25: How to Make Health Decisions Without Second-Guessing Yourself

Overwhelm isn’t a sign that something is wrong with you—it’s often a sign that your body has been trying to communicate and hasn’t been heard.

In this Christmas Day episode of your body speaks, Dr. Brook reflects on the journey from body disconnection, to health obsession, and finally back to balance. She shares how learning to listen—without ignoring or overriding signals—creates clarity, trust, and peace.

This episode reframes symptoms as wisdom in action, not failure, and introduces a simple way to begin rebuilding your relationship with your body without pressure or overwhelm.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why ignoring your body and obsessing over it both lead to overwhelm
• How body signals are meant to guide—not scare—you
• The three reasons your body sends symptoms:
  protection, prioritization, and provision
• Why trust is built through relationship, not control
• A simple daily practice called “This or That” to strengthen body awareness
• How to start listening without overthinking or second-guessing yourself

Dr. Brook also shares what’s ahead for the podcast in 2026, where you’ll learn how to decode specific body signals using a grounded, faith-centered framework—without getting lost in external noise.

Upcoming Event

🗓 Live Workshop – San Diego
January 10 | 11:00–1:30
Learn how to build a relationship with your body and understand its signals in real time.
👉 Register Here

✨ Ready to shift from fear to faith in your body? Discover the Talk to Me, Body affirmation card deck—your daily reminder that God designed your body with wisdom and resilience.
Get yours here → drbrooksheehan.com/talk-to-me-body

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Chapters

• 0:00 Reflecting on the Journey
• 6:22 Understanding Body Signals
• 14:07 Building a Relationship with Your Body

Transcript

It's not that there's something inherently wrong with you. It's actually that wisdom and action. Your body's expressing symptoms. 

Welcome to the body speaks podcast with me, Dr. Brook Sheehan. Join me, on a journey, in discovering how to interpret the subtle signs your body uses to communicate with you - the whispers, the screams, and everything in between. Your body truly holds the answers for your health and wellbeing. It’s time to discover them, together. Let’s dive in. Hi friend, welcome back to your body speaks. I am Dr. Brook, your host. And if you have been listening any length of time or through this past year, I wanna share with you a little recap of where we've been. We spent a lot of time earlier this year speaking about all the amazing things the body does for us all the time, like digesting our food and keeping our immune system strong and all of the beautiful processes that happen inside.

And then we shifted gears and started going into the signals the body gives and how to interpret what they're saying. And we even introduced some new friends to the show with podcast guests. And it's been such a beautiful journey of discovery and finding out new things from new friends and hearing all the feedback from all of you.

So I just wanna say before I jump into today's content, I am so grateful for you all. I'm so grateful for every single one of you who send me comments about episodes and how much they've resonated with you. It truly means a lot. And if you are listening to this on episode release day, you know it is Christmas day across the world, not even just in America. I know when I gave the

Thanksgiving talk, was during Thanksgiving for Americans, but Christmas is celebrated across the world. And as a person who believes in Jesus Christ, I believe Christmas is a time where God gave us the best gift he could give us in Jesus Christ. Beyond that, and second to that, I believe, and I've said this on other episodes, if you've heard those, but I truly believe that the second best gift besides

Jesus, because Jesus is the greatest one, is our body's. This beautiful body that you woke up inside of today, your soul resides in this. God chose this body to put your soul inside of and to bring you into this world.

And whether you have a good relationship, whether you've been working on having a better relationship with it, or whether you're brand new and you're like, what is she talking about having a relationship with my body? I wanna first share a story a lot of you might know, but it's my story. It's my personal story of living so disconnected from myself to where I had no idea.

at any given moment what was going on in my body. was something I didn't even think about. I had a headache, I took Tylenol, I had an earache, I got antibiotics, I had a stomach ache, Pepto-Bismol. No diet change, no questioning whether the medication was necessary, no questioning whether why do I have a headache, like what's going on? Why is my period so bad that I'm literally in the fetal position and can't

take a breath without any sort of major pain. Why are all these things happening? I didn't even question any of it. I just did what I was taught to do growing up. You just quiet it, quiet it, quiet it, shut it up, shut it up, shut it up. Take the meds, take the meds. I wanna say right now, and I know a lot of you know this, but I am not anti-medication. What

my desire to help people do is to really start to understand what's going on so that they can best support themselves. But I have people in both camps. So that's the camp I was in at one point in my life. Then I turn around and I swung the pendulum way off to the other side and I became hyper obsessed and focused on every little thing to the point that

I was just in consumption mode, podcasts, different summit gurus, books, all the things that I was listening to and consuming.

