Interoception

Interoceptive Awareness: those gut feelings, and heartfelt sensations we all have wherein, the knowing is accompanied by distinct sensations from the body.

Daniel Seigel  

Our bodies, are beautiful. Our bodies hold together our internal biological bits and pieces. These bits and pieces make up our many physiological, neurological and psychological systems. Working together, they are networked together, with an extraordinary intelligence, and an amazing capacity for resilience, to keep us functioning, developing and thriving. 

Over excitement, hectic lifestyles or traumas create intense energies that inform our sympathetic nervous system. Often, driven by fear and uncertainty, this activates our autonomic response, priming us for self-protection. alerting us to a potential threat, urging us into action. This initiates powerful feelings that communicate directly with our biological systems.  

The impact of this, can throw us out of balance temporarily, or lead to more long-term stress conditions. We can recognise our stress, our emotional triggers, our internal states, through interoceptive awareness. We can recognise the tension we hold, while also looking at the integrity of our body’s systems, checking for health, checking for comfort and ease.

Here’s a diagram we love, to highlight the way interoception works:

Awareness and integration is the key.   

Interoception is the practice of being able to notice our own internal state.  

It helps us understand our sensations and various other information to really make sense about what we feel and how we are.  We have interoception as infants, and this system is supported and further developed by our context and environment.