Interoception helps us ‘feel’ the inside of our body. It is the sensory system that gives us important clues about how we feel, both physically and emotionally.

Kelly Mahler

 

Interoception: Feeling Our Bodies

The ability to feel what’s happening inside our bodies is one of the more important biological functions for surviving. Unfortunately, in this hyper-cognitive time, many people lose this instinctive of body awareness. This can lead to less satisfaction in life because we are not able to naturally regulate our nervous systems with our awareness. Learning how to recognize what is happening inside us can lead to better decision making, less anxiety, and deeper connections with the people around us.

What is interoception?

If you take a moment right now to bring your attention inward and feel the beating of your heart or the movement of your breath you are experiencing interoception. It is the awareness of our emotions and bodily experience. It is how we make sense of our emotions.

 

For most people, their attention is directed towards exteroception stimulus. This is a stimulus outside of a person. Interoception is directing our attention inside and feeling a queasy stomach, a tight throat or a staticky feeling in the hands. All of this is information that the nervous system is attempting to bring attention to.

Emma Seppala, the author of The Happiness Track, wrote in a Psychology Today article about interoception.

 

Most of us prioritize externally oriented attention. When we think of attention, we often think of focusing on something outside of ourselves. We “pay attention” to work, the TV, our partner, traffic, or anything that engages our senses. However, a whole other world exists that most of us are far less aware of: an internal world, with its varied landscape of emotions, feelings, and sensations. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-it/201212/the-brains-ability-look-within-secret-self-mastery)

 

When we have emotions they are not abstractions made up in our head. They are actually sensations in our bodies that indicate something is either safe or unsafe for us. We can experience a feeling of joyful elation when our body may have a warm lightness. We can also feel fear, which may show up as a furrowed brow and a holding of the breath. All of this is important information we can use to manage our lives.

How is looking inside helpful?

Interoception is important because it helps us tune into our emotional needs better. Instead of overriding our emotions and focusing attention just on thoughts we can cultivate the ability to feel what our nervous system is trying to tell us. This information can get overridden by the constant focus on thinking.

Emma Seppala speaks to this:

Because we don’t pay as much attention to our internal world, it often takes us by surprise. We often only tune into our body when it rings an alarm bell –– that we’re extremely thirsty, hungry, exhausted or in pain. A flush of anger, a choked up feeling of sadness, or the warmth of love in our chest often appear to come out of the blue. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-it/201212/the-brains-ability-look-within-secret-self-mastery)

 

Mindful regulation.

When we are aware of the sensations in our nervous system awareness we can regulate ourselves much better. The moment we tune in to our bodies and what we are sensing or feeling our nervous system will start to calm down. This is mindfulness in the bodily form. Instead of noticing our breath we may be feeling a tightness in our chest, or tension in our bellies.

 

This is no different than using the breath as an object of attention. In many ways I think of it as listening to what our bodies are trying to tell us. The nervous system is sending us information and hoping we will pay attention. If we don’t pay attention the body will often increase the intensity of the signal.

 

However, if we slow down and pay attention our nervous system can relax knowing that we got the signal and it no longer has to continue to send it.

 

Improving our connections.

A racing mind makes it difficult to listen or really notice how the people around us are feeling. When we show up in our relationships feeling more centered and regulated we are able to be present and engaged with the people around us. This allows for more empathy and a better sense of how to support the people we care about.

 

When we are tuned into our emotional world we are better able to connect with the people around us.

 

In her book, It’s Not Always Depression, Hilary Jacobs Hendel, explains the importance of emotional awareness:

When we are out of touch with emotions, we suffer loneliness, because the connections to both ourselves and the people we care about are enriched through empathy, the emotional connector (Hendel, 2018).

Interoception is the way that we stay tuned into our emotions. Emotional intelligence and awareness is the way that we connect with other people. I can’t feel your sadness if I have no access to my own.

How this shows up in my life.

In my work with clients I focus a lot of the session on helping them to be more aware of their internal bodily experience. What I have noticed is that over time, clients start to feel more regulated in all aspects of their lives. At first they struggle with this new skill. Once they start to understand how emotional awareness can help them out of anxiety or depression they are more than willing to pay more attention.

 

Some of my clients struggle to feel safe in their relationships. When conflict arises they get overwhelmed with emotions. Oftentimes their nervous system defaults to defensiveness and emotional shutdown. As they learn this skill of being with their experience they can take greater responsibility for their own internal experience and not blame it on their partner. Little by little they start to stay in the conflict and offer more care and empathic responses. Often this has a significant impact on the satisfaction of their relationship.

 

In my own life I have worked hard to learn mindful regulation as well. When the people I love get upset I also get dysregulated. The more I have practiced the more I have learned to come into a better place. It gets easier and easier. I still get really upset at times but there are lots of times when I am able to hold space for the distress of a loved one and not have to fight back. Instead I listen and validate their experience, letting them know they matter to me even though we are in conflict.

 

Learning this skill has allowed me to show up as my best self more often than in the past. I’m not run by the ups and downs of the people around me but instead I have more control of how I step into my relationships.

 

When we succeed and connect with others in enriching ways, emotions such as joy and excitement propel us to engage further, so humans grow, expand, and evolve (Hendel, 2018).

 

Wishing You The Day You Need To Have!

References:

Hendel, Hillary Jacobs. (2018). It’s Not Always Depression: Working the Change Triangle to Listen to the Body, Discover Core Emotions, and Connect to Your Authentic Self. New York, NY. Random House.

 

Seppala, Emma. (2012, December). “The Brain’s Ability to Look Within: A Secret to Self-Mastery.” Retrieved from URL: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-it/201212/the-brains-ability-look-within-secret-self-mastery