Interoception
Physical awareness of your body
I learned this new word; it can also mean sensing internal signals from your body.
Obviously there are some that we regularly recognize and respond to—when we’re hungry, thirsty, sleepy, or —like I do often—have to pee.
But there are many other ways in which we can pay attention our body, and let it tell us things, to listen to it—
All of that requires that we first slow down and allow it its space and give it our full attention.
Many of us, frankly, are too busy.
Or we’re disassociated. In other words, we consciously tune out from our bodies and instead we escape, perhaps we zone out through whatever mindless numbing or self-soothing ritual that we have.
Many of us live too much within our heads.
I certainly have. I thought that I could ‘solve’ the problem of my trauma:
That’s why I gobbled up books about trauma for years.
This (over) emphasis on cognition and the mind is why my dear friend has kept saying over and over again that she “just needed to re-train my brain.”
This sounds quite good. It makes sense, in our very cerebral-focused society, with its emphasis on the mind and the power of one’s will, etc.
But—our minds can only take us so far.
As Lama Rod Owens writes:
“Our bodies keep detailed records of how they have been hurt, while our minds maintain an emotional interpretation of the body’s records.”
In other words, because we have detailed records, from our bodies, and because our minds maintain that emotional interpretation—sometimes the amygdala takes over. We respond with “gorilla brain,” which is strictly emotional, because our mind is trying to protect us, it remembers those past bodily hurts.
If we’re traumatized, then our cortisol is too high and our nervous system is in a constant state of hyper-vigilance and alert.
In addition to somatic healing, the other part of my healing—through yoga—and also through this—involves what I now know to mean interoception.
A while back my therapist told me to pay attention to my body. To get out of my head.
It took some practice. Many of us can’t. We live too much in our heads. We forget we have bodies. Sometimes we do this consciously, other times, I think it just happens as we move about in a very busy world where we are usually sedentary and scrolling and texting and working, or running children around and doing errands and adulting or chores. None of this usually requires a conscious focus on our bodies.
We mostly operate in a state of auto-pilot.
Our bodies are just along for the ride.
Until, of course, there’s a problem with our bodies. Until something hurts or aches or there’s a cause for concern.
But what strikes me is how much meditation and mindfulness—being able to be entirely present and within the moment—requires interoception.
This means that we’re not thinking about what we just did or what we’ll do the rest of the day, or what we should do, or have to get done, etc, etc.
Interoception may mean when we think about our body and consider if we’re comfortable. If our body is relaxed. If our body is calm.
Admittedly, I was never very good at this before I did some healing.
My former partner would laugh at me and the ways in which I would not even feel or realize if something was on wrong, inside out, or with a tag still on, something that undoubtedly others would have noticed and felt.
I didn’t. I just kept going. I wasn’t really feeling my body.
I also think that I had gotten used to feelings of discomfort, bodily, because I was so disassociated that I didn’t even notice when something was awry. I was that far removed.
I feel silly admitting this. Because both my work on cultural rhetorics—that emphasizes embodiment/body as knowledge teaches me differently. And because all of the reading that I had done on somatic healing/releasing trauma from the body ought to have taught me better.
Still—it’s a very different reality to read about something, understand it, believe it in your mind—
It’s quite another to put it into [bodily] practice.
In other words, to stop thinking about the body and instead to stop, to let the body speak, and to listen to it.
This isn’t just semantics. There’s a difference. And it’s important. It really matters.
Especially for those of us who are trying to heal from trauma in our bodies. (Which I come to believe more and more, is most of us. Not a select few. Your trauma may not be like mine, but most of us don’t get out from this life unscathed.)
I grow more and more convinced, the more that I read, that most of us have trauma that is not addressed or discussed as that. Instead, it may be talked about as anxiety, depression, insomnia, IBS, Crohn’s disease, etc.
It is said that the body keeps score, it does, indeed.
But that ‘score’ shows up differently on different bodies.
Interoception is not the answer to all of the problems, but I do believe that it is a missing piece of the puzzle.
Focusing on our bodies more will help more of us to be more mindful, calm, present, and at peace.
My close friend has recently commented on how much more calm that I appear now both in voice, body, and how I look, when she talks to me. I am grateful to report that I am. It isn’t a facade or a performance; I am so much more at ease.
I realize this when I have been put to the test a few times: locking myself out of my apartment and losing my keys and accidentally running a stop sign on campus, and being pulled over, normally both of which would have sent me into a state of mind where my body would tense, my mind would race. I may not appear that way outwardly, but inwardly, I would certainly feel that way.
These feelings of panic did rear their head in these moments, but I resolved them by focusing on my body and allow the feelings of panic and chronic feelings of “unsafety” to pass through me. I realized that the emotions, while intense, were temporary and that I was responding to things that were based on past events and not what was happening to me now.
These events, while annoying, are also not life and death situations. They don’t deserve that level of panic or stress.
I know that, cognitively, rationally.
But, again, when you are someone who carries trauma, part of the wound is that when things threaten you or make you feel bodily unsafe, you react. Because your body still carries some of the wounds where the event and stress feels like it is still happening right now and so, current events feel much more magnified and amplified than it really should be/has to be.
And what’s worse, you may KNOW that, it doesn’t always mean that you can convince your nervous system of that.
I noticed the difference this time, as I was able to center and breathe, and practice this method of interoception, and talk myself down. At a different point in time, it wouldn’t have worked quite so easily. Bodily, I would still feel incredibly anxious.
It’s worth noting, and not just in times of stress.
But in times of pleasure—relishing the comfort of the body when you lotion yourself, or climb into your warm bed, or wrap a fuzzy throw over you, or sip a cup of tea when you come in from a chilly or damp day. A massage or a pedicure. An orgasm.
Some of us don’t. Some of us have to be taught to slow down and to pay attention to the simple joys, the little bodily pleasures in life.
Today, I hope that you practice interoception and focus on your body, and notice how it relishes a pleasant feeling and just… simply enjoys itself. Simply enjoy yourself.
:)
