I Woke Up in Love With My Body

Key takeaways

• The joy you are looking for is already in your body — not somewhere you have to get to, but something you have to learn to hear

• Most people relate to their body as the problem. The same body is also the solution.

• Listening to the body in its own language — sensation — is a skill, and it can be learned

A Morning

It was dawn. Light was seeping through linen curtains, and on the other side, birds were already at it — chirping, insisting that a new day had begun. My consciousness was surfacing slowly from sleep, the way it does when nothing is pulling at it yet.

And then: my body. I had recently found a new way to release my ribs when I breathe, and the breathing had been feeling more ample, more like something that belonged to me. I could feel the heavy, settled weight of my spine on the mattress — and at the same time, something lighter. A fluidity. A quiet aliveness moving through.

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

My chest felt sweet. My hands moved toward that feeling on their own. And before I had a single thought, something in me said: I love you.

Not as a practice. Not as an affirmation. This came before the mind.

The Body Problem

Most people relate to their body as the place where the trouble lives. Where anxiety sets up camp. Where pain announces itself and won’t leave. Where they feel least at home.

I understand that. I work with it every day.

But here is what twenty years of listening to bodies has shown me: the same body that holds the pain also holds profound joy. Not as a reward for fixing the pain first — but already there, underneath it, waiting.

And once you find your way to it, it is free. It is sustainable. It does not require anything outside of you.

The Body as Solution — A First Glimpse

So how does this actually work?

It begins with attention — specifically, with bringing awareness to a sensation, a particular place in the body, and staying with it. Not analyzing it. Not trying to change it. Just noticing.

What I have watched happen, again and again: when a client brings focused attention to a sensation, more unfolds. An emotion surfaces. An image. Sometimes a memory — what to do with what surfaces is its own conversation, and one we will have.

And the sensation itself — simply by being witnessed — begins to shift. It moves, softens, changes quality. This is not magic. It is the body doing what it is designed to do. Given the right conditions, it orients toward health. The difficult sensations tend to melt. Something easier — sometimes something unexpectedly good — emerges in their place.

The body, it turns out, already knows the direction. It just needs the right kind of listening.

What’s Coming

This is the first post in a series on exactly that: how to listen to the body in a way that actually works. Here is what we will explore together:

• Why safety comes first — and how to build it, sensation by sensation

• The dance between difficulty and ease — and why that rhythm is where trust gets built

• How every emotion begins as a sensation in the body — and what that opens up

• Why the body opens differently in the presence of a skilled witness

If any of these land for you, stay close. There is more coming.

Reflection question

Is there a place in your body right now — however small — that feels neutral, easy, or even good? What happens when you let your attention rest there?

Wherever you're reading this from, this work can meet you there — Anne sees clients in her Santa Monica practice and online. Book a free 10-minute call or a session at annecartegnie.com.

Contacts

310-399-3632 Google Voice
anne@annecartegnie.com

Craniosacral therapy Los Angeles

Somatic Therapy Los Angeles

Craniosacral therapy Santa Monica

Somatic Therapy Santa Monica

Somatic Experiencing Los Angeles

Somatic Experiencing Santa Monica