The Season My Body Made Me Listen

I recently watched a friend go through one setback after another.

She was standing on the edge of a beautiful new season of life. She and her husband had made some big decisions.  They sold their family home, moved into a home they’d dreamed of, and she left her part-time job to pour herself into the business she’d been building.

Then her body intervened.

It started with severe back pain. Then, just as they were moving into their new home, she fell down the stairs and broke her leg in three places.

I remember thinking, “Wow, the Universe really made sure she stopped!”

Not because she’d done anything wrong, and certainly not as a punishment. But because sometimes our bodies insist on getting our attention in ways we can no longer ignore. I found myself feeling so much compassion for her. I wanted her to rest, to heal, and to trust that this unexpected pause wasn’t the end of her story.

It was a reminder of the importance of recognising when your body tells you to slow down. She quickly came to see that this season of physical rest has also become a season of mental preparation. It’s given her space to reflect, to plan, and to prepare for what comes next. None of that changes the fact that it arrived in a very unexpected way.

What I didn’t realise at the time was that I wasn’t offering myself the same compassion.  It was so much easier to recognise someone else’s need for rest than my own.

For the past few months, I’ve been burping. Constantly. After meals, after a sip of water, and sometimes even on an empty stomach. With a long history of reflux and a family history of digestive problems, it seemed like the obvious place to start looking. So, I did what I always do—I researched, I read, and I tried to connect the dots. I’m still planning to investigate it properly because I believe our bodies deserve to be taken seriously.

Then something happened that I wasn’t expecting. In the middle of a conversation about what might be causing it, I found myself crying. Hard. Not because of the burping, but because somewhere along the way I’d realised I’d barely taken a full breath in months. Although I had been looking for a physical explanation, what I found instead was much deeper.  It wasn’t the answer I found. It was a different question.

As I started reflecting on the events of the last several months, I realised the burping wasn’t the story. It was simply the symptom that finally made me listen.

It had been the season of redundancy.

The season my divorce was finally over.

The season of starting a business.

The season of the tiredness sleep couldn’t fix.

The season of shallow breathing and feeling like I couldn’t quite take a satisfying breath.

The season of the dry cough that lingered, with a feeling of something caught in my throat.

The season of nausea that had me taking a pregnancy test despite knowing it was unlikely.

The season my menstrual cycles quietly stopped, and my body changed in unexpected ways.

The season of celebrating my daughter’s wedding and helping her move into her new house, while quietly carrying private family heartaches.

The season of losing a beloved companion animal under tragic circumstances.

The season of feeling guilty for never quite keeping on top of everything.

The season I kept telling myself there wasn’t time to stop. 

The season of tears that appeared suddenly from nowhere.

Looking back now, I can see that underneath all those seemingly unrelated symptoms was a woman who had been saying goodbye over and over again.

Goodbye to relationships.

Goodbye to the certainty I thought my career would provide.

Goodbye to my reproductive years.

Goodbye to previous versions of myself.

Goodbye to expectations and futures that never unfolded the way I’d imagined.

When I stopped to really think about it, I realised grief had been quietly running through almost every part of the past year. Some of it belonged to obvious endings. Some of it belonged to private heartaches that weren’t mine to tell. And some of it came from a rupture in my relationship with my father that reopened a very old wound—the feeling of carrying blame for things that were never mine to carry.

Grief has a way of doing that. It doesn’t always arrive when life slows down enough for us to notice it. Sometimes it simply travels alongside us while we’re busy surviving, quietly waiting until there’s enough space for us to feel it. 

The most interesting observation for me was that as I acknowledged each of the challenges I’d faced, and released some of that emotion through tears, the burping stopped.  Not entirely, but significantly.  Enough for me to really notice.

Maybe my body isn’t asking me to let go.  Maybe it’s asking me to grieve.  Not because grief is weakness.  But because grief is what love feels like when life changes.  Perhaps every goodbye deserves an exhale.

I’m not writing this because I have the answers.  I don’t know whether these events caused my physical symptoms. I may yet discover a completely physical explanation, and I’m continuing to investigate that. 

I’m not trying to fit every symptom into one neat story.  I’m simply observing. I’m curious.  I’m paying attention. I’m still learning.

I’ve spent years encouraging women to ask, “What season am I in?”  This time, I realised that although I’d been listening to my body, I hadn’t fully trusted what it was trying to tell me.

Perhaps this season isn’t asking me to become someone new.  Perhaps it’s asking me to meet the woman who’s quietly been emerging through all these changes with the same compassion I so easily offer everyone else.

Maybe this is the season I begin asking different questions…

“Is this actually mine to carry?”

And instead of ending each day by asking,

“How much did I get done today?”

Perhaps I ask,

“What did my body tell me today?”

After all the tears, all the insights and all the reflection, I walked into the kitchen tonight, looked around at the mess, and immediately thought,

“I don’t have time for this. There’s too much to do.”

I caught myself… and just laughed.

Old patterns don’t disappear because we have one profound conversation.

They soften a little each time we notice them.

This time…

at least…

I noticed.

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A note from me: This is my personal reflection, not medical advice. I’m still investigating my symptoms, and I hope I’ll eventually understand the physical reasons behind them. But somewhere along the way, I realised I’d already been given an answer. Just not the one I expected.