By Abi Beri
A different kind of body scan
Most of us have spent our whole lives speaking to our bodies in two ways. Either we ignore them entirely until they make us. Or we manage them — tell them to be quieter, to sit still, to stop hurting, to perform better, to look different.
This piece is about a third way. About walking slowly through the body and speaking to each part. Not about it. To it. As if it were someone you had been away from for a long time, and you were finally coming home.
Throughout, the assumption is one thing. That every part of you that is doing something — holding tension, aching, going numb, throbbing, gripping, hiding — is doing it for a reason. The body is not malfunctioning. The body is reporting.
The premise underneath
The standard body scan, as it appears in most mindfulness traditions, treats the body as a landscape to be observed. You move attention through it, noticing what’s there, not judging. It’s a useful practice. It builds awareness. It interrupts the constant cognitive activity that most of us spend our lives inside.
But there’s something it doesn’t quite do. It doesn’t restore the relationship between you and your body. The body, in a standard scan, remains an object of attention. The you doing the scanning is still in charge.
What if the body, instead, were treated as a someone? Not a what, but a who. A whole population of parts, each of which has been doing its best, often for decades, often without thanks, often while being criticised or ignored. What would change if you came to the practice not as an observer, but as someone returning home to relationships you’ve been neglecting?
What you say matters
The instinct, when we turn toward a part of the body that has been holding pain or tension, is to ask it to let go. To release. To soften. This is what we have been taught.
But put yourself in the body’s position. You have been holding something for years. Decades, maybe. You have been doing this without anyone noticing or thanking you. And now the person whose body you are has finally turned toward you — and the first thing they ask is for you to let go of what you have been holding.
Of course you don’t let go. Why would you? The asking is itself a kind of dismissal. The body has been waiting to be acknowledged, not managed. Asking it to release is just another version of the management it has been receiving its whole life.
What the body responds to, in my clinical experience and in the experience of many practitioners working in this lane, is being seen. Not being asked to change. Being acknowledged.
The sentences that work
There are a small number of sentences that, said gently and meant honestly, often shift something in a body that has been waiting a long time.
I see you. The most basic. The body has been doing something. You have noticed. You are not asking it to stop.
I’m sorry. Particularly for the parts of the body you have been at war with — the belly, often. The pelvis, often. The chest. An honest apology, internally spoken, for the years of management, dismissal, or shame.
Thank you. The parts of the body that have been working without recognition. The heart. The diaphragm. The feet. A simple thank you, said meaning it, lands at a level below cognition.
I’m here now. The closing line. Not promising anything beyond this moment. Just naming that, for now, you have stopped doing the things you usually do to avoid being with this body. You are here. You are not going anywhere for the next few minutes.
Which parts hold what
Body workers, somatic therapists, and trauma clinicians have noticed certain patterns about which parts of the body tend to carry which kinds of material. These are not rules. They are tendencies, useful as starting points.
The jaw often holds the unsaid. The words that didn’t come out. The anger that wasn’t safe to express. The grinding at night is often the silent processing of the day’s compromises.
The throat holds the cries that weren’t met, the things that weren’t believed, the truths that couldn’t be spoken safely.
The shoulders carry what wasn’t ours to carry — inherited burdens, the responsibilities we took on as small children, the things people put on us that we didn’t know we could refuse.
The chest is armour. The protection of the heart that has been hurt or could be hurt. Often this is where decades of small disappointments collect.
The diaphragm holds the breath when the body has decided that taking in more might be dangerous. Shallow breathing is rarely a habit. It is usually a long-held protection.
The belly carries the wars we have fought with our bodies. Hunger, fullness, shame, anxiety, all of it has passed through. The belly knows more than we give it credit for.
The pelvis is the foundation. Where safety registers when there is safety. Where complicated material often lives — pleasure, vulnerability, shame, things that happened that we didn’t fully consent to.
The legs hold what wanted to flee but couldn’t. The impulse to run from something that wasn’t a thing you could run from. That energy stays in the thighs, sometimes for years.
How to use this practice
You can do this as an audio guided practice — the full meditation version is available on the channel, lasting approximately 20 minutes. Or you can do it yourself, slowly, working through the body part by part, using the sentences above.
The pace must be slow. The body responds to slowness. If you rush, you will lose the very thing you are trying to build. Each part needs to be greeted, acknowledged, and then sat with, before you move on.
Don’t expect dramatic results in a single session. The body has been waiting a long time. Sometimes it takes several visits before it begins to believe that the visiting is real. The practice deepens with repetition. Each return builds something — a relationship, a homecoming, a different kind of inhabitation.
If anything shifts during the practice — a softening, a wave of feeling, a sudden memory — let it. Don’t try to do anything with it. The work, here, is the witnessing. Whatever wants to move, moves. Whatever doesn’t, doesn’t. Both are fine.
After the practice
Be gentle with yourself for the rest of the day. Don’t rush back into doing. The body has just been met, possibly for the first time in a long time. It needs a little time to register what that was like.
If you want to return, return. Make it weekly. Make it whenever you are tired of being at war with your own body. The body remembers being met. Each time you come back, you build something.
About Abi Beri
Abi Beri is an Integrative Therapist, Family Constellation Facilitator, and Nervous System Specialist. He works with clients in Dublin, Naas, Newbridge, and online worldwide. IPHM accredited. Holds a Higher Diploma in Counselling.
