Diet is weird. It's elusive. I just try to listen to my body.

The words of Laura Dern, “Diet is weird. It’s elusive. I just try to listen to my body,” may seem light and casual to the hurried ear — yet they conceal a wisdom as old as humankind. In this age of endless instruction, where voices shout from every corner about what to eat, what to avoid, and how to live, her words rise like a quiet bell in the storm. She reminds us that the truest teacher is not the world outside, but the temple within. The body, if we only learn to listen, speaks a language older than any book, older than any science — the language of intuition, balance, and truth.

When Dern calls diet “weird” and “elusive,” she names what many feel but cannot say. Food, once sacred — the gift of the earth, the communion of life — has become tangled in confusion and contradiction. What was once simple has become strange; what was once guided by nature is now governed by fashion and fear. Yet through this chaos, she chooses stillness. Rather than chase the latest doctrine of health, she turns inward and asks, “What does my body need?” In doing so, she returns to the ancient wisdom that the self is the first physician, and that true nourishment begins with awareness.

The ancients understood this art of listening. In India, the sages spoke of Ayurveda, the science of life, where every person’s balance of elements — fire, water, air, earth, and ether — was unique. No two diets were ever the same. The wise did not ask, “What should I eat?” but “What am I becoming?” In this question lies the same insight Laura Dern touches upon — that food is not a rule to follow, but a relationship to nurture. The body is not an enemy to be controlled, but a companion to be understood. It whispers its needs not in words, but in sensations — hunger, fatigue, comfort, lightness — and only the still mind can hear them.

Consider the story of Hippocrates, the great healer of ancient Greece. When asked how he cured the sick, he replied, “I do not heal; I assist the body in its own healing.” He understood, as Dern does, that health cannot be forced upon the body — it must arise from within, in cooperation with nature. He would watch his patients closely — their complexion, their appetite, their moods — and from these signs he would learn the rhythm of their inner world. So too must we become students of our own being, listening without judgment to what our bodies reveal, instead of drowning their quiet wisdom beneath noise and doctrine.

In this way, listening to the body becomes more than an act of health — it becomes an act of humility. It is the recognition that the body is wiser than our pride, more ancient than our intellect. To eat mindfully, to rest when weary, to move when restless — these are not acts of indulgence, but of reverence. For when we honor the signals of our own nature, we align ourselves with the great rhythm of the universe. The sun rises and sets not by command, but by balance; the rivers flow not by struggle, but by surrender to gravity’s call. The body, too, seeks its harmony if only we cease to interfere.

Yet in her words, Dern also acknowledges the mystery — that even when we listen, the body changes, shifts, evolves. What nourishes us today may not serve us tomorrow. This is why she calls diet “elusive.” The path of well-being is not carved in stone, but moves like a river — ever adapting to the terrain of life. To follow it requires patience, curiosity, and gentleness. We must learn to forgive our hungers, to embrace our imperfections, and to trust the wisdom of change. This is not weakness; it is grace — the same grace with which nature renews herself each season.

Let this be the teaching: Health is not obedience to rules but harmony with oneself. Do not follow blindly the diets of others, nor measure your worth by the scales of fashion. Instead, cultivate stillness and awareness. Eat when your body hungers, rest when it asks, and choose foods that make you feel alive rather than enslaved. Keep your meals simple, your gratitude deep, and your heart attuned to the quiet voice within.

For in the end, to “listen to your body” is to return to your truest home — to the wisdom that never left you, only waited for your silence. The body is not a problem to solve, but a teacher to love. And when you live in that harmony, as Laura Dern reminds us, the mystery of diet ceases to be “weird” or “elusive” — it becomes what it was always meant to be: a dialogue between the earth and your soul, spoken in the sacred language of balance.