When the body speaks: the importance of listening to ourselves at every stage of life

Learning to listen to your body does not mean finding an emotional explanation for every symptom. It means widening the lens, integrating physical and emotional health and recognising that each stage of a woman's life needs a different kind of support.

How many times have you said "I'm fine" while your body was trying to tell you something else?

Perhaps through fatigue that never lifts, insomnia, constant tension, digestion that has started to change or pain that keeps coming back.

Sometimes we carry on because we believe we can handle everything. Because we have learned to function even when something inside us is asking us to stop.

But listening to the body does not mean panicking at every symptom. Nor does it mean attributing everything to emotions. It means widening the lens.

Addressing what is happening with medical rigour and, at the same time, asking ourselves what is going on in our life, our emotions, our relationships and the way we relate to ourselves.

We have grown used to living outwards

Many women learn from an early age to look first at the needs of others. To care. To hold things together. To comply. To adapt. To please. We learn to read the room before we learn to read ourselves.

This capacity can be valuable, but it comes at a cost when, in order to belong, to care or to meet expectations, we stop listening to ourselves.

• We may stay in a job that dims us out of fear of losing security.
• We keep a relationship or a family structure that no longer does us good because we fear causing harm.
• We stay connected to certain friendships out of loyalty to who we once were.
• We say yes when we would like to say no.
• We demand that we manage everything and call comfort what may in fact be fear of change.

Little by little, all our energy can end up directed outwards. The body keeps working and so do we. But inside, fatigue, tension, unexpressed anger, sadness, guilt or a growing sense of disconnection can build up.

Until something starts asking for attention.

The body is not the enemy: it is information

From an integrative psychology perspective, mind, emotion and body do not work as separate compartments.

A thought can trigger an emotion. An emotion can change breathing, muscle tone, sleep or digestion. And a bodily sensation can awaken fear, memories or interpretations that increase discomfort. The relationship is bidirectional and constantly in motion.

Research has studied the relationship between psychological stress and different body systems for decades. A meta-analysis of more than 300 studies found associations between psychological stress and changes in various immune parameters [1]. Other work has linked certain chronic stressors and emotional exhaustion with low-grade inflammation markers [2].

This does not mean stress explains every illness. It means our emotional context is also part of our biology.

That is why, when the body speaks, we need to avoid two extremes: ignoring the emotional, or reducing everything to the emotional.

A symptom deserves proper medical assessment. And alongside it, some questions can be deeply useful:

• What was happening when it started?
• What was I holding together?
• Which need was I postponing?
• What had I not been saying or acknowledging for some time?
• What has changed in my life?

Listening is not diagnosing. It is paying attention.

Learned thoughts and programmes also matter

We do not always consciously choose the way we live. Many of our decisions rest on learned programmes: ideas about what it means to be a good woman, a good mother, a good daughter, a good professional or a good partner.

These are family, cultural and social messages that we can internalise until they become automatic truths:

• "I have to be able to handle everything."
• "I must not disappoint anyone."
• "If I set boundaries, people will stop loving me."
• "Changing now would be selfish."
• "Others come first."

When these thoughts run our lives without being reviewed, we can end up building routines that keep us apparently safe but far from what we need.

Because comfort is not always wellbeing. Sometimes it is simply the familiar. And the familiar can keep us for years in a state of silent alertness: we rest, but we do not repair; we stop, but we do not switch off; we deliver, but we do not enjoy.

Listening to ourselves requires awareness, but also the courage to review what no longer fits the stage of life we are going through.

Women are cyclical, even if the world asks us to be linear

Our body changes throughout the month and also throughout life. Yet we live in a culture that tends to expect the same energy, availability and productivity from us every day.

Integrative women's psychology incorporates this dimension of cyclicality because our physical, psycho-emotional, relational and spiritual needs do not stay still.

The World Health Organization proposes understanding menstrual health from a life-course perspective, from before menarche to after menopause, integrating its physical, psychological and social dimensions [3].

This view helps us understand that each transition is not only hormonal. It can also transform our identity, our relationship with the body, our bonds, our priorities and the way we understand the world.

Three major transitions in female health

1. The arrival of menstruation: learning to inhabit a changing body

Menarche opens a new stage. The body changes, the way others look at us changes, and the way a girl perceives herself can change too.

When this transition is lived through shame, silence, fear or lack of information, a relationship of rejection towards one's own body can take hold. Supporting it with information, respect and listening can help build body self-esteem, confidence and a more conscious experience of cyclicality.

