You’ve probably heard someone say “behavior is communication” before.
Have you ever used your own behavior as a clue to listen to yourself?
When you’re struggling to make sense of your own feelings, needs, or wants, your own behavior might give you messages that you can interpret more easily than your body sensations or your desires, especially if you have struggled with interoception or have struggled to be in touch with your body’s needs. (This could be due to neurodivergence, past trauma, the way you were raised, just not having learned that skill very well, etc.)
I struggle to believe myself when I’m sick. I will continually tell myself messages like: “I need to power through this”, “Am I really sick or am I just making it up?”, “Do I really feel this bad? Probably if somebody else was the same amount of sick then it wouldn’t be bothering them this much, so I shouldn’t be affected.”
When I remind myself that my behavior is communication that’s worth listening to, then it takes some of the pressure off. I don’t have to listen intensely to my own feelings and sensations and determine if they’re “right” or “wrong”. I don’t have to ask myself if my stomach really feels queasy or if I’m just imagining it, if the amount of exhausted I am is really more tired than usual or if I’m just making it up.
I want to go to bed early? Okay. I can do that if I want to. I don’t have to stay up later working. I don’t have to debate myself about whether I’m really tired enough to justify it. I’m allowed to go sleep. My body is communicating to me that it wishes to sleep. That is okay. I don’t need to justify it.
I don’t want to eat because I feel nauseated? Okay. I can eat later, if I feel like it, or I don’t have to. I don’t have to debate myself about whether my feeling is true or false.
More complicated than that: I notice that I’ve logically planned to have a sandwich for lunch, but I keep putting off having the sandwich over and over? Hmm okay. Is that not actually what food I want? My behavior is telling me something.
I’ve planned to get up and get dressed, but I’m lying in bed for longer and longer? Okay, is there something else that I need? Am I uncomfortable in some way, are the clothes I planned not working for me today? My behavior is telling me something.
I’ve stopped flossing entirely? Oh shoot, when I emptied out the bathroom trash I left it in another room. I have nowhere to throw away my floss pieces. I registered all of this subconsciously. But when I trusted my behavior to not just be me being “bad” or “lazy”, but to be telling me something about what I needed or what was or wasn’t working, I got messages from it that were meaningful.
Now are there other reasons why someone might be struggling with executive dysfunction and so they’re not able to initiate an action or things like that? Yeah absolutely. Humans are complicated. We have lots going on at any given time.
But maybe it’s easier for you to trust the message you hear from what you’re doing, than the message you hear from what you’re feeling. Or maybe you don’t hear a message from your feelings at all, so you can try out listening to your actions. It’s a place to start.
[image description: a selfie of me from last year when i wrote this, a person with fluffy black hair with rainbow tips, a pastel pink and blue hoodie, and a tired smile, curled up on a couch and doing a thumbs up to the camera. You can’t see it, but my shirt says “the occuplaytional therapist” on it. 😄 End description.]
