Your Body Is Brilliant
I remember the first time I was told my body was brilliant. It was in a dark therapist’s office on Bainbridge island in a maroon carpeted room with a small sound machine that sounded like a bubbling fish tank. My therapist at the time, Linda, sat across from me in a tall chair with short blond hair and soft freckles smeared across fair skin. She leaned forward, pressing her palms into a long chin. “Do you know how brilliant you are?” She said, eyes wide and smiling. I immediately felt stupid, which made me feel even more stupid for feeling that way in response to the question.
Growing up, I always felt dumb. Testing didn’t come easily to me and I couldn’t focus on a thing for the life of me. I’d see a standardize test with those blank circles staring back at me and would totally freeze. “Fill the answers in–A through D. You have one hour.” And so I would answer about two questions, freak out about time, and begin circling letters with as many words as I could find on test until it was complete. I usually finished before everyone and walked up while their heads were still down, which made me feel fucking fabulous. But then when the scores came back with a big D- on the page, I was reminded that I was different that the others.
“So yeah, when Therapist Linda said, “you are brilliant” while looking me straight in the eye, I seriously considered telling her to piss off. But instead, I stayed, listened, and felt the words shake through me. “Your body and mind is brilliant, because it has known how to survive hard things. It did what it had to to adapt, and now it continues to because it’s still acting as your protector.” If words can land, these words fell all the way from my eyes to my feet with a thump. Heavy. This was the most validating thing I had heard maybe ever, and was the very beginning of reframing my mindset around my body’s deep wisdom and inner knowing.
As you are reading this, I invite you to be your own therapist, to bless the brilliance of your body, the brilliance of your mind, the brilliance of the innate response to what scares you. When we become curious about the corners we hide in and our avoidant tactics, then we can begin to have a conversation with ourselves the way my therapist first did with me. We can sit across from our resistance, we can learn forward in connection, we can ask with empathy– “Do you know how brilliant you are?” And we can say “Thank you for all the work you have done in sheltering me to this point in my life,” then we can watch our body respond, we can feel the release when it lets go in trusting us to now take the reins.
When we create this sacred space with ourselves, we can move to the other side of the couch and be our own advocate.
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Megan Febuary is an author, trauma-informed book coach and creative mentor. Helping women write their books, heal their stories, and understand their unique human design. You can learn more about working with Megan at yourbookyear.com