2. Motherhood, non-motherhood and the question of one's own path

The second major transition is not the same for everyone. It may include the desire to become a mother, pregnancy, postpartum and raising children. But it can also include difficulties conceiving, pregnancy loss, the decision not to have children or a motherhood that never arrived.

All these experiences can deeply move identity, partnership, the body, life plans and the sense of belonging. At this stage many women can feel observed or questioned, as if there were a single correct way to live it.

From integrative psychology, the aim is to offer a space to process what has been lived without judgement, to distinguish one's own desire from external mandates and to recover an identity that is not reduced to caring or meeting expectations.

3. Perimenopause and menopause: asking again who we are

When the menstrual cycle changes and menopause finally arrives, the body asks for reorganisation again. Hot flushes, sleep disturbances, mood changes, fatigue, concentration difficulties or a different sensitivity to stress may appear.

The WHO notes that this transition can affect physical, emotional, mental and social wellbeing, and that how it is experienced is also shaped by previous history, lifestyle and sociocultural context [4].

But this stage does not have to be understood only as a loss. It can also be a moment of enormous clarity.

Many women feel they can no longer, and no longer want to, keep holding the same things. The boundaries they never set, the relationships that weigh on them, the postponed projects and the need to live more coherently become more visible.

The body changes. And with it, our way of being in the world can change too.

The spiritual dimension: living with meaning and coherence

Talking about spirituality does not necessarily mean talking about religion. In this context, it means attending to that deep part that asks:

• Who am I?
• What meaning does what I am living have?
• Which values do I want to embody?
• How do I want to relate to myself, to others and to life?

We can have a full calendar, a family, stability and professional recognition and still feel empty. That feeling also deserves to be heard.

Integral health is not only about reducing symptoms. It also involves recovering presence, direction and coherence. When what we think, feel, do and need drift too far apart, discomfort can grow.

Realigning is a process. Not one more demand.

What does Integrative Psychology offer?

Integrative psychology supports the whole woman, not only the symptom she brings to the consultation. It starts from her history, her stage of life and her resources, and observes how thoughts, emotions, body, habits, relationships, context and purpose interact.

This support can help to:

• Recognise the body's signals before reaching the limit.
• Identify automatic thoughts and learned programmes that shape our decisions.
• Regulate stress and build resources to move through difficult emotions.
• Review routines, relationships and forms of self-care from responsibility rather than guilt.
• Set boundaries and recover energy without feeling we are failing others.
• Understand the specific needs of each stage.
• Respect our cyclicality.
• Reconnect with our values and purpose.
• Build a way of living that is more coherent with who we are today.

It is not about controlling every response of the body. Nor about turning self-care into another list of obligations. It is about developing a more conscious and kinder relationship with ourselves, so that we can choose before exhaustion, fear or disconnection choose for us.

Listening to ourselves is also prevention and longevity

Female longevity does not begin at 60. It is built much earlier, in the way we live each stage: how we rest, which bonds we sustain, how long we stay on alert, how we ask for help and what place we occupy in our own life.

Living longer should also mean living with greater autonomy, meaning and quality.

At SHOMMA Healthspan Center we understand that women's health needs a shared view. The body may require medical, nutritional or physical care. The emotional world needs listening and tools. And our life story needs a space in which it can be understood.

Integrating these dimensions allows us to stop looking at isolated symptoms and start supporting the person living them.

Perhaps you cannot change everything today. But you can start with a simple question: "What is this moment of my life trying to show me?"

Listening to yourself does not mean abandoning others. It means including yourself again. And perhaps that is one of the first steps towards living with more health, more awareness and more freedom.

At SHOMMA

If you feel identified in any way with what you have read, at SHOMMA we are here to support you. Our female health programme integrates different professional perspectives to understand your stage of life, identify your needs and build a personalised plan.

We do not want you to fit a protocol. We want the care to fit you.

References

• Segerstrom SC, Miller GE. Psychological stress and the human immune system: a meta-analytic study of 30 years of inquiry. Psychological Bulletin. 2004;130(4):601-630.
• Das A. Chronic ongoing stressors and C-reactive protein: a nationally representative longitudinal study. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. 2020;83:233-244.
• World Health Organization. WHO statement on menstrual health and rights. 2022.
• World Health Organization. Menopause. Fact sheet, 16 October 2024.