Why is your fatigue and anxiety a signal that you need to listen to and not a problem to fix? How often do you push past your limits instead of asking what your body needs? What might change if you treated rest as essential, not something to earn?
In this podcast episode, Jennifer Froemel discusses what to do when your body says no, and how to listen to the wisdom behind fatigue, anxiety, and burnout.
In This Podcast:
- Your body is trying to protect you
- The five most common ways the body says “no.”
- What to do and how to reconnect with your body
- Final takeaways for listeners
Your body is trying to protect you
When your body is saying, “No”, it’s ultimately protecting you, and your body is the first part of you to register misalignment long before your mind admits that you’re overwhelmed, and long before your emotions catch up.
Jennifer Froemel
When your body is telling you to pull back and stop, rest, or to choose another lifestyle or path, you may experience symptoms such as:
- Getting sick often
- Burnout, fatigue, and anxiety
- Digestive issues and headaches
- Emotional exhaustion and numbness
- Physical aches and pains, and very low energy levels
These symptoms are some of the ways in which your body is trying to communicate with you that something is very misaligned.
These are not random symptoms; they’re signals. Again, with us now learning more about perimenopause, it’s important that we’re able to recognize the difference. Ultimately, if your body doesn’t necessairly know what to tell you … It’s speaks [in] sensation.
Jennifer Froemel
The five most common ways the body says “no.”
These are the most common ways in which your body is trying to tell you something, and it’s trying to make you understand something that you haven’t either paid attention to, or haven’t been listening to:
1 – Fatigue. It is like a bone-deep tiredness that doesn’t seem to get fixed by sleeping more or taking naps.
2 – Anxiety or constant alertness, when you are jumpy or nervous without anything “bad” actually happening.
3 – Short patience and emotional overwhelm, where you may begin snapping at people, withdrawing, or crying very easily.
4 – Burnout and a lack of passion or interest in the things that used to bring you joy in life.
Burnout is not laziness. It’s really depletion, and it’s where you’ve burned your candle at both ends.
Jennifer Froemel
5 – Physical symptoms, such as unexplained weight gain or loss, aches and pains, stomach issues, and headaches, to name a few.
When your body says, “No”, but your [societal] condition is telling you, “Keep going! Be strong, you’ve got this, girl!” … These are all the things that we try to tell ourselves, when what we should be telling ourselves is, “You’re done. Stop it now, go take a rest …” Strength isn’t pushing through pain. Strength is listening to it and learning what it has to tell you.
Jennifer Froemel
What to do and how to reconnect with your body
The most essential thing to do when you want to reconnect with your body after burnout is to respond both emotionally and practically. So, the way you can do this is to:
- Rest without justification
It’s not about that you earned the rest, and that it’s not guilt-filled rest … No, just take it. And there is no such thing as productive rest; you’re not earning anything while you’re resting, other than your own self-love.
Jennifer Froemel
- Reduce your emotional labor by stopping to carry what isn’t yours to carry
- Notice where you are tolerating misalignment, perhaps in your job, schedule, or relationships, and make some changes
- Evaluate your expectations for yourself and adjust them where necessary
- Take some time every day to walk or do some gentle movement, and spend time in nature
- Prioritize connection with your solitude as well as with your loved ones and people who really pour back into your cup
- Be honest with yourself and tell the truth about what is actually going on, what is working for you, and what doesn’t
Final takeaways for listeners
When you make these changes and really start making foundational shifts in your routine and how you live, you reconnect with your body, inside and out.
You build trust again within yourself, and can finally fully rest, which also gives you the chance to keep moving forward without unnecessary pain or stress.
Here’s what you can do this week:
- Ask yourself: “What is my body trying to tell me?”
- And then: “What is one small thing I can do this week to honor that message?”
The thing is, your body wants you to pay attention to it, and this is the moment to finally listen.
Jennifer Froemel
RESOURCES MENTIONED AND USEFUL LINKS
Donate to Jennifer Froemel’s Lifesaving Work in Nepal
Practice of the Practice Network
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CONNECT WITH ME
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ABOUT THE FEAR OF CHANGE PODCAST
Change can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be. The Fear of Change podcast is all about helping you embrace change and live a more fulfilling life. Hosted by Jennifer Froemel, LCPC, a therapist with nearly 30 years of experience, we cover topics like mental wellness, holistic health, and improving relationships.
Jennifer’s down-to-earth approach makes it easy to understand why we fear change and how to move past those fears. Whether you’re dealing with anxiety, relationship issues, or just feeling stuck, there’s something here for you.
