Interoception--the 6th Sense

Interoception is your ability to feel what is happening inside your body.

You know the 5 senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch. These are "exteroceptive" senses. They help us know what is happening in the outside world, and help us determine how to respond.

INteroception is like a 6th sense. It's how you know when you are hungry, thirsty, or tired. It's how you know that you're in pain, or need to pee, or need to stretch.

After trauma, you may notice less of what's going on in your body. Because of the trauma, you may have disconnected from your body, and disconnected from your sense of what is happening inside.

Not knowing what is going on in your body, being disconnected from interoceptive cues, makes it much more difficult to meet your needs. If you don't notice pain when you've been sitting in an uncomfortable position for an hour, you won't think to change positions. If you're hungry, but have gotten caught up with work and didn't notice your growling stomach, you won't consider giving your body the nourishment it needs.

This makes it harder and harder to trust ourselves. We're missing the cues that tell us how to care for ourselves, which leads to not taking care of ourselves. This undermines our ability to believe we deserve care, to trust our bodies to tell us what we need, and to trust ourselves to meet our own needs (let alone ask others for what we need).

This is why so much of trauma therapy is building awareness of what is happening somatically. Being able to FEEL AND NOTICE what is happening in your body builds your connection back to yourself. It helps you RESPOND to your needs, building TRUST and SAFETY.

There are a ton of ways to do this:

-schedule a time every hour to ask what sensation you're feeling in your body (this can take just a few seconds)

-schedule reminders to ask yourself if you need a drink of water or a snack

-move your body, and take notice of how it feels when you move

-work with a somatic therapist

You can also come to my yoga class on Wednesday 10/21! (or after, I'll be sending out the recording!)

This class is an intentional, mindful, trauma-sensitive exploration of movement to help cultivate your interoceptive capacity. Every yoga-ish shape is offered with a lot of variations, and time to get curious about what feels good in YOUR body. You don't have to do what I say, or what I do...I really encourage students in the class to do what feels good. To feel into your body and respond to what it's asking for. 

I hope you'll join us :) Click here to find out more and to register.