When My Body Speaks: Learning to Listen in a Season of Healing

In a season focused on recovering from PTSD and walking through complicated grief, I’ve learned something I didn’t expect: my body processes stress long before my mind catches up.

It doesn’t whisper. It doesn’t hide. If anything, it screams. Stress shows up in my bio-signals, those quiet, measurable indicators that something deeper is happening within me.

Stress reveals itself in elevated heart rate;
In lowered heart rate variability.
In faster breathing.
In higher blood pressure.
And in the wonky, erratic sleep that leaves me wondering why I even bothered trying in the first place.

For a long time, I didn’t give these things a second thought. To me, they were random.

I know better now. At least, I think I do.

These signals aren’t evidence of weakness. They’re evidence of being human.

Grief, trauma, and healing don’t live in separate compartments.
They spill over.
They overlap.
They show up in the body, the mind, and the spirit, three parts of the same whole.

In many ways, my body has become a teacher. It speaks a language I’m slowly learning to understand. It’s one that invites me to slow down, breathe, rest, and receive God’s care rather than try and outrun my own exhaustion.

Scripture reminds me:

A man’s spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?
‭‭Proverbs 18:14 ESV

And yet God also speaks tenderly:

He restores my soul…
Psalm 23:3 ESV

I am continually reminded that restoration is holistic. The very same God who formed my body from dust also knit my soul with purpose and breathed His own Spirit into me. So when one part of me aches, all of me feels it. And when one part begins to heal, all of me is invited into that healing.

Little by little, I’m learning not to resent what my body reveals, but to pay attention and respond with compassion. Healing isn’t linear, and it isn’t instant. But it is happening.

Reflection Question

Where is your body speaking today and what might God be inviting you to notice?

Prayer

Dear Lord, You know every signal our bodies send: the tension, the restlessness, the fatigue, the pounding heart. Teach us to listen with grace, not fear. Restore our souls. Heal our bodies. Steady our minds. And please remind us that You hold every part of us fully, tenderly, and without shame. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Until my next post…

Be salty, stay lit.

Rainer Bantau —The Devotional Guy™

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