(Out)sourcing your (In)tuition

Your body has been sending you signals your entire life. Who taught you how to ignore them?

From 2018 to 2024, we lived through the gilded age of biohacking. People tracked deep sleep phases, swallowed obscure and seemingly arcane supplements. We measured heart rate variability while sitting in morning traffic. We used wearables to track our steps, our anxiety levels, how much we moved during the day and our caloric intake. At this point, our machines have all the data in the world they need to 'fix' us; and yet as a society, we've never felt more irritable, tired or anxious.

We're but a few months into 2026 and already over 1 billion people worldwide have confessed to living with anxiety, depression, burnout, and chronic stress. Those are just the ones that we know about. But rest assured, the numbers are climbing, and with every new tariff, price hike, impromptu war or sickness epidemic, will continue to do so.

Let's be clear: We are not getting any better. Quite the contrary.

This conversation I'm trying to get started is honestly enormous, and in my opinion, utterly needed. The suffering is real, growing, and plainly visible. Just try to make eye contact with another human being in a public space and you'll see what I mean.

And from what I'm seeing, the solutions being offered from the wellness industry and social media influencers are either clinical and cold, spiritual and vague, or technological and external.

And despite having all of the 'answers' and 'solutions', too many people assume chronic stress is just how their body works now. I believe it's because they have no idea what it feels like to have a regulated, calm and clear nervous system. The more conversations I have with people, the more I'm realizing that few people know how to feel much of anything anymore.

Go online and look for advice on how to deal with anxiety. The content you'll find seems to fall into predictable buckets: breathwork tips, sleep hygiene checklists, vagus nerve gadgets, therapy recommendations, and motivational reframes about self-compassion and the impermanence of life. Every single piece treats the nervous system as something that needs to be managed, calmed, fixed, or supplemented.

But what no one seems to be talking about, is what that your nervous system isn't just a passive system, it's your own unique sensing instrument. It's not something that switches on or gets activated when we're upset (even though that happens often), it's something that is always communicating with us. Every second of every waking moment.

We get grumpy about being in traffic or have an argument with a loved one; and our desire to reach for a distraction: a phone, a cookie, a beer, a joint, some porn, whatever becomes almost irresistible. Maybe you close your eyes, focus on taking a few breaths, or pop a pill, and that seems to do the trick...for a bit. Until that familiar feeling comes creeping back in.

Now imagine if you were so connected to your nervous system, that your nerves never got frayed in the first place? Imagine if you knew how to recognize the thought stream going through your head, and then noticed how that was feeding into your state of being? Imagine what it would feel like to say "Oh I'm thinking anxious thoughts, and just look at how my body has responded!". Now you have some power.

The thing is, your nervous system, just like your muscular system, needs to be trained, not simply ignored and then focused on when it feels broken. Regulation of the nervous system starts with a constant contact being established with it. It's something that has to be felt to be understood, not thought about.

If you're finding yourself asking "But where do I start?" you're not alone. Stay with me a minute longer and I'll show you the entrance to the path.

• Sit really still, and either close your eyes or unfocus them.

• Ask yourself, in your mind, to become aware of one prominent sensation in your body.

• Something will 'light up'. That's it right there.

Suddenly you are aware of an aspect of your body, your existence that you weren't aware of a few moments ago. Maybe you feel tension in your neck or shoulders, maybe you were holding in your belly, or it feels like the outside area around your body is 'fuzzy' or tingly. Maybe you began to notice that your breathing is high up in your chest, or that you can feel your heartbeat behind your eyes. Maybe you notice the fullness of your bladder, or the temperature of the atmosphere on your skin somewhere. These are all different communication vectors your nervous system is relaying to you; to your awareness.

Now does the observation of your state mean that it will change? No. But this is where you start. It all begins with a single question "What am I experiencing right now?" Not so much a verbalized or expressed thought, but more of an intention, an invitation to look closely at yourself. Now once we know how we are, where we are, we can begin to focus on the feeling we wish to embody.

It is not necessary to understand complex breathing techniques, or have a smart-watch, or a subscription to Gaia TV to calm your body in instant. Something as simple as thinking "I choose to breathe in a way that makes my body feel peaceful inside," will fundamentally alter how you breathe to such a point that having someone teach you specific techniques becomes moot.

The more I read, research, practice and teach, the more I am beginning to realize that everything is so much simpler than we realize, and that by creating industries around these 'problems', we inadvertently complicate things so much, that the goal is pushed further and further away as we attempt to establish some sort of baseline understanding.

So do me a favour as you make your way through the rest of your day. Stop every once in a while. Close your eyes, and ask yourself "What am I expericing in my body at this moment?" The more often you do this, the easier it will become to recognize and then change how you feel. That's where this work begins. And if you want to go deeper, I'd like to show you what's possible from there.