The first time I saw Pete—
long hair and Grateful Dead T-shirt—
something within me stirred.
I had no words to describe it.
It was simply a stirring. A flutter.
A warmth like the first summer wind.
A loop-de-loop in my belly, like the one I felt riding the Loch Ness Monster at Busch Gardens for the very first time.
There was a quiet knowing in my body
long before my mind rushed in to define
what my whole being had already recognized.
This is the boy I will marry one day.
But even those words came later.
The knowing was already there.
It didn’t require words.
The words were extra. Redundant, almost.
Years later, I didn't need language or concepts or logic to tell me that the seven-pound, seven-ounce baby girl placed on my bare chest after twenty-eight hours of labor was the most precious miracle I had ever held.
Before I could think, before I could explain,
before I could find a single sentence...
my whole being already knew.
There are moments that arrive beneath language.
Moments our hearts recognize long before our minds begin searching for explanations.
They arrive as goosebumps.
Tears.
As warmth in the chest or a smile deep in the belly.
As a breath that quietly deepens without permission.
Before I learned to speak English—
before I learned theology, neuroscience, or philosophy—
before I even knew my own name... my body had a first language.
Something within me simply knew my mother's heartbeat without needing to name it.
I knew love.
I knew comfort.
I knew delight.
I knew belonging.
Not conceptually but directly.
My body simply KNEW it.
Maybe that quiet knowing has never left.
Maybe it has been patiently waiting
beneath every thought...every concept…every judgement.
Speaking the only language it has ever known—Love. Light. Peace. Joy.
And every once in a while,
When stillness arrives,
I recognize its voice.
Not in words.
But in the unmistakable feeling of coming home.
Years ago when I began coaching, I tried the find the words to describe to my clients this feeling inside me when I touched the space I call HOME. The only words I could ever find were things like, “Truth feels LIGHT.” Even today, it feels impossible to fully capture that still, small voice that speaks first through physiology and second through words.
I have continued over the years finding different metaphors and pointers for this still, small voice because, as far as I can see, it is the most helpful, sacred pointer to truth. To Love. To Home. To Peace that has no opposite.
What if the deepest truths of our lives don’t arrive as thoughts?
What if they arrive as recognition—as more of a remembering something we knew instinctively when we were born? Before the world added all of the meaning, concepts, and judgements?
Long before my mind could explain why I loved Pete, something inside me had already leaned in. Long before I could have described the miracle of holding my newborn daughter, every cell in my body already knew she had changed me forever.
The words eventually came—they always do. After all, the whole point of that adorable mind is to jump in with its labels and opinions as swiftly as it can.
But what if that primitive little meaning-maker in our heads is never the pointer to truth in the way that the still, small voice of the heart is?
What if there is a simple way of knowing that doesn't compete with or argue with the mind...but gently precedes it.
A knowing that arrives as goosebumps, unexpected tears, a smile somewhere deep in the belly before a single sentence has formed.
I sometimes think of it as remembering a language I knew before I learned words.
Not a language of concepts, but instead a language of recognition.
A language that is FELT.
And here’s the part that sometimes feels a little wobbly because it seems to go against generations of conditioned teaching. But, as the saying goes, this the mountain I am willing to die on. This is the part that feels so intrinsic to my own sense of unshakable peace and freedom that I want to remain open to the possibility that every single human can touch this space HOME, of PEACE…of unconditional love.
These are the only words I have found to describe something that is FELT rather than PROCESSED by the mind. So, please bear with me as I stumble through them….
I have a client who is also one our beautiful friends here in Office Hours. And during nearly every session, she will pause and hold up her arms and say, “Ohhhh, goosebumps.” And sometimes, out of nowhere, big tears will well-up in her eyes. In both cases, I know exactly what has happened. She has remembered truth. She has recognized who she is before all of the added concepts.
Truth feels LIGHT in the body.
Back when I was struggling with hives, swellings, and gun-to-the-head terror, I began playing games with reality. I thought of it like throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what would “stick.” I did all of this intuitively.
I would ask playful questions like, “What if this experience of terror is in service of me?” Now, I had NO FUCKING IDEA what that even meant? But the point wasn’t to understand anything with my mind. I just threw the metaphorical spaghetti on the wall and waited to see what my body said. That still, small voice that only—ONLY—speaks in love, peace, grace, abundance, and kindness was my only point of reference.
In the early days of playing my “spaghetti games,” there was only one voice I wanted to hear from—and it spoke through physiological shifts in my body. Even a 2% shift to something lighter helped me know I was on the right path.
Truth feels light in the body.
And I remember that first time that, out of nowhere, after asking that nonsensical question, “What if this experience is in service of me,” my entire physiology didn’t just feel 2% lighter—it felt as if someone had just flipped the switch on the Rockefeller Christmas Tree in New York City.
There it was. Truth. Home. Love. A lightness in the body. A remembering. A recognition.
Ahhh…the words were able to begin catching up to the body’s knowing. How cool—even my adorable mind began to actually get on board with this recognition.
Something profound shifted. And the words went something like this: My symptoms and my terror are not AT ALL what I have believed them to be. They are here in service of me.
Again—in service of what? I don’t know. Maybe in service of waking up. Maybe in service of something higher. I really don’t think it matters. Even the words “in service” don’t matter. What mattered then, and what feels so life-changing now is the ability to simply listen for the physiological feeling—not the words.
And the more I've learned to trust that language, the more I've found myself asking different kinds of questions.
Not questions that corner life. Questions that open to it.
Not..."Why is this happening?"
But..."What if this is an essential part of my path?"
Not because I'm looking for an answer. (I'm almost never looking for an answer anymore.)
I'm listening for something much quieter. I'm simply noticing what happens inside me when I gently hold that question.
Does something contract or does something soften?
Does my breathing become shallow or does the room inside me somehow become a little larger?
Those little "What if...?" questions have become the foundation of my current-day games.
Not because I'm hoping one of them will magically solve my life. But because every once in a while, one of them lands in a way that my whole being immediately recognizes.
It whispers, “There. Go in that direction.”
Not because it's logically airtight but because it carries the unmistakable feeling of HOME.
The still, small voice speaks in Love. Kindness. Light. Hope.
If the words sound like should or shame or could have, look again. Or rather, FEEL again.
Simply be open to that voice that speaks beneath the logical mind. It's always there. It has been patiently waiting beneath every every judgment, every comparison, and every story we've ever told ourselves.
It is still speaking. Still recognizing. Still calling us HOME.
And somehow, before my mind can explain why, my body smiles.
Ahhh, HOME, there you are, old friend.
