Building a Loving Relationship With Your Body

Building a Loving Relationship With Your Body: Relationship Bids, Pain, and Embodiment

How do you relate to your body? Do you listen to its needs, respond to its signals, and make space for its pain? Or do you push through, avoid, numb, and minimize?

Our relationship with our bodies is built in the small, daily moments. Just as we build secure relationships with others through moments of connection, we can build a more loving relationship with ourselves by learning to listen to our bodies, honor our needs, and connect with the parts of ourselves we would rather avoid.

Relationship Bids: What Your Body Is Trying to Tell You

Relationship researchers, married couple and therapists Dr. John and Julie Gottman use a term “bid” to describe when someone does something to try to connect with their partner. This could be sharing something funny on their phone, telling a story, asking for a hug, sending a wink, grabbing an extra napkin, etc. All the things we do when we are looking for connection, showing we are mindful of the other person, expressing interest.

How We Respond to Bids for Connection

When our partner makes a bid, the Gottmans teach we respond in one of three ways.

Turns Toward: Smile, respond, engage, ask a question.

Turn Away: Ignore, look away, dismiss due to being distracted.

Turn Against: Express judgment, criticism, hostility.

Research from their Institute shows that “micro-moments of connection are the single best predictor of relationship stability.”

Your Body Makes Bids Too

We are going to take this idea from the Gottmans and apply it to our relationship with our BODIES. Our bodies make bids too, right? The tight chest, the urge to go to the bathroom, the tense neck, the tickle in our belly, the fatigue by the fluorescent lights, the desire for pleasure, the full stomach sensation.

Our bodies are constantly communicating with us. These sensations can be invitations to pause, notice what we need, and reconnect with ourselves.

How Do We Respond to Our Body’s Bids?

When our body makes a bid, how do we respond?

Turns Toward: Notice the need and meet the need OR validate the need and explain why it can’t get met currently OR place a loving palm on the body part communicating OR shake out the anxiety, excitement.

Turn Away: Push through it, deny it, ignore it, stay busy, keep everything loud, avoid stillness.

Turn Against: Shame ourselves for having the ache, pain, urge, desire… Ensure that we do not build a relationship to INSIDE of ourselves.

So if their research shows that micro-moments of connection are the single best predictor of relationship stability… hop on those micro moments—aka micro dose yourself with embodiment, secure attachment, drops of honey to build your loving relationship with your body.

What Does Embodiment Look Like in Daily Life?

This looks like:

• Pausing after a chaotic drop off with the kids and shaking your head.

• Taking a loud exhale sigh after an annoying call with your boss, MIL, spouse.

• Dancing to a favorite song to expel nervous energy before a meeting.

• Adjusting how you are sitting to help your body feel more comfortable.

• Choosing an outfit your body likes.

• Stepping outside when the overstimulation is building.

Most of us don’t have the bandwidth or resources for a nervous system regulation weekend retreat—so the good news is, this can happen in the SMALL, DAILY moments. In our real life, this real life where we don’t have extra time. And these mini moments are the single best predictor of relationship stability!

If we go back to the couple—most people can have fun away on the lake or beach for a weekend, right? But it’s the real life, day in and day out, that builds a real relationship.

Your body is here, now, with you, always. Turn towards your body’s bids my loves. She stores your innate wisdom, worth and intuition.

No Pain, No Gain? Learning to Listen to Your Pain

How do you relate to your pain? Whether that is pain in the present moment or pain from a difficulty in the past. Most of us push through, avoid, numb, minimize. Our pain then becomes the proverbial beach ball that we are trying, with all of our might, to hold under the pool water.

Pain’s Whispers

Girl, I feel ya. I really don’t want anything to do with my pain either. It FEELS so much better to be in bliss, denial or zoned out—give me the remote and a cozy blanket and I will rock on with my bad self.

YET, my pain continues to whisper in the quiet moments. Like a child inviting me to play hide and seek, she wants to be found.

Just as our bodies make bids for connection through physical sensations, our pain can be an invitation to slow down and listen. We might notice the ache, the tension, the sadness, or the feelings we have been trying to push away.

Why Bother Connecting With Your Pain?

So, why bother to go find this hidden pain inside?

Well, as Brené Brown has taught us, we can’t selectively numb our emotions. So if we cancel our pain, we also cancel our joy. Then, well, life feels… grey, bleak, dry, stale. And our arms get tired holding that beach ball down.

What if letting go of the avoidance of pain actually helped you create a life that you felt less like avoiding?!

Imagine that!

Music as a Mediator: Learning to Sit With Your Pain

Here are some song lyrics that motivate me to connect with my pain.

“Sit with your pain, cradle it close, lean in and listen..” — Fia

Can you make a cup of tea and sit with your pain to glean her wisdom?

“If pain is power, I’m powerful..” — Reuben and the Bullhorn Singers

Could it be that laying in the midst of your pain is your key to power? Magic? Joy? Contentment?

“The best hearts are broken..” — Andy Grammar

It is when we are connected to the broken parts of ourselves, honest about them, not trying to hide them or pretend there is no pain—that we can forge true connection to others, because we have fully accepted ourselves.

Brené Brown also says that the degree to which we can accept ourselves is the degree to which we can experience belonging… so mamas—rock on with that pain.

Building a More Loving Relationship With Yourself, One Moment at a Time

Building a loving relationship with your body doesn’t require a weekend retreat, hours of free time, or a perfectly regulated nervous system. It starts with the small, daily moments when you choose to turn toward yourself instead of away from yourself.

It might mean noticing your tight chest, taking a deep breath, stepping outside when the overstimulation is building, or making a cup of tea and sitting with the pain you would rather avoid.

These moments are opportunities to practice embodiment, build secure attachment with yourself, and create a relationship with your body rooted in compassion rather than shame.

Try This: A Micro-Moment of Connection With Your Body

Before you drift away, pause, place a hand on your heart and just say to her, “I love you, I am listening.”

And if you’d like to do a longer version—try this meditation.

Your body is here, now, with you, always.

Turn towards your body’s bids my loves. She stores your innate wisdom, worth and intuition.