I could no longer even consume anything else in the external except for health and wellness and how to support my body and what is this doing to me? And this might be so toxic and my gosh, I gotta do this for 60 minutes and then I gotta do this and then I was constantly living in this state of overwhelm. So I went from no concern whatsoever for my body to...

absolute chaotic overwhelm completely disconnected from my entire world, because when you go out like this with friends, you become the psycho and forgive me for saying that if any of you can relate to this, but I'm going to bring you back to the middle. We're going to work on bringing you back to the middle. I became the psycho where it's like, don't eat that. Don't do this. You're going to have toxicity here and toxicity there and blah, blah, blah, all the things.

And there's so much merit to that. And I understand where people are. I definitely am crunchy and I'm very natural and I love doing that kind of thing. But however, it became my entire life. It was something that I started to idolize. It started to replace my relationship with God. And I was looking at all the other things that I needed to be doing and not focusing on really

living a fulfilled life you guys so life is not intended to be lived completely disconnected from our body in the place that I started to then going to the opposite extreme where I was living Crazy and psycho life is not intended to be in these polar opposites God designed our body with so much wisdom to be listened to to be heard to have a relationship developed with

And going into 2026, we are going to be focusing on so many of the body signals and I'm going to help walk you through what is going on internally in your body when these signals pop up. And I have a framework that I walk you through that I can help you through.

to be able to deduce down to figure out what is your body trying to say. Because these signals are such beautiful gifts. This body, just like I've said, has so much wisdom inside of it. God designed it with so much wisdom. We're acknowledging the signals.

we're letting the body walk us through what does it need, how can we best support it through the framework. But...

but we're not gonna get caught in all of the loud external noise outside of us.

All of that to say, and I know that there was a lot of polar opposites in that story, but it was so extreme, is God gave you this beautiful gift. This human body that's so intelligent, so wise, is a beautiful masterpiece. It's not intended to be hacked. It's not intended to be ignored. It's not intended to be overrode. How many times do we override our body's signals? It's not intended for any of that.

The signals your body gives you is that wisdom. It's the wisdom in action. So when your body is expressing a symptom, AKA signals, it's not that there's something inherently wrong with you. It's actually that wisdom and action. Your body's expressing symptoms. In chiropractic school, with chiropractic philosophy, they were talking so much about

this innate intelligence, This innate intelligence that pours through us, that God gave us, He designed the body so beautifully. Can't keep saying that enough. However, these signals are actually that wisdom in motion. It's not because your body's not functioning correctly, it's because the wisdom is there working.

And so each signal is actually trying to tell you one of three things. It's either trying to get protection. So trying to keep you safe from something is trying prioritization.

something matters in this moment, I need something right now, or I don't need something right now and prioritization. I'll give you the example of you eat something and you get a stomach ache. It's prioritizing, hey, please don't do this to me again. Please don't hurt me like that. And the other one is provision. These are the things that I need. And so certain signals will start to pop up because it needs something from you.

Problem is is we have not learned how to interpret what these signals mean and we're going really deep into this in 2026 so buckle up your seats come along for the ride with me. I'm looking forward to that but

protection, prioritization, or provision. One of those three P's is in action when a signal pops up. So

a simple tool you can do right now if you're driving to your gathering for Christmas day, if you're at home, you're washing the dishes, you're doing whatever you're doing. What I would love for you to do is I would love for you to practice a concept called this or that. Now we've heard this concept, maybe you have, maybe you haven't, but the this or that that you practice with your body,

is giving it two options, The this, the very first thing, the this is what you would commonly do every day. And the this could be, the example I like is if you drink coffee every single morning, that's your this. Well, what is your that? The that could be lemon water, it could be iced tea, it could be tea.

with lemon, it could be water with electrolytes, it could be any sort of different drink, right? But this is your normal thing, that that is the new piece that you're putting in.

