Listening to the Body: Why Feeling This Way Deserves Context, Not Self-Blame

You might feel different from how you used to feel. Less resilient. More tired. More sensitive. Less able to push through.

Sometimes medical tests come back normal. Sometimes they don’t. Either way, the question often turns inward:

“What’s wrong with me?”

I am hearing that a LOT lately!

This article exists to offer a different starting point — one that replaces self-blame with understanding, and fixing with listening.

The model most of us were taught

For a long time, many of us have been working within a very simple framework:

Symptom → Complaint → Doctor → Fix

This model has real value.

Modern medicine is exceptional at many things, including:

• emergencies and trauma

• acute illness and infection

• life-saving interventions

• stabilising serious conditions

• diagnostics, surgery, and medication where appropriate

If you break a bone, have an infection, experience a medical emergency, or need urgent intervention, medicine saves lives. Doctors know this, and they do it every day.

This is not an anti-medical message.

But it’s important to be honest about what this model was never designed to do.

Where the model reaches its limits

The traditional medical model was not built to fully address:

• long-term stress and burnout

• nervous-system overload

• chronic exhaustion

• emotional depletion

• living under sustained pressure

• the cumulative impact of modern life

It was never designed to teach people how to:

• listen to their body

• regulate stress responses

• recognise early signs of overload

• work with fatigue rather than fight it

• restore trust in their own physical system

Doctors know this. Many have known it for years.

When medicine reaches its limits, people are often left feeling unseen and the blame quietly turns inward.

Sometimes tests are normal and sometimes they’re not

For some people, medical tests come back within normal ranges, even though they feel far from well.

For others, tests do show abnormalities and a diagnosis is given. Both experiences can be deeply unsettling in different ways.

When tests are normal, people may feel dismissed or confused:

“If nothing’s wrong, why do I feel like this?”

When tests are abnormal, there can be a sense of relief, finally, something has a name — followed by new questions:“

How did my body get here?”

“Why now?”

“Is this just how things are going to be?”

In many cases, long-term stress, sustained pressure, and nervous-system overload have been present long before symptoms became visible on tests.

This does not mean the condition isn’t real. It does not mean it’s “all in your head”.

It means the body has often been under strain for a long time.

Understanding that context matters, because it shifts the story from blame to care, and from “my body has failed” to “my body has been coping for a long time.”

Where a medical condition exists, medical care remains essential.But understanding stress, the nervous system, and how the body adapts under pressure can still play a vital role in ongoing support and quality of life.

The hidden cost: self-blame

When symptoms persist, whether or not a diagnosis is present — many people start to believe:

• “I should be coping better.”

• “Other people manage, why can’t I?”

• “My body is letting me down.”

This is where harm happens.

Instead of listening to the body, people learn to:

• override it

• criticise it

• push through it

• treat rest as failure

Until the body has to speak louder.

The body is not the problem, it’s part of the information

The body is not a machine that breaks and gets repaired.

It is a living system that responds to:

• pace

• pressure

• environment

• emotional load

• history

• survival demands

Fatigue, tension, shutdown, overwhelm, and pain are not moral failures.They are signals.

Signals don’t need punishment.They need interpretation, context, and care.

When the body reaches a tipping point

Across many people’s lives, there is a common moment where the body begins to speak more clearly.

It often happens after years of sustained pressure, working, caring, coping, holding things together, where stress has been managed rather than processed, and rest has been postponed rather than prioritised.

For many, this tipping point tends to show up somewhere between the late 30s and mid-50s.

Not because something has suddenly gone wrong, but because the body has been adapting for a long time.

What looks like a sudden collapse is often the first moment the system is no longer able, or willing, to absorb the cost.

While this experience is deeply human, it often shows up differently in women and men, largely because of how each has been conditioned to relate to their body, emotions, and limits.

Why many women reach a tipping point

(And before anyone switches off - if you’re reading this as a man, stay with me. I’ll come back to you in a moment.)

For many women, this moment arrives alongside mid-life transitions.

It is often framed as:

• hormones

• perimenopause or menopause

• age

And sometimes these factors are genuinely part of the picture.

However, for many women, what is really happening is this:

After decades of being emotionally and practically “switched on” caring, working, supporting others, holding multiple roles — the nervous system has been operating in long-term survival mode.

