How to Feel a Real Yes and No: Somatic Decision-Making in Everyday Life

Most people don’t struggle with decision-making because they’re confused.
They struggle because they’re disconnected from the part of themselves that knows.

A real “yes” and “no” is not a thought.
It’s a physiological shift: quiet, unmistakable, and often so subtle that most of us override it long before we notice it.

The body doesn’t speak in sentences.
It speaks in contractions, expansions, micro-shifts in breath, changes in tone, a sudden sense of space or pressure.

A yes often feels like:
• a widening behind the sternum
• breath that arrives without effort
• the neck lengthening
• a small forward movement
• the body getting subtly heavier, as if settling

A no often feels like:
• tightening around the diaphragm
• a pause in the breath
• the jaw hardening
• the body pulling back or up
• sudden internal noise

None of this is dramatic.
It’s not a lightning bolt of intuition.
It’s barely noticeable unless you slow down enough to feel your actual animal body responding to the world.

Most of us don’t.

We have been trained to be agreeable, responsible, “good,” grateful, flexible, adaptive.
We learned to override our no in order to be loved, and override our yes in order to be safe.

The work is not learning something new.
It’s remembering.

A question I often return to is:

What happens in my body before my mind starts explaining?

That tiny moment — before the story, before the justification — is where truth lives.

Somatic decision-making is not about choosing perfectly.
It’s about choosing honestly.

Your body is not trying to make your life smaller.
It’s trying to make it coherent.

If you can feel your yes and no, you don’t need to know what the outcome will be.
You only need to know what is true right now.

From there, life becomes less about controlling the future and more about responding to the moment you’re actually in.

A quieter, more faithful kind of intelligence.