Before You Ask, Check Your Body

Most of us have been taught to pray with our words.

We craft the request carefully. We find the right language. We speak it with as much faith as we can summon. And then we wait.

What we have not been taught — at least not in most spiritual traditions — is to check with our body before we open our mouth.

That is the piece that changes everything.

The Invitation That Cannot Be Received

When I began developing the Show Me practice, one of the first things I noticed was that not all invitations are created equal. Some feel spacious when you say them — open, receivable, genuinely curious. Others feel tight. Contracted. Like you are saying words your body does not actually believe.

And here is what I learned: if your body cannot receive the invitation, the invitation cannot land. You can say the words with perfect sincerity and still be asking through a channel that is not fully open. The response may be on its way, but there is nowhere for it to arrive.

This is not a faith problem. It is not a worthiness problem. It is a nervous system problem. And it has a practical solution.

The Body Check

Before you commit to a Show Me invitation, say it internally — just in your own mind, quietly — and notice what happens in your body.

Not what you think should happen. Not what you hope will happen. What actually happens.

If there is ease — a sense of openness, of "yes, I could receive that" — your invitation is sized right. Your nervous system can say yes to it. Send it.

If there is tightening — a contraction, a subtle "no way," a quiet internal resistance — your invitation needs to be adjusted. It may be too large. The territory may carry more charge than you realized. The wording may have a demand hidden inside it.

This is not failure. This is information. And information is exactly what you need.

The Gradient

Here is where it gets interesting. The body check is not a binary pass or fail. It is a gradient, and you can work with that gradient.

I will give you an example from my own practice. I love the affirmation that every dollar I spend returns to me doubled. When I say that internally, something in my body relaxes. There is ease. My nervous system is completely fine with that.

But if I try every dollar I spend returns to me times ten — something in my body immediately says no it doesn't. Not loudly. Not dramatically. But clearly.

That quiet response is my body telling me that particular invitation is ahead of where my nervous system actually is right now. And so I start where I can genuinely receive. I build from there. Over time, as the practice deepens and the protective parts of me soften more, what felt impossible may become receivable. That is the process working exactly as it should.

One of the participants in my Show Me class discovered this in real time during our third session together. When we worked through the money territory, they felt complete ease — comfortable with an amount far larger than the examples I had offered. Their nervous system was genuinely open there. But when we moved to a Show Me about being loved, they felt immediate anxiety. Same person. Completely different response. Different territory, different protective parts, different charge.

That is not a contradiction. That is a map.

What the Body Check Is Really Doing

When you run your Show Me through the body check, you are not testing whether the Divine will answer. You are testing whether you are actually available to receive the answer.

There is a subtle but crucial distinction between an invitation and a demand. Demands often feel urgent and contracted — even when they are dressed up in spiritual language. Genuine invitations feel open. Receivable. Curious rather than grasping.

The body knows the difference before the mind does.

And when you find the version of your invitation that produces ease — when you land on the wording that your nervous system can genuinely say yes to — something shifts. You are no longer performing openness. You are actually open. The channel is clear. And whatever the Divine has for you has somewhere to arrive.

How to Work With the Gradient

If your Show Me produces tightening, here are three things to try:

Make it smaller. Sometimes an invitation is simply too large for where your nervous system is right now. Bring it down a size. Instead of show me how abundant I am try show me how supported I am today. Notice what your body does. Keep adjusting until you find the version that produces ease.

Soften the wording. Sometimes the charge is in a specific word or phrase. Show me that I am worthy carries proving energy. Show me what is beautiful about me today is genuinely curious. The meaning is similar. The nervous system response can be very different.

Try a different territory. If one area is producing a lot of charge, it may not be the right place to start today. That is not avoidance — it is wisdom. You are not avoiding the charged territory forever. You are building a practice in ground that is more receptive, and letting that ease extend over time into the areas that are harder.

The Invitation Beneath the Invitation

There is something I want to name about what the body check is really asking you to do.

It is asking you to be honest. Not spiritually polished, not performing readiness you do not have, but genuinely, honestly present with where you actually are. That kind of honesty — the willingness to say my body is not open to that yet rather than pushing through anyway — is itself a form of surrender. It is a way of saying to the Divine: I am not going to pretend to be more ready than I am. I am going to show up exactly as I am, and trust that this is enough to work with.

In my experience, it always is.

We are in the third week of Show Me: Discovering What Happens When You Ask. Next week we go into our final session, where we talk about how to make this practice sustainable long after the class is done. If this is resonating with you, reach out — I would love to have you in the room the next time I offer this class.