Hormonal changes do not necessarily cause the collapse.They often remove the buffer that allowed the body to keep going despite the strain.

This can show up as:

• exhaustion that rest doesn’t immediately fix

• emotional sensitivity or overwhelm

• sleep disruption

• anxiety or low mood

• loss of resilience

• a sense of “I can’t do what I used to”

What feels like failure is often the first honest signal the body has been able to give.

This is not weakness. It is information.

Why men reach a tipping point too

Men experience burnout, nervous-system overload, and bodily shutdown just as much as women, but it often looks different and is talked about far less.

For many men, pressure builds quietly over years, often tied to expectations around:

• productivity

• strength

• usefulness

• responsibility

• providing or performing

Men are far more likely to:

• ignore early bodily signals

• minimise fatigue or pain

• push through until symptoms become unavoidable

• seek help later, when the body forces attention

Rather than emotional collapse, this often shows up as:

• chronic tension or pain (back, neck, jaw)

• sleep problems

• irritability or anger

• withdrawal or emotional shutdown

• loss of motivation or meaning

• physical symptoms such as headaches, gut issues, or blood pressure changes

  
  

Because emotional strain is less likely to be named early, the body often carries the load until it cannot.

What looks like sudden breakdown is often the result of long-term adaptation.

Just as with women, this moment is not failure. It is information.

The shared thread

While the expression may differ, the underlying pattern is the same:

Long-term pressure → adaptation → survival → eventual cost

And the message from the body is the same too:

Something needs to change.

Listening at this point is not giving up. It is responding intelligently to the body’s limits.

Listening instead of fixing

This is often the point where people begin to look beyond the traditional “fix it” model — not because medicine has failed them, but because they’re realising that support needs to happen at more than one level.

Complementary and holistic therapies are not about rejecting medical care.They are not about denying diagnosis or pretending symptoms aren’t real.

They exist to support areas that medicine doesn’t always have the time, structure, or remit to address, such as:

• nervous-system regulation

• stress response and recovery

• embodiment and body awareness

• emotional processing

• rest and repair

• rebuilding trust with the body

These approaches work alongside medical care, not instead of it.They focus less on fixing and more on supporting the body’s capacity to regulate, recover, and adapt.

For many people, that shift alone brings relief.

Supportive therapies are not cures - they are companions

They are not miracle fixes.They are not quick solutions.They are not replacements for medical treatment where it is needed.

What they offer instead is context, support, and permission.

They help people:

• slow down enough to notice what’s happening

• come back into relationship with their body

• reduce constant self-criticism

• feel supported rather than managed

• work with their system instead of pushing against it

Often, the benefit is subtle, cumulative, and deeply human.

Feeling a little safer. A little more settled. A little more heard.

Those shifts matter more than we’re taught to believe.

Gentle exploration, not pressure

Supportive therapies work best when there is no demand placed on them.

There is no need to:

• “get it right”

• feel something specific

• expect instant change

Exploration works best when it is gentle:

• notice how your body responds

• stay curious rather than evaluative

• keep what feels supportive

• let go of what doesn’t

Your experience is the feedback.

The most important permission

Many people don’t need another explanation of what’s wrong.

They need permission:

• to rest without guilt

• to slow down without justification

• to listen without judgement

• to stop fighting their body

Rest is not failure.Needing support is not weakness.Listening is not giving up.

Often, it’s the most intelligent response the body has left.

A more complete way of understanding health

Medicine is essential. Doctors are skilled. Science matters.

And…

Human beings are more than systems to be repaired. We have nervous systems, emotional lives, histories, and physical bodies shaped by years of adaptation and survival.

A more complete approach to wellbeing doesn’t replace medicine - it widens the lens.

If you take one thing from this

Let it be this:

Feeling this way doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong with you. It often means your body is responding honestly to the conditions it’s been living in.

Support isn’t about fixing who you are. It’s about restoring relationship with your body, your nervous system, and your experience.

That’s where meaningful change begins.

How this fits into my work

This understanding sits at the heart of my work.

From here, I explore different supportive approaches, such as colour therapy, Reiki, aromatherapy, and other nervous-system-informed therapies, each in its own space, at its own pace.

Not as cures. Not as prescriptions. But as options for support, grounded in respect for the body and the person living in it.

If you would like to know more, please feel free to reach out to me.