Notice. Notice without judgement. When you’re able to do that, you get into a meditative state that allows you to shift your behavior, and live a better life. No candles or incense required.
It sounds so simple, right? What’s the big deal with noticing?
Well, lemme tell you: almost all of my clients resist noticing their body. I do too. It takes too much time. Too much energy.
But actually, ignoring your body leads to stress, illness, and definitely unhappiness.
Today, we’ll welcome back Allison Evans who talked to us about The Body Budget recently.
- Allison will teach us how to notice yourself without judgement so you keep your Body Budget well-tended.
- And we’ll unlock the power of meditation—which is just a codified way of saying notice. Notice your body without judging your body’s needs.
Try the experiment
What happens when you close your eyes and notice—really notice—your body? Are you like some of my clients who say, “There’s nothing there?”
Let’s pretend you’re in my office and I get the privilege of coaching you—just you—for the next 8 minutes. I ask you to close your eyes and feel your body. Feel your feet on the ground. Feel your throat as you swallow.
What do you notice?
The resistance
Many people do this exercise with me and they’ll say things like, “I don’t feel anything,” or they’ll tell me a long story, “Oh! My feet are just exhausted because I had to be on my feet for 10 hours straight yesterday and the floor was concrete and do you know how bad concrete is for your lower back. OMG! My back is killing me too.”
These are two very different ways of doing the exact same thing: not noticing. This is resisting meditation.
People don’t want to notice how they feel. Maybe you believe that if you let yourself feel your feet, you might actually realize you want to quit your job. And that would be untenable because you’re the only one actually earning anything at your home, so of course you can’t quit, ergo, you can’t feel your feet.
This is what happens when you resist the reality that is all around you. And we ALL do it.
We do it because we are afraid of feeling that pain. We are afraid of all the decisions that would result.
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The release
But the truth is that denying how you actually feel puts way more stress on your system than feeling and noticing.
When you have a bodily sensation (and emotions cause lots of body sensations!), but you ignore it, this causes stress for your system. You think you’re saving yourself from stress by ignoring your body’s signals, but this is a lie.
Instead, when you feel your body’s sensations, your body feels released. Released from having to hold onto something that you won’t let yourself feel. Released from compression. Holding. Secret-keeping.
The ease
The ease comes when you stop resisting. When you stop pretending you don’t feel something.
Just because you notice your body doesn’t mean you need to DO anything. You can keep your life exactly as it is. When you take this fear of change off your plate, it’s less risky to FEEL.
What I notice with clients most of the time, however, is that noticing your body’s sensations leads naturally and easily to tending.
Why? Because when you feel your body, you feel more human. More alive. More grounded. More real.
You realize you’re thirsty, or tired.
This leads to getting a drink. And, while you may not have time for a rest, just accepting the truth that you are tired allows you to be just a bit more gentle with yourself.
When you are kind enough to get yourself a drink of water, or silently acknowledge that you’re tired, you are being kind and loving to yourself. You’re accepting yourself as you are.
This acceptance of the little things leads to bigger acceptances.
Loving-kindness and self-compassion begin in your own body, but they don’t stop there. The kinder you are to yourself the more accepting you are of others. So, you begin this love-affair with humanity: accepting each moment exactly and precisely as it is.
And this, My Friend, leads to a much happier life.
Connect with Allison Evans
Allison Evans is a Certified Wayfinder Master Coach with an MA in English literature from George Mason University and undergraduate degrees in English and French from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her work has been featured in elephant journal, Thrive Global, and Pathways magazine. She lives in Omaha with the people who inspire her work: her husband, daughter, and son.
If you’d like to hear more of Allison’s wisdom, I invite you to read her blog or consider working with her.
Allison is also offering a free workshop on November 12th, 2025 at 12:30pm Central Time to help women stay present and powerful in the spotlight.
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