Interoception

[rainydiary]

I came across the term interoception in my work.  It is considered a sense and is the sense of our internal state(s).  Having interoceptive awareness means we understand our body is sending a signal, interpret that signal as an emotion, and then take action to do/get what we need to feel regulated.  Emotions are broken down into two big types - affective and homeostatic.  Homeostatic are things like hunger, thirst, bladder functions. Affective are things like anger, happiness, sadness.  Many people have poor interoception given a variety of things (including CPTSD) but it is just hard for some people in general. 

I realized that I had stumbled across this sense through my yoga practice.  Last year when I actually started listening to my body I really struggled.  I realize that I have poor interoceptive awareness.  I recently purchased a curriculum I hope to use with the students I work with because I believe some of them have poor interoception.  In some ways my work with students has been work for myself and I am interested to see what I learn through this.  The curriculum essentially works by body parts and has people try different things (like putting hands in cold and warm water) and then describing sensations. 

I have personally found this information really helpful for myself.  It connected to what I learned when reading The Body Keeps the Score and Pete Walker's book.  I wanted to share in case it resonates with anyone else.  Two websites I have learned to learn are: https://www.kelly-mahler.com/ and  http://web.seru.sa.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Interoception-101_March-2019.pdf.  These sites tend to discuss this in terms of autism more than other things but I think this still relates to a broader audience.