Can you hear me?

I’ve never considered myself particularly studious. I’m more the introspective type, wandering through a maze of random thoughts that show up at all hours with absolutely no warning. My brain is constantly whispering, “Can you hear me?” even when I’m just trying to sleep, drive, or exist.

This morning, a friend told me her Oura Ring gave her a 63 yesterday (basically a digital “yikes”), but after nine hours of sleep she jumped to a 78. I don’t know much about the ring, but the dramatic score swing made me laugh, and think.

The human mind is ridiculously powerful. Tiny, protected by bone, impossibly complex… and yet it runs the entire operation. When I’m sick, I can literally talk myself into feeling better until the medicine wears off and my body throws the truth back in my face.

I recently sat through a safety training where a video showed a woman lifting a six-foot table and tossing it like a pillow. That wasn’t strength. That was the mind pumping the adrenaline button.

So it makes me wonder:

• If our minds can pull off miracles, why do we need a ring to tell us how we’re doing?

• When did we hand over our instincts to devices?

• And why did we stop trusting the signals we’ve had since birth?

Take my recent sinus infection: I knew exactly what it was, yet still had to go in for an appointment to “confirm.” Suddenly I’m questioning whether I actually know my own body.

A ring might confirm it, a doctor might validate it, but deep down, my mind already knew. The problem isn’t that the mind is weak, it’s that we’ve learned to doubt it.

The mind is the strongest part of the body, and somehow the most ignored.

Maybe it’s time to stop outsourcing our instincts.

Maybe it’s time to trust the knowledge we already carry.

Because no ring, doctor, or other person will ever know you better than you know yourself. And if they do know you better, then were you listening in the first place?

Can you hear me? ~ Ditto Kiddo