When your body said no before your mouth did

The stomachache that isn't about digestion. The Sunday headache. The throat tightening before the phone call. Your body knew. Today — we finally listen.

In this episode:

→  What's actually happening physiologically when you override your body's signals

→  Bessel van der Kolk on the body's alarm system and why it's smarter than your thoughts

→  How chronic override disconnects you from self-trust — not just physical health

→  The one small body-based practice that begins to rebuild the connection

 Listener question this episode: Where in your body do you feel the no before your mouth says yes? Tell me.

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Transcript

When your body said no before your mouth did

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There's a stomach ache that isn't about digestion. There's a tension headache that arrives. Every Sunday afternoon, there's a moment of pure irrational dread before a phone call with a particular person. Before your brain has even caught up with the why. Your body already knew. It knew before you admitted it consciously. Before you gave yourself permission to name it. Before you found the words, before you were ready. Your body has been keeping the score. And today we listen to it. Hey gorgeous, welcome back to the Good Girl Talks. I'm Sonia Figuredo, and today we are talking about the most honest intelligence you have access to. Your body. Not your thoughts, not your analysis, not the voice in your head that talks you in

Welcome to The Good Girl Talks

SPEAKER_00 1:47

and out of things and tries very hard to be responsible about everything. Your body, which has never once lied to you. Today I want to talk about what happens when women learn to override that intelligence. And what it costs, and what becomes possible when they stop. This one is different to our previous episodes. I want you to actually feel it while you listen. So wherever you are, if you can, just soften your shoulders a little. Take a breath. Let yourself be in your body for the next few minutes. Okay, let's go. I want to tell you about the year my body started sending me signals I was very good at ignoring.

Sonya's Story: Ignoring the Signals

SPEAKER_00 3:20

It started with sleep, not dramatic insomnia, just a kind of restlessness, a not quite right quality to my nights. I told myself I was busy, stressed. No problem, it will pass. Then there was a tightness in my chest. Not pain, just a kind of low grade constriction that was always there, that I had somehow normalized to the point of not noticing. Like background noise you've stopped hearing. And then there was the headaches. Every Sunday I told myself I was dehydrated. It took me an embarrassingly long time to make the connection between those physical symptoms and what was happening inside my life. Because I had become so proficient at cognitive override, at talking myself out of, through, and past my own discomfort. That my body had escalated its signals considerably before I actually heard them. My body was saying something is wrong. Something is misaligned. Something in the life you are living doesn't match the woman you actually are. And I was saying, I'm fine. I'm managing. Have some IB profene.

The Science: What's Happening in Your Nervous System

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Here's what I know now. The body is not dramatic. It is not irrational. It is not catastrophizing. The body is the most precise instrument you have. It responds to threat, including emotional and relational threat, the same way it responds to physical danger. Because to you, your nervous system, there is no difference. And I know I'm not alone in that. Because if you're listening to this show, chances are you know exactly what I mean. Let's talk about what's actually happening physiologically when your body says no and you override it. Your nervous system has a surveillance function. It is constantly scanning your environment, internal and external, for signals of safety or danger. This is the function Bessel Vanderkock describes in his work on trauma. The body's alarm system is designed to respond to threat faster than conscious thought can process. Which means your body knows something is wrong before you do. The gut clench in the moment before you say yes to something you don't want to do. The throat tightening when you have to pretend everything is fine. The exhaustion that hits you the moment you walk through a particular door. Your nervous system has already assessed the situation. It has already sent you the signal. And here is what the good girl learns to do with the signal. Override it.

The Good Girl & Cognitive Override

SPEAKER_00 7:57

We are very well trained in the art of cognitive override. We tell ourselves we're being oversensitive, that we're being unfair, that the feeling isn't proportionate, that we should give the benefit of the doubt, that we should be more understanding, more flexible, more manageable. And so the body escalates. Because the body does not stop sending signals just because you've decided to ignore them. It tries louder, it tries different languages, anxiety, physical pain, immune dysfunction, sleep disruption, the sudden irrational crying in the car for reasons you can't fully articulate. Here's what nobody tells the capable woman. Those aren't weaknesses. Those aren't you falling apart. Those are your body finally getting through. The cost of chronic override is profound. When women habitually disconnect from their somatic intelligence, their bodily knowing, they also disconnect from their most accurate source of self-trust. Because the body is where self-trust lives, not in the mind, in the felt sense of yes, this is right. No, this is not when you override that consistently, you don't just become physically symptomatic,

The Cost of Chronic Override

SPEAKER_00 10:40

you become epistemically lost. You genuinely don't know what you want, what you feel, what you need, because you've been training yourself out of knowing for years. You essentially become numb. That is the cost, and it's a significant one. So what's the invitation today? I'm not going to give you a breathwork protocol or a body scan exercise. That's not what this is. The invitation is simply this start treating your body's signals as information rather than inconvenience. The next time you feel that gut clench, that tightening, that sudden inexplicable fatigue, instead of immediately asking how to make it stop, try asking. What is this telling me? Not what's wrong with me, not why am I being so sensitive? But what is this telling me? Your body is not broken, it is not overdramatic, it is not working against you. It is the most reliable narrator you have. And it has been trying to get your attention for a very long time. What if you decided, just as an experiment, just for this week,

The Invitation: Your Body as a Trusted Friend

SPEAKER_00 12:51

to treat it like a trusted friend rather than an inconvenienced one to be managed? What if the stomach before the Sunday family dinner is not anxiety but wisdom? What if the exhaustion that hits when you walk through a particular door is your nervous system saying you have been spending yourself here for too long? What if the tension in your body's shoulders that never quite goes away is your body's way of saying there is something you are carrying that is not yours to carry. Your one practice this week, once a day, just once, place your hand on your chest, feel your heartbeat, and ask, What do I actually need right now? Then listen, whatever comes is the truth. The body, coming home to it, learning to trust it again. This is central to everything I do in my work. It's in the Good Girl Be Gone, the whole semitic thread of the book. It's what makes the work different from just reading about patterns intellectually. Because you can understand something completely in your mind and still not have shifted in the body. That's the piece that changes everything. And it's exactly what we do in my Good Girl Unmasked webinars. Not just the naming, but the felt experience of it. There is something that happens when women come together in that room and actually drop out of their heads and into their bodies. Even just for moments. It is not subtle. Links in the show notes. Come and feel it for yourself. My question for you

Call to Action & Outro

SPEAKER_00 15:12

this week: where in your body do you feel the no before your mouth says yes? Is it in your gut, your throat, your chest, your shoulders? The inexplicable tiredness. I want to know where your body sends the signal. Because naming the location, getting specific about where it lives is the beginning of being able to listen to it. DM me on Instagram. Comment wherever you're listening. I would love to hear from you. And if this episode landed somewhere in your body, please share it. There is a woman in your life whose body has been talking to her for years and she hasn't known how to listen. This is for her. Hit subscribe. I'll see you next week, where we are going somewhere that is going to make your jaw drop in the best way. Your body has never once lied to you. It has whispered and spoken and eventually shouted, trying to tell you what the carefully constructed mind was too busy to hear. It is not your enemy. It is not your weakness. It is the truest part of you, and it has been waiting patiently for you to come home to it. That's it from me, gorgeous. Until next time, stay messy, stay real, and remember, the good girl has left the building. I'm Sonia Figueroa. This is the Good Girls Talks, and you're right on time.