Society has conditioned us to trust the mind above all else. Logic, reason, and analysis are seen as the highest forms of intelligence. IQ is seen as more valuable than EQ. But when it comes to healing, clarity, and inner truth, another kind of wisdom comes online – the intelligence of the body.
It doesn’t speak in words, but in sensation. It doesn’t argue, but signals. Beneath our thoughts, the body is constantly communicating. And when we learn to listen, it becomes one of our most trustworthy guides.
This isn’t about turning away from the mind. It’s about reconnecting to what the mind alone can’t access. Because when you really begin to listen to the body, you’ll find it’s been holding more wisdom than we ever realised.
The Heart Has a Brain
The HeartMath Institute has been studying the heart for over thirty years. What they’ve found is stunning. The heart doesn’t just pump blood.
- It has its own neural network with over 40,000 neurons.
- It sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart.
- It has memory, rhythm and a measurable electromagnetic field.
- Our field extends several feet beyond the body into the fields of others.
When we’re in states of love, gratitude or calm, the heart enters coherence. This means the signals between the heart and brain become harmonious.
Our nervous system regulates.
Thinking becomes clearer.
Our emotions settle.
And when we’re with others, our coherent state has an effect on them too. This is the science of co-regulation. When one person’s system is settled, others can feel it. It’s contagious.
Some researchers believe this is part of why people are drawn to certain spaces or individuals. They’re unconsciously feeling the electromagnetic resonance of coherence. Not through the mind, but through the field of the body.
The Gut Thinks Too
The stomach has around 100 million neurons. It’s often called the second brain.
But unlike the thinking mind, the gut doesn’t analyse. It senses. It reacts before we have time to think. This is where the phrase “gut feeling” comes from. And it’s more than metaphor.
People with strong connection to their body often report “just knowing” when something is right or wrong. They can’t always explain it, but their gut knows.
It turns out the gut is in constant conversation with the brain, sending signals about stress, safety and emotional state. When you’ve been through trauma or stress, this communication gets disrupted. So part of healing is restoring that two-way trust. Letting the gut speak again.
In Japanese culture, the gut is not only respected; it’s revered. The concept of hara refers to the lower belly, seen as the true centre of power, intuition and integrity. Unlike in the West, where intelligence is located in the brain, many Japanese people point to the belly when speaking about where decisions come from.
There’s even a saying, “hara ga dekiteiru”, meaning someone has a strong or developed belly – a person who is grounded, wise and emotionally stable. It reflects a cultural understanding that thinking doesn’t just happen in the head. It happens in the body.
The Nervous System Knows
Polyvagal Theory, developed by Stephen Porges, doesn’t just explain how the body responds to threat. It reveals something deeper: the nervous system is intelligently wired for connection.
At the centre of this theory is the vagus nerve, which helps the body shift between states of safety, mobilisation, or shutdown. What’s profound is this: the body’s baseline isn’t defence. It’s regulation.
Connection is our original setting.
When we feel safe, our physiology responds. The breath deepens. Muscles soften. Heart rhythms become steady. In this state, we can access empathy, openness, creativity; higher functions that only come online when the body isn’t protecting itself.
That means our capacity for presence and emotional connection isn’t just a personality trait. It’s a physiological state. The body has a built-in intelligence that tracks safety moment by moment, and adjusts accordingly.
So when we learn to listen to the body and not override it, we gain access to something powerful: an internal compass that tells us when we’re aligned, and when we’re not. Regulation isn’t a mindset. It’s a state of internal coherence the body is always reaching for.
Similar to the findings of the HeartMath Institute, we are subconsciously drawn to people with regulated nervous systems. By simply being in their presence, it helps us to co-regulate our own nervous systems.
Parts Work and Somatic Memory
Each of us hold different parts inside of us. In an of internal conflict, a common saying is: “a part of me feels like this, however another part of me feels like this.”
In Internal Family Systems therapy, we start to map out the different parts within us and their roles; the inner child, the critic, the protector, the exile. These aren’t just abstract concepts or passing moods. Each part holds a unique intelligence, and more often than not, it speaks through the body before it ever forms a thought.
A protector might show up as a clenched jaw.
An exile might live as tightness in the chest or a sinking feeling in the gut.
Some parts feel like pressure on the shoulders, or a closed throat. The body doesn’t lie – it remembers everything. Emotions that couldn’t be processed at the time they occurred often get stored somatically, waiting to be witnessed.
When we learn to attune to these sensations, something extraordinary happens. Sensation begins to lead the way. First we notice the physical feeling. Then, if we stay with it, emotion starts to rise. Beneath the emotion, images appear. Memories. Beliefs. A whole inner world unfolds, layer by layer, through the body’s guidance.
This process is not imagined. It’s neurobiological. The body stores implicit memory; emotional experiences we couldn’t fully process with words. Parts work gives us a way back in, not by analysing but by feeling. It asks us to trust the intelligence of sensation. To follow the thread inward. And when a part is finally seen and felt, rather than pushed away, it often begins to shift on its own. Not because we figured it out. But because the body finally had space to speak.
This is one of the deepest forms of body intelligence: the ability to bring presence to a sensation and let it unfold. No force. No fixing. Just attention. And through that attention, the inner system begins to reorganise itself – gently, naturally, in a way that thought alone never could.
Curiosity is the Doorway
For many people, especially those who have experienced trauma, the body is not a safe place.
Disconnection was a survival strategy.
So returning to the body isn’t always peaceful.
That’s why the only way back in is curiosity.
Curiosity is slow. It doesn’t push.
It asks: What’s here? What’s alive? What am I noticing?
When someone is shut down or overwhelmed, we don’t start with deep emotional processing. We start with sensation. Noticing the feet on the floor. The air on the skin. The rhythm of the breath. From sensation we begin to feel. From feeling, we begin to remember. And eventually, we begin to trust.
The Body Knows the Way Back
Intuition isn’t magic. It’s the result of coherence. When the mind, heart and gut are in alignment, things become clear. We don’t have to overanalyse. We just know. This knowing isn’t loud. It’s not always logical. But it’s consistent. And when we follow it, we feel more ourselves.
This is the intelligence of the body. It’s not separate from reason. Instead, it integrates the full system; mind, emotion, sensation, memory, instinct into a single thread of clarity.
In my work, we don’t throw out the mind. We unite all intelligence centres. We bring coherence between the logical, the emotional, the intuitive and the embodied. Because real transformation and wisdom doesn’t come from any one part. It comes from the integration of all parts.
When you begin to trust the body, the fog starts to clear. And beneath it all, you’ll find a knowing that was always there. A deep knowing, coming home to a clarity that doesn’t need explaining.
Not something you just think.
Something you also feel.