WE Discussion: The Body Knows

Sometimes we are tired, sometimes trembling, sometimes our hearts pound with joy. Some days the body shuts down and we can’t do anything. Stress accumulates in our shoulders. Sometimes we don’t even know where it comes from. Sometimes, out of nowhere, we simply feel great.

Has it ever happened to you that your body told you something you hadn’t realized before? Has it ever happened that your body remembered something you had forgotten? Has it ever happened that doctors didn’t know what was going on with your body and labeled it a psychosomatic condition they couldn’t do anything about?

What does it mean to listen to your own body?

Every body has its own flow, a rhythm shaped by biology, physiology, and psychology. How can we connect this bodily flow with the flow of creating a performance, with performance itself, with what is expected of us? How can we talk about it with friends without shame, without the feeling that we have failed, that we are lazy?

There is a moment when something breaks. When the body stops cooperating, slows down, shuts off, or starts speaking louder than before. What happens when the body says: enough?

Do we trust our own body? Do we know what it is doing? Do we know what it wants? And what if we only begin to trust it at the moment it stops us?

Are such thoughts merely “esoteric” — attributed, for example, to menopause, andropause, or other bodily transitions? Or do they point to something our society has long been suppressing?

A lot of questions—but the body knows.

Maybe it’s not about understanding the body. Maybe it’s about staying with it.

We will talk, then talk and dance, and finally just dance. We’re looking forward to it.