Week 21: Your Body Writes What You Won’t Say

Glen Jensen
3 hours ago
3 min read

Pain isn’t proof something’s wrong.

It’s proof something still matters.

Maybe your pain isn’t a problem. Maybe it’s a signal.

You’ve done the work.

Built the systems.

Honored your fatigue.

And still, the ache lingers.

It might not be asking to be fixed.

It might be asking to be heard.

That tightness in your back?

That grip in your jaw?

They’re not new injuries.

They’re old signals—ignored long enough to harden.

Pain doesn’t shout. It waits.

Back in Week 17, we said emotions are messengers.

This week, we go deeper—because the body speaks too.

But it doesn’t yell.

It taps.

It hums. It waits.

Pain speaks softly.

If you rush, you’ll miss it.

This isn’t about dramatizing discomfort.

It’s about honoring even the smallest signal as something sacred.

TL;DR | Socratic Companion

This Week Listen Instead

If reading feels too sharp this week,

let the cadence carry you.

Watch the companion video here:📺 https://youtu.be/WZaW2PdXBcw → A whisper-level walk through what pain might be saying—if you’re finally ready to listen.

Try this: one sensation. Five days. No fixing.

Choose one recurring sensation—something subtle but loyal.

A tension. An ache. A pull.

Then, every day, ask:

Where do you live in my body?
When do you visit?
What memory or mood do you carry?
What happens when I stop trying to fix you?

You’re not interpreting.

You’re listening.

I’ve written about my knee for a few years now.

And in the background, it kept whispering:“You want to be more flexible.”

The irony? I’m a stubborn person.

I wanted flexibility—but only on my terms.

So I went on a quiet audit—not just of my schedule, but of my posture toward life.

Where was I rigid in the periphery?

Where was I refusing to yield?

I didn’t stretch harder. I didn’t go to rehab.

I just softened the parts of me that wouldn’t bend.

And somewhere in the background, my knee resolved itself.

I know it sounds too convenient.

But that was my lived reality.

And sometimes, the body lets go when you do.

Your symptoms are stories. Let them speak.

Just Be Still and Listen to Your Stories.

Your body isn’t a machine.

It’s a library of unsent letters.

Some were written in childhood.

Some are in a dialect you’ve forgotten.

Each one waiting to be read—not judged. Not fixed. Just heard.

Pain speaks softly. Listen carefully.

Let this phrase be a mirror,

a mantra,

a reorientation.

Some voices worth hearing again

The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk
When the Body Says No — Gabor Maté
Call of the Wild — Kimberly Ann Johnson

(Echoes Week 0: “The body is a language to learn.”)

Poetry doesn’t fix the body. But it reminds it.

“The body says what words cannot.”

— Martha Graham

I iced my shoulder for weeks.

But what melted first—was the silence underneath it.

Ignore it long enough, and even the pain gives up.

I used to wait until my body screamed.

Once, it got so loud I ended up in the hospital—tight chest, panic, convinced I was dying.

I wasn’t.

But that moment cracked something open.

I realized I’d trained myself to ignore whispers until they became sirens.

Now, I listen earlier. I listen differently.

A friend once described it like this:“Your conscience is a spiked ball in a box. When it needs your attention, it hits the wall. That’s the message. But if you keep ignoring it… the spikes dull.”

That metaphor stuck.

Because I’ve lived it.

And I’ve also seen how fast those spikes dull—especially when we mute the system:

through alcohol, overmedication, or distraction disguised as productivity.

This isn’t purity. It’s discernment.

A line I’ve crossed both ways.

And what I’ve found—again and again—is that when I start listening earlier,

the messages get clearer,

the pain gets quieter,

and the dignity returns.

Let this be your discipline: stillness before strategy.

Picking Up On Somatic Clues Is Like a Treasure Hunt.

Choose one sensation this week.

Trace it.

Let it teach you—subtly, stubbornly, on its own terms.

High performance isn’t louder.

It’s quieter.

It’s learning to feel the shift before it shows.

That’s the real progression—from reaction to refinement to resonance.

Not through force.

Through profound, embodied listening.

You’re not behind. You’re just newly fluent.

Never Ever Think You Are Behind, You Are Right Where You Are Supposed to Be!

If something opened this week—let it stay open.

Revisit Week 0 if needed:“The body is a language to learn.”

Then come back here, softer and more fluent.