Letters To Viv: The Body Always Knows When You’re Lying
A letter about finding your voice before your body gives up on whispering.
Letters to Viv
Open, soul-packed letters to the kind of human I write for: the curious, creative, exhausted by the hustle, and craving something more. I’m writing to you (and me).
Dear Viv,
You’ve been talking all day — clients, calls, that polite dance about weather and workload — and still, not one word that feels like you.
I know that version of quiet. It hums behind the smile, the kind that leaves your shoulders tight and your jaw tense.
I used to mistake that quiet for peace. Thought measured words meant control. Turns out, it was only exhaustion in a prettier dress.
Do you remember that study Gabor Maté mentioned? Two thousand women were followed for ten years. Half of them kept their unhappiness tidy and unspoken. The others said what hurt. Guess who stayed healthier.
The immune system, apparently, prefers honesty.
There’s research everywhere now saying the same thing; psychologists are calling authenticity “inner alignment,” and one study has even proven it lowers stress hormones. Science is finally acknowledging what the body has been screaming for decades: pretending makes you sick.
I thought of you today when I said no to something that looked fine on paper. My whole body exhaled, like it had been waiting years for that single syllable.
That’s what truth does, stretches the spine, opens the ribs, lets the soul sit up straight.
Healing isn’t a grand awakening. It may be remembering the sound of your own voice after years of subtitles.
The one that doesn’t care about algorithms or approval. The one that speaks even when no one’s listening.
You once told me you wanted to feel at home in your skin again. Start there. Say one honest sentence out loud. Something small, something true.
“I don’t want that.”
“I’m tired.”
“I need space.”
Whisper it if you have to. Your body will answer.
And when you’re done, make tea that tastes like freedom, strong, slightly sweet, no need to measure.
XO,
Tanya