Your Body Knows

A love letter to every version of me (and maybe you too).

Think About It

“The mind and body are always in conversation. The more you listen, the better you understand yourself.” - Brenda Mapane

---

I’ve been sitting with the idea of transition. How it quietly reshapes us, how it humbles us, how it teaches us to listen.

I’ve lived many, many lives. Starting with a career in public relations, telling other people’s stories. Then pivoting into sales, helping brands translate value into connection. Then, I became a mother — a full-time, full-heart, full-body mother — and everything I thought I knew about myself shifted.

In each chapter, I followed what made the most sense at the time. I trusted the "smart" path, the structured path. But my body was whispering long before I had the language to understand it and the space to listen to it. I ignored it when it told me I was exhausted. When it pulled me toward creativity. When it begged me to slow down.

It wasn’t until a trip to Greece last year — away from the noise, the doing, the performing — that I really heard myself again. The water, the stillness, the sheer beauty of being... it cracked something open in me.

I started writing more. At first just thoughts, then memories. Eventually, my memoir began to take shape. Writing helped me uncover parts of myself I hadn’t touched in years. It was like coming home. And as I wrote, I noticed something else shifting, not just emotionally, but physically. My breath felt deeper. My shoulders dropped. I was feeling things I had long avoided and letting them move through me.

I had already begun exploring somatic healing the year before Greece. Gently learning how to tune into my body and hold space for what it carried. But something about that trip deepened the work. Being in a place so still and sacred allowed everything I’d been learning to land. I realized: this is the work I want to do. I want to help other women of color come home to themselves. Through their bodies, through their stories, through their truth.

I’m not quite ready to launch my next offering or the podcast just yet, but I wanted to share a piece of the journey with you. The podcast will be called Your Body Knows, because it does. It always has.

Until then, I’ll keep sharing what’s been guiding me. And I hope it sparks something in you, too.

Maybe you're in your own in-between season right now. Maybe your body is telling you something you haven’t fully listened to yet. What would it look like to pause... and listen?

I’m right here with you.
More soon. 💛

💬 I’d love to hear your thoughts: What’s your body been trying to tell you lately?Leave a comment, hit reply, or email me at shanetta.mcdonald1@gmail.com.

---