I wonder sometimes if I don’t bore my clients with my enquires into the sensations they can feel in their body. Instead of words such as tingling, tightening, bubbling, fizzing, or hot, chilled - just a tiny handful of the sensation words available, the questions often yield either an emotion e.g. ‘I’m frustrated’ or some kind of value judgement.
Why does this matter?
It was William James who said ‘without bodily sensation there could be no feeling of emotion’ and that the sensation arose from perception and its consequent interpretation. Perception - Interpretation - Sensation - Emotion - Action.
More recently Antonio Damasio concluded that the physiological reactions (sensations) in the body get laid down as somatic markers - or somatic memory - and when the same or similar event re-occurs, the body responds in the same way. A habituated response - no doubt developed for reasons of efficiency, connection and survival.
And just yesterday I heard about research into interoception - or the ability to tune into one’s internal body sensations which reveals a positive correlation between the inability to feel the inner sensations of the body and a negative body image. I’m going to be fascinated to see what else is discovered around this.
Sensations tell us the ‘big stuff’ e.g. when we are hungry or tired. But they also tell us other vital stuff. They tell us that there is something present that we care about.
Attuning to these bodily ‘early warning signals’ creates the possibility of a considered response rather than an unconscious automatic one.
The challenge is that many of us can’t notice the sensations within, let alone name them. We may have been trained to over-ride feelings (also numbing out sensations), or in the face of something so overwhelming, we learnt to shut down sensation for our own well-being - often a really clever safety strategy at the time, worthy of gratitude.
If I leave you with one thing - if I haven’t bored you too, perhaps today, check in with yourself, what sensations do you notice? Maybe it it’s only as simple as noticing how your feet are as they make contact with the floor, or maybe you can go a bit further and check your sensational response when you call to mind someone you love. Beginning to notice is a powerful starting point for choice and change.
How did I do - bore you too?
