Maybe you know days like this: You wake up and your mind is already at full speed.
What needs to happen? Who do you need to reply to? What must you not forget? You work, organize, take care of things, and at some point in the afternoon you realize that you have barely breathed, haven’t had any water, and have been holding your shoulders up for hours.
You are functioning. Perhaps even rather impressively.
You just don’t feel particularly alive.
I know this state from my own life. When things became difficult in my family, I learned to put my needs last. Being there for other people gave me a sense of stability and belonging. Eventually, holding myself back became so normal that I barely noticed what I wanted anymore.
Functioning was not a character flaw. It was a skill that once helped me. The problem began when I no longer knew how to stop.
When the signals only arrive once they are loud
Not feeling your body rarely means feeling nothing at all. More often, its signals only become noticeable when they are already loud.
You notice hunger when your hands are starting to shake. Tiredness when you have nothing left. Tension when your head begins to ache. A boundary after it has already been crossed.
You may be able to explain exactly how you are doing and still feel very little of it. Rest makes you uneasy. Touch quickly feels like too much, or strangely far away. During sex, you are not quite sure what you want. You say yes automatically and only notice your no afterwards.
Pleasure then becomes more of an idea than an experience. That does not mean there is something wrong with you. You may simply have had a lot of practice directing your attention outward.
Your body is not a silent object
We often treat the body like something that needs to work and look good. We feed it, train it, judge it, and carry it from one appointment to the next.
All the while, it is talking.
Through breath, muscle tension, temperature, heartbeat, tiredness, hunger, restlessness, spaciousness, tingling, or desire. Psychology calls the perception of these inner signals interoception. It is also connected to how we experience emotions. Mindfulness-based practices may support this subjective sense of the body, as a recent meta-analysis suggests.
I like one thought in particular: Feeling your body is not a gift some women are born with and others are not. It can be practiced.
Not by force. Not by sitting perfectly still for an hour and waiting for enlightenment to finally arrive. Contact grows in small, repeated moments.
If you have spent a long time living in your head, finding your way into your body can feel unfamiliar. The first thing you notice may not be pleasure, but restlessness. You may suddenly feel tiredness, sadness, or a tension you usually move past in daily life.
That is not proof that you are doing it wrong. It is also no reason to push yourself.
You decide how close you want to get and when you need distance. You can keep your eyes open, look around the room, stand up, or stop. You can begin with neutral or pleasant sensations: the warmth of a cup, your feet on the floor, the fabric of your sweater against your skin.
Pleasure does not grow through pressure. That would be a fairly absurd contradiction.
The way back is often unspectacular
Sometimes I sit there and realize: I’m back in my head again. So I start by looking around. I feel my feet on the floor or the chair against my back. Perhaps I notice a breath. Perhaps I barely notice anything.
In the past, I would probably have turned this into another task straight away. Today, I try to stay curious instead. Does any part of me feel a little warmer, softer, or calmer than the rest? Do I need movement, fresh air, contact, or simply some space?
Sometimes the answer is a glass of water. Sometimes I need to set a boundary. And sometimes I need music.
Dancing is one of the ways I find my way back to pleasure. I can experience my body without judging it from the outside. I follow an impulse instead of planning everything in advance. It does not have to look beautiful. Nobody is giving out points. Perhaps that is what moving out of functioning can look like: a movement that serves no sensible purpose.
Feeling your body changes sex, too
During sex, the body is often expected to know an awful lot, very quickly. What turns you on? What kind of touch do you want? What is too much? When do you want to stop? At the same time, many women have learned to ignore the quieter signals of their bodies throughout the day.
Those two things do not fit together particularly well.
Sexual self-connection does not necessarily begin with a sexual exercise. It begins by noticing your yes, your no, and your maybe in ordinary life.
Do I like this touch? Do I want to move closer, or do I need space? Do I want to continue, or am I performing right now?
There is no correct speed. The less you turn your body into another project, the more honest the answer can become.
You don’t have to stop being strong
Moving from functioning to feeling does not mean becoming unreliable or getting nothing done. Your strength can stay. It just does not have to be the only part of you allowed to take up space.
You can be capable and still need rest. You can care for other people and take yourself seriously. You can make clear decisions and pause to notice how they feel in your body.
The way back rarely begins with a dramatic breakthrough. It begins in a small moment when you notice yourself and do not immediately move past what you feel.
Perhaps this is that moment.
If your body has felt more like a project than a home for a long time, you do not have to untangle that alone. In my 1:1 coaching in Munich and online, this is exactly the kind of contact we can work on, at your pace. You can send me a message directly.
Stay true. Stay bold. Stay you.
Big Love & Pleasure from the Allgäu,
Mia