We often think communication begins when something is said.
A sentence leaves our mouth. A message is written. A decision becomes an action.
But communication begins much earlier than that.
Before words are formed, our system is already receiving information.
A change in someone's expression. The tone beneath their words. A familiar smell. A tightening through the chest. A shift in the room.
Something that feels safe or something that doesn't.
Some of this reaches conscious thought.
Much of it doesn't.
Our brain and body are continually taking in information, comparing it with what has been experienced before and preparing us to respond. Sometimes we can name what is happening. Sometimes there are no words at all only a sensation, an impulse, a knowing, an urge to move closer or pull away.
And perhaps this is why Scripture's attention to our inner world is so interesting. Take Psalm 19:14
“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you…”
Notice that it doesn't speak only about the words that eventually leave the mouth, it includes what is being held within.
Before the thought becomes a sentence we tend to imagine thinking as an internal conversation:
I think this. I believe that. I have decided this. But our conscious narrative is only part of the process, the nervous system can respond before we have constructed an explanation for what we are experiencing.
The brain predicts, compares and associates and the body changes accordingly heart rate, muscle tension, breathing, attention, orientation.
Then the conscious mind may arrive with words:
Something isn't right.
I need to fix this.
They're upset with me.
I have to get out of here.
It may actually be the interpretation of something already underway and what we repeatedly hold can become familiar
This is where I believe thoughts hold weight.
Not because every fleeting thought is dangerous and not because an unwanted thought somehow creates reality, certainly not because we should become frightened of what passes through our minds.
But what is repeatedly rehearsed, reinforced and paired with emotional or bodily experience can influence what becomes familiar to our system.
A thought can become associated with a sensation.
A sensation can become associated with danger.
A situation can become associated with an old response.
Eventually we may react before consciously understanding why and what began as information becomes association, and association becomes expectation, and expectation influences response.
And repeated responses can become patterns.
Perhaps this gives another dimension to the biblical invitation to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
Renewal is more than replacing one sentence with another, it is learning another way of meeting what arises within us.
The body is part of the conversation and we communicate internally all day. Brain to body, body to brain. A sensation to interpretation and memory to present experience. Present experience loops back to memory.
Our senses are part of that conversation too.
Smell can evoke something before we know what we are remembering. Music can change our internal state before we have analysed the lyrics. A facial expression can create tension before we've consciously decided whether somebody is angry.
Our world is constantly giving us information and we are constantly responding to it. That means transformation cannot always happen simply by deciding:
I won't think that anymore.
Sometimes we need to become curious about what happens before the thought.
What did my body notice?
What sensation appeared?
What did my system predict?
What meaning did I attach to it?
What old pattern did it awaken?
And what happens if, instead of immediately following that pattern, I create enough space to notice it?
Guarding the heart isn't fearing the mind, reminding me of Prov 4:23
“Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.”
Perhaps guarding the heart isn't about becoming afraid of our internal world, it may invite us to become aware of what we continually allow to take root there. There is a difference between a thought appearing and a thought being rehearsed, difference between feeling fear and building our life around fear.
A difference between noticing an old belief and continuing to live from it.
Awareness gives us somewhere to intervene.
Not necessarily by fighting the thought, but by noticing the information underneath it.
The sensation.
The association.
The expectation.
The story that followed,then allowing something different to be experienced. Because sometimes the most important communication isn't the thing we eventually say aloud.
It is the conversation that has already been happening within us long before the words arrive.
And perhaps that is where the invitation lies not simply changing what we think, but becoming curious about what is happening underneath it.
What has been learned? What has become familiar? What is the body already responding to before the words arrive?
If you recognise a pattern you understand but still find yourself responding from, this is the space we explore together listening beneath the words, allowing the body to show us what may still be asking to be heard.
Book a session and begin exploring what sits beneath the words.
