Over the past few months, I’ve been working on tuning in to my body. The first lesson that Kara Loewentheil teaches in her coaching program is that emotions are physical sensations in the body. To process an emotion, you have to allow yourself to feel the physical sensation and then name it. When I feel a lump in my throat, a knot in my stomach, a racing heart, or heat rising in my face, I now stop and take note of it. I observe the physical sensation with curiosity. I ask myself, what thought is causing this emotion? What can I learn from it? What is my body trying to tell me?

In the year after I graduated from college, I had a string of mysterious illnesses. I would wake up in the early morning hours and vomit. There was no obvious medical cause. I didn’t have a migraine (although I often suffered from those as well). I hadn’t eaten contaminated food. I hadn’t contracted a virus. No one else around me was sick. And contrary to what a well-meaning cousin suggested, I wasn’t pregnant (in retrospect, thank goodness for that).

It happened over and over again. In the fourteen months I spent at my first post-college “real” job, I used every single one of my ten sick days. My bosses and coworkers never brought it up with me, but I’m sure it didn’t look good for a new employee. I worried that I had given them the impression that I was lazy or unreliable — surely they must have thought I was faking it. In previous jobs and in school, I had rarely called in sick, even when I probably should have. But on these occasions, I really was sick, and I had no idea why.

Twenty-two year old me was not wise enough to ask what my body may have been trying to tell me. I didn’t even exercise enough self-care to consult a doctor. I just pushed forward, as was my tendency when anything bad happened — downplay it, ignore it, pretend everything is fine.

I understand now that my body was rejecting the fact that I was completely subverting my will. At 22, I was married to a man who was totally wrong for me, living in a house I did not select and didn’t particularly like, in a town where I hadn’t wanted to be, frequently spending my free time doing things I didn’t really want to do with people who were not my people. I was living someone else’s life, and I could not admit to myself that none of it was what I wanted or needed.

Why would I do this? Out of fear, I think, coupled with a lack of trust in myself, and a diminished sense of self worth. I graduated from college with a significantly negative net worth and no real family financial resources on which to rely. I had an art degree and plans to enter an M.F.A. program at some point in the future. But deep down, I didn’t believe I could support myself. I needed someone to take care of me. I feared abandonment. I sought the shallow comfort of the familiar, the easy, the stable. For years, I traded excitement, adventure, meaningful challenge, and self-reliance for a life that was not at all right for me so that my inner child could avoid rejection and instability. I made decisions from a place of fear and lack.

In her deeply honest and unapologetic memoir Untamed, Glennon Doyle writes about abandoning a life of shoulds and returning to her true self. She refers to trusting her “knowing,” returning again and again to the phrase of Biblical origin, “Be still and know.” I wonder what my twenties would have looked like if I had cultivated the ability to be still and know, if I had really tuned into my tiny inner voice.

I hear it now. Slowly, gradually, year by year, I’ve turned down the noise and am learning to listen to my knowing. I’ve figured out who I am, and I’m growing to accept and love myself. As a result, many of my destructive behaviors and unhelpful thought patterns have fallen away, because I treat myself as a worthy person who deserves better. I want to take care of myself just as I want to care for the ones I love. My body no longer needs to physically express the feelings I’ve refused to acknowledge, shouting at me to get my attention. Instead, I make a point of checking in with my body and trusting what it’s telling me.

I’m living authentically now. I’m married to someone who gives me plenty of space to be who I am, and who doesn’t dictate what my life should look like. I’ve dug my way out of debt and have put myself in a financial position that gives me a greater sense of freedom and autonomy. I trust my ability to support myself no matter what. I’ve grown into my own agency. I realize that I have the power to change my circumstances and that I get to choose the kind of life I want to live. I have stopped saying yes when I really want to say no. I’m also building the courage to say yes to things I really, truly want, even when fear would say no. My time here on earth is so limited that there is simply no good justification for living any other way.

As you go about your day and week, I hope you’ll pause from time to time and notice the physical sensations in your body. Really feel your emotions. Notice any resistance and discomfort, and sit with it for a while. What is your body trying to tell you?