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What happens when you stop looking at your body?
Updated: Oct 1
I’ve been thinking about the difference between looking at your body and actually experiencing it.
It sounds like a small distinction, but I think there can be a whole world between the two.
For so much of my life, I knew my body through looking at it. I noticed how it changed, how it looked, whether I liked certain parts of it, whether they seemed to fit whatever idea I had at the time of what a body was supposed to look like. My breasts were particularly good at bringing all of that up for me because they’ve changed so much throughout my life, sometimes quite dramatically.
They’ve grown and shrunk with my weight, changed shape, changed texture, changed through pregnancy and breastfeeding, and at various points I’ve had plenty of thoughts about all of it.
And then, somewhere along the way, I started touching them differently.
Not necessarily as a sexual thing, and not because I was trying to change how they looked. Sometimes it was massage, sometimes simply holding them, sometimes lying down with my hands there and noticing what I could actually feel.
It sounds incredibly simple, but it changed something for me.
Because when you’re touching your body with attention, you’re no longer only looking at it from the outside. You’re experiencing it from the inside.
You can feel warmth, pressure, softness, tension, movement, tenderness. You might notice a place that feels numb, or a part of you that wants to pull away, or an unexpected sense of comfort when your own hand is simply resting there.
And sometimes there’s emotion. Sometimes there’s nothing much at all.
You don’t have to make any of it meaningful. You can just notice.
I remember how much my relationship with my breasts changed through motherhood. During pregnancy and breastfeeding, they became almost impossible to relate to purely through appearance because they were doing so much. They grew enormously, filled and emptied, leaked, hurt, softened, nourished my son and became a place of comfort and connection for both of us.
My relationship with them became much more about what they could feel and do than what they looked like. And yet, even outside of motherhood, I had already noticed that my hands would sometimes find them quite spontaneously. I could be sitting somewhere feeling completely comfortable in myself and realise my hand had slipped inside my shirt just to hold one of them.
There was no particular intention behind it. It was simply comforting. And I found myself wondering why something so ordinary could feel so taboo.
We have so many ideas about our bodies, and especially about breasts. They can be sexual, maternal, medical, decorative, scrutinised, hidden, displayed, touched by someone else, touched by ourselves, and somehow each context seems to come with its own set of rules.
But sometimes a breast is just a part of your body that feels good to hold.
And that experience opened up something much bigger for me.
How often do you relate to your body as though it is something you are looking at?
How often are you checking it, judging it, comparing it, wondering how it appears to someone else, thinking about what needs to change? And how often do you actually get to experience it? To feel your body from the inside, without immediately turning the experience into an opinion?
This is one of the things I love about conscious touch. It gives you a way back into the actual experience of being in your body. It doesn’t have to be an elaborate practice, and it certainly doesn’t need to become another thing you feel you should be doing perfectly. You might simply place your hand somewhere on your body and stay there for a few breaths. Your belly, your chest, your face, your thighs, your breasts, wherever feels interesting.
Then notice.
What can you feel underneath your hand?
What happens when you stop trying to assess the body and simply experience it?
Does anything soften? Does something become more noticeable? Do you feel resistance? Emotion? Nothing at all?
There’s no particular experience you’re supposed to have. You’re just getting to know yourself from the inside. And I think that is a very different kind of body relationship.
Because the more familiar you become with the actual sensations of your body, the less your entire relationship with it has to depend on how it looks.
Your body becomes something you live in, rather than something you are constantly looking at from the outside. And maybe that is part of what coming home to your body actually means. Not learning to love every part of it or arriving at some place where you’re finally happy with how you look. Just becoming more intimate with the experience of being here.
So if you feel curious, sometime this week give yourself a few quiet minutes and choose a part of your body to simply touch.
No fixing.
No judging.
No trying to get anywhere.
Just your hand, your body, your attention, and a little space to notice what is actually here.
You might be surprised by how different it feels to stop looking at yourself for a moment and actually be with yourself.
See you soon.
One love,
Juel
Juel helps people return to the intelligence of their bodies—so they can lead with presence, resilience, and truth.
Her work is somatic, trauma-informed, and rooted in nervous system awareness, guiding real change where the body still carries what the mind has tried to move past.
FAQ
What does it mean to return to yourself?
Returning to yourself is the process of reconnecting with parts of your experience that may have been pushed aside through adaptation, survival, conditioning, or the demands of everyday life. It is not about becoming someone new, but about deepening your relationship with who you already are beneath habitual patterns and protective strategies.
How does the nervous system affect personal growth?
The nervous system shapes how we perceive safety, connection, stress, and possibility. Many of the patterns that influence our behaviour are not conscious decisions but embodied adaptations developed over time. Personal growth often involves becoming aware of these patterns and creating new experiences that support greater flexibility and choice.
What is embodiment?
Embodiment is the practice of being in relationship with your lived experience through the body. Rather than relating to life only through thoughts and analysis, embodiment includes sensation, emotion, breath, movement, and presence as sources of information and wisdom.
Why is awareness not always enough to create change?
Awareness can help us understand a pattern, but understanding alone does not necessarily transform it. Many habits, fears, and protective responses live within the nervous system. Sustainable change often requires practice, repetition, relationship, and embodied experience so that the body can learn something new.
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