.
Mindfulness doesn’t have to mean sitting still in a perfect position. A slow walk paying attention to your feet on the ground, a creative practice where your attention is genuinely absorbed — painting, writing, even dancing around your kitchen — these all count. Any practice that trains you to be present, and to notice when your mind wanders, is in its own way a form of mindfulness.
For in-the-moment support: EFT
EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) involves tapping specific points on the body while focusing on what you’re feeling, which helps regulate the nervous system and interrupt unhelpful patterns. You don’t need to understand the mechanics for it to be useful.
https://www.youtube.com/@TheTappingSolutionChannel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V4SWbrWTz8
The Healing Power of EFT and Energy Psychology by Donna Eden (Author), David Feinstein (Author), Gary Craig (Author)
When You Need More Than a Blog Post
If you’ve tried some of these approaches and feel as though you’re getting nothing — or you’re receiving signals that are confusing or contradictory — that’s not a failure on your part.
For some people, somatic access is genuinely blocked, because the nervous system has been in protective mode for a long time. That’s an adaptive response to what the system has been through, not a character flaw. No blog post — including this one — can meet every person where they are.
A good therapist or coach can help you find the approaches that actually work for you as an individual, and explore whatever might be keeping you stuck. You won’t be alone in needing that kind of support.
And for what it’s worth: even as a trained therapist who knows all of this, I have moments where it goes completely out of the window. I’ve sought outside support at various points in my own life, and I’d be quietly suspicious of any practitioner who claimed they never needed it.
Something to Sit With
Big shifts in life rarely happen in a single dramatic moment. More often, they accumulate through smaller choices — and the quality of those choices often comes down to how much of ourselves we’re consulting.
The next time you face a decision, try the check-in. Close your eyes. Notice what’s on your mind. Notice what you’re feeling emotionally. Then notice what your body is carrying. You don’t have to act on any of it in that moment — sometimes, simply acknowledging what’s there is enough to start something shifting.
Think about the last time someone truly acknowledged what you needed. How it felt to be seen, to be recognised. We can offer ourselves that same quality of attention, in any quiet moment we choose.
What would change about your next big decision if you included all three — mind, heart, and body — in the conversation?
If you’d like to explore this kind of work in a more supported way, I offer a free 30-minute phone consultation — a chance to talk through where you are and find out which approach might suit you best.
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