An Interview With Marilyn: Part 1

An Introduction to Self-Care

Q1: Before we can practice good self-care, we must first learn how to listen to ourselves so that we may discover what we truly need. What steps do you recommend taking in order to start hearing our inner selves?

Marilyn: First, you have to drink the Kool-Aid, meaning, I think you have to buy into the idea that it’s important to listen to yourself. Unfortunately, I think a lot of us learned that we had to listen to ourselves by essentially getting hit by a 2x4. 

You probably know that the prefrontal cortex isn’t fully formed until we’re 25. The hardware itself is not fully installed so that it can actually begin building all the synapses that allow you to observe yourself. And without that consciousness of self, it’s hard to know that there’s a self to be listened to.

And I do think there’s something in the first half of life where we’re establishing identities: “What am I going to do for a living? Who am I? How am I going to earn money? Who am I going to partner with? Do I want dogs or cats and where do I wanna live?” A lot of things these things that are external, that we’re supposed to be doing, that mean we don’t really pay attention to the inside.

I heard once that your body is just something to take your head to a meeting. And when you really think about it, 95% of us are just like our next closest mammal. So the cognitive part of our brain that thinks of this stuff is only 5-10% of what’s going on. So we are mostly body. But this culture just trains us automatically out of listening to ourselves. And people at a certain age might not think that’s important.

The example I will give a lot of clients is: 

In the most benign home, with no abuse, not a lot of dysfunction, whatever—say you’ve got working parents, and things need to happen on time, so the parent says to their kid, “It’s time to eat breakfast.” And the kid says, “I’m not hungry.” And the parent says, “Well, it’s 7:30, you gotta eat breakfast.” Well, gradually, our bodies will adapt so that we will start to be hungry in response to something external, in response to the clock. So from the get-go, with just that prosaic example, we learn to listen to outside cues, not inside cues. All this is to tell you why it’s hard to listen to yourself. 

So, I think first, you have to get with the idea that listening to yourself is important. 

And then use some kind of stillness practice. Something where you’re still enough to hear. I really prefer mindfulness or breathwork.

So, listening to yourself, the way in: it just starts by listening to your body.