And I have people just sit with their body for 10 to 15 seconds. It does not have to be long. Just pause, take a breath and just pause. And just really drop down into your body. So many of us are not even feeling or knowing what's going on internally because we're go, go, go, go, go, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle. And we don't know how to honor this. So get grounded in your body.

Pause, take a breath, drop into your body and say, do you want coffee this morning or do you want tea? Do you want coffee this morning or do you want water and electrolytes? Now you're not switching those questions so quickly. I switched those questions so quickly. For the example, you're gonna give it two different things. Do you want coffee or tea? Sit with it. Sit with it for a second. If you feel like you're getting overwhelmed and when I say, okay, let me go backwards a second.

When I say sit with it, people get in their head and they start getting so overwhelmed by different things and I don't want you to get overwhelmed. Get out of your head and start feeling into your heart space. Start feeling into your gut, your whole, what?

I tend to use medical speak. I'm so sorry. was gonna say your entire anterior thorax, basically your chest and your stomach, okay? Really drop down into that area, not into your head, because your head is gonna start pulling you in so many different directions. Well, I always drink coffee, so I definitely want coffee. Really drop into that space where your heart and your belly live and see if you're getting any sensations from your body or any sort of...

signifier like it's pulling you in one direction. Okay.

If you do not get any information in that moment, go back to having your coffee. Just normally have your coffee. The next day, try again. This time, if you don't get a response, have the tea and then think back and go, how did I feel after drinking the coffee? How did I feel after drinking the tea? Where was there a better response? This can constantly shift. And I'm not saying that to make you overwhelmed about it, but this can constantly shift, meaning some days you

want coffee and other days you may want tea and then you go back to the tea and then your body wants coffee again.

This is about building a relationship and it's practicing very, very small, inconsequential questions. You're not doing this with major life transformations that need to happen in your life. You're doing these with small questions, okay? So just simple questions like that. You can practice it throughout your entire day in terms of what to have for lunch or you're sitting there at...

Christmas dinner and there's two different pie choices. Which pie, pecan or apple? Pecan or apple? The more that you practice this, the more that you are going to get more in tune with what your body is seeking and asking for and that relationship gets built. When you have better relationship, you're able to trust and your body can trust you. So here's how I break it down.

The body signals, the body signals, AKA the symptoms are what helps you learn to listen better, okay? If there's active signals and symptoms going on, when you work through the framework and you learn to listen better, that listening is going to help build that relationship and with a better relationship is gonna come deeper trust. So it starts at the signals.

If you have no active signals right now, no active symptoms, I just want to give this little caveat. If you have no active symptoms, just practice the this or that. I'm not gonna get into the other signal framework. We're gonna go deep into that, into the new year.

Right now, all I want you to do is build a beautiful relationship with your body and work on that until episode one of 2026 comes out.

And I just want you to like work on doing those this or that, this or that. Practice it three times. Make it a goal that you practice it three times throughout your day with little decisions like that. You're out at lunch with a friend. You say, do I want this or do I want that? Am I gonna get this or am I gonna do that? And that's it. Three times over the next two weeks and we're gonna go deep into the body signals in 2026. I pray that you had an amazing day. I pray that the rest

of this year you just feel joy so much excitement for what's to come new years just bring a brand new sense of self and new years have a way of just bringing back a new starting point and so I pray that whatever you had dreamed about happening this year that

We can look at the year as a whole and we can say, you know what, I've made a lot of progress. Maybe I didn't hit certain goals or maybe I didn't do certain things that I wanted to do or take these trips that I wanted to do. But I've gotten so much further and my body is taking me through so many things this year. My body has brought me through so many different challenges, different sicknesses or illnesses or injuries.

All these different things the body has brought us through in a beautiful kind of way. trust that your body is guiding you. It's leading the way. It knows exactly what you need.

And if you are ready to start digging into any of those signals, I said to wait, but I will share this with you right now that

I'm going to be teaching a workshop here in San Diego on January 10th from 11 to 1 30. And we're going to go deep into building a relationship with your body, understanding the body signals, working through the framework and how to actually integrate all of the pieces so that we get your year started off right. If you are interested in that and you want to learn more about it, I will put the link in the show.

for you to be able to check that out. In the meantime, have a very blessed Merry Christmas. Please like, share, subscribe, do all of the things that help get this podcast out to more listeners just like you. Be blessed and I will see you on the first.