Each week, Samantha Lewis shares her insights on various topics, from exploring new health trends to reimagining personal growth.
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This is about to sound super woo woo, even a little too much for me, but stay with me for a minute.
I’ve started noticing something strange when I walk with my dogs at the golf course.
I’ve become acutely aware of this subtle tug in my chest, my heart, my gut, pulling me in particular directions.
My body wants to weave its own way through the trees, along a certain path.
With full self-awareness, I acknowledge this sounds absolutely bonkers.
And yet I’ve started listening to it. The second I turn my body the way that tug is asking me to go, the tension releases.
I feel better.
The moment I try to ignore it and head a different way, that pull comes right back.
It’s like a compass.
Like one of those old Nintendo games where the character collects coins and stars as they journey along, except I’m collecting little pockets of energy, and my body knows exactly where they are.
Sounds mad, right?
So I did what any millennial would do.
I asked AI if this was an actual thing or if I was just completely crazy.
Turns out, it’s a thing.
What I’m describing is called somatic awareness or body knowing.
It’s the foundation of what therapists and spiritual practitioners call somatic guidance.
Your body runs a biofeedback loop, and when you align with it, that release of tension you feel is your nervous system saying yes.
There’s even a practice called authentic movement where people close their eyes and let their body lead spontaneously without the thinking mind getting in the way.
That tug, that physical compass, is your body picking up on something real.
Whether that’s energy, resonance, or simply alignment with what feels true in that moment.
The fact that you feel better when you follow it isn’t coincidence.
It’s your system in coherence.
The thinking mind wants everything explained, rationalised, filed away in a box labelled “makes sense”.
It doesn’t know what to do with a tug in your gut that points you towards particular trees. It wants logic. It wants a reason.
Your body doesn’t work that way.
It processes 40 million bits of information per second.
Your conscious mind? About 40.
If you had to think your way through every signal your nervous system picks up, you’d be paralysed.
So your body whispers.
It sends you tugs and tingles and that feeling of rightness when you’re moving in alignment.
Most of us have spent our whole lives learning to ignore those whispers.
We override them with shoulds and schedules and what makes sense on paper.
We trust the thinking mind because we were taught to.
And then we wonder why we feel disconnected, why our bodies feel like they belong to someone else.
Trusting the compass doesn't make you woo woo. It makes you awake.
It means you’re finally listening to the 40 million bits of information your body has been trying to tell you all along.
So now when I walk with my dogs and feel that pull towards the trees, I go.
I collect my pockets of energy.
My nervous system settles, and I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Maybe that’s all intuition ever was.
Your body knowing before your mind catches up.