Listen to your body: instinct or fear?

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Do you listen to your body or your mind?

In Western culture, we prioritize the brain, thinking, intellect, and intelligence, above emotions, feelings and sensations.

It’s really easy to completely disregard what’s going on from the neck down – we’ve literally been conditioned to do that in our society.

“Sit still, don’t wriggle” I was told in primary school.  (My nickname was “Squiggle” when I was little, so you can imagine how much that messed with me.)

Often we cut off from our bodies and don’t even notice what’s going on below the neck. And when we do, it’s often because we’re in a heightened nervous system state and we’re really physically uncomfortable (racing heart pounding in your chest, nausea, shaking, pressure on your chest like there’s an elephant sitting on it).

Most the time we’re completely unaware of the pleasant sensations in our body unless someone like me (a somatic psychotherapist) asks you to listen to your body.

When we are disconnected from our body, it’s really difficult to know whether you are operating out of a place of fear or you really are tapping into your instinct.

How do I know when I am acting out of instinct or fear?

Often people will ask me “How do I know when I’m acting out of instinct or fear?” No prizes for guessing what I reply…

The trick is to listen to your body and the sensations that you are feeling to determine what nervous state you are in. From there you can understand whether you are operating out of a state of fear, or whether you really are tapping into your instinct.

So in this blog I’m going to explain what it may feel like when you are acting out of fear instead of out of instinct. Plus I’m going to give you a super simple training exercise to help you connect with your body sensations, emotions and thoughts.

The sixth sense – the felt sense – aka interoception

Your internal felt sense is also called interoception and it is often referred to as your sixth sense. (The other five senses are: sight, sound, smell, taste and touch).

Needing a wee, or feeling your stomach rumble when you are hungry are examples of interoception.

So is being aware of your stomach clenching or nausea, chest feeling constricted when you are in a heightened state.

Are you in a fear/flight/fight state of cortisol and adrenaline?

Feeling jangly, on edge, ”on” as some people call it. You might experience sensations of shaking, nausea, restrictive breathing, pressure in your chest, heart racing.

Any of those sensations would be a clue that you are in a heightened nervous system state. And when that happens, you are making a decision from fear, from a cortisol state.

Read more about how ‘Story follows State’ (of your nervous system).

Relaxed, cruisy parasympathetic state?

Or are you in a relaxed parasympathetic state with oxytocin and serotonin flowing through your body?  Delicious!

You’re feeling relaxed, your breath is flowing and deep, your shoulders are down, and perhaps you’re thinking about eating or yawning. Or there might be a sense of heaviness in your body, but it’s pleasantly heavy, like you’ve just had a massage and you’re a bit zonked.

All these sensations would indicate that you’re in a nice, relaxed nervous system state.

In this parasympathetic nervous system state you have full access to your pre-frontal cortex so you can think properly. You can be creative, problem solve and communicate properly.

Woo hoo your brain is firing on all cylinders!

From this state, you can operate from a place of knowing, connecting to your gut instinct, from a place of trust and calm.  Making good decisions. Huzzah you’re a bona fide genius!

Here’s an example of listening to your body

I’ve been dancing flamenco for four years now, and I love it, but last year, an injury in my right leg became chronic.  No matter what I did, it just kept coming back after every massage. I kept dancing and kept reinforcing the faulty patterns in my body.

Over the Christmas break, I made it my mission to focus on rehab and creating flexibility and strength in my feet and my ankles. My body was super happy that I’d finally listened to it!

In January I missed the first Flamenco dance class back because it was my birthday and we were down at the beach having a grand old time.  When the instructor sent through the video of what I’d missed in the class, my whole body recoiled backwards. I felt a whole body “No” to the video. My body said “Sarah, this is not for you at the moment”.

From a deep place of knowing, I felt my instinctual desire for soft, flowing movements. “YES!” my body cried out. “Take me back to Nia with Sophie!”

And then I felt guilty because my cognitive brain kicked in and said, “Oh, but you love this teacher, and you’ll miss the people in your class”.  But as I checked in with the sensations in my body I knew that I was operating from a parasympathetic state – I was calm and rational.

So although I am missing the polka dot skirts and the laughter, I am listening to my body and my instinct this semester.

Neurodiversity, trauma and interoception

Some people with neurodiversity have difficulty sensing inside themselves. It’s not bad or wrong – just different neural wiring.

So in that case, I would suggest keep it to things that are on the external layers of your body. What do your muscles feel like? Can you feel the clothes against your skin?

Sometimes neurospicy people describe things very differently, e.g. “Oh, I feel cavernous inside. I feel sparkly”  Fabulous! Whatever you feel and however you describe it is 100% valid. I will get the gist.

Similarly with trauma. The body is sometimes a place where the trauma happened to a person, so it might not feel safe to sense inside your body. Again in this case, I would keep to the edges of your body – the skin level. Using your senses to check in with the boundary of your body and your environment.

Mindfulness practice: “Listening 3 ways”

A mindfulness practice that I was taught by my first ever therapist, is a kind of ‘listening’ to your body meditation.

This is a simple training exercise to improve the body-mind connection and what you notice in 3 realms:

• Your felt sense (what you feel internally as physical sensations, plus what you notice with our other senses);
• Your thoughts; and
• Your emotions/feelings.

It’s a really simple exercise to help you listen to your body so that you can tell what’s going on and decide whether you’re operating from a cortisol state of fear, or a relaxed oxytocin cruisy state where you will make good decisions and be in touch with your instinct.

How to do the Listening 3 ways practice:

In this simple exercise I’m going to ask you to observe everything that your senses pick up (externally and internally), every thought, and every feeling or emotion – listening to your whole body and mind.

• Please put a timer on for maybe one minute or five minutes and settle into a comfortable seated/lying position. Seek comfort.
• Drop your awareness down into your body (or the external if you’re neurospicy or have experienced trauma).
• Speak out loud whatever it is that you’re aware of as you listen to your body: thoughts, feelings and sensations.
• That’s literally it! We are bringing awareness to both your internal and external world and speaking it out loud.

Here’s an example of what I’m noticing as I write this:

Sound of a motor bike and heavy bus/truck on the road, noticing the sound of the birds, feeling a sensation of hunger in my lower rib cage, feeling a sensation of clammy skin from the humidity (and a feeling/thought of “ugh”), a sudden thought that I’m going to be late for my next client, feeling sensations of being a little bit stressed internally – physical tightness in my chest, impulse to rush and get back to my therapy room.

I hope that you enjoy this simple mindfulness practice and enjoy listening to your body.

Ps. Here’s another related blog post you might find interesting… How the story you tell yourself (your thoughts) is impacted by the state of your nervous system.