We’ve learned that we have unconscious patterns of behaviour driven by dopamine.

And that our nervous system dictates the thoughts we are having.

Today we are going to explore our hidden ‘sixth sense’, interoceptive awareness.

This is the key to building a strong relationship with our intuition and to start making decisions that are aligned with our truest self.

Day 3: Interoceptive awareness

📚 Reading

A few years ago, I was entirely disconnected from my body.

I had no idea that feelings had a physical component.

If I felt sad, it was because I was having sad thoughts. I wasn’t aware of a tightness in my throat or a heaviness behind my eyes.

If I was stressed it was because my mind was whirring with thoughts, not because my sympathetic nervous system was activated and my heart was racing.

I believed that I didn’t get angry. And any sensations I felt in my stomach were because of something I’d eaten.

This all changed for me when I went on a ten-day silent meditation retreat called Vipassana while travelling through Nepal.

For the first time, the volume of the external world was dialled down to 1 so that I could turn the volume up on my inner world.

I wasn’t speaking to others about their experience to make sense of my own.

I wasn’t distracting myself with worries about what people thought of me.

I wasn’t able to escape my feelings with technology.

And as I focused my attention inwards, I discovered a whole world that I had ignored.

An inner landscape that had been crying out to be heard.

As children we learn that we have 5 senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing. These are all focused on external stimuli.

But no one ever talks about our sixth sense: interoceptive awareness.

This is what lets us “feel” what’s happening inside us. It senses things like our heartbeat, our breathing, whether we’re hungry or full, or when we’re feeling happy or scared.

Interoceptive awareness helps us make smart choices. For example, when you feel thirsty, that’s your interoceptive awareness telling you to drink water.

When you’re scared and your heart races, it’s preparing you to deal with a challenge.

It’s like your body’s own built-in alarm system, giving you important signals about how you’re doing on the inside.

Why does it matter?

When we deliberately develop interoceptive awareness, it has been shown to be associated with stronger emotional regulation, empathy, intuition, and better decision-making.

In other words, when we learn to pay attention to visceral sensations, we literally get more intelligent. We can catch our patterns of behaviour and act more consciously.

The problem is that in the modern world we are so distracted by external experiences and the 5 senses that we ignore our inner world.

This is a problem because our intuition often communicates through our desires - which are felt, not thought.

Much like how a bee is instinctively drawn to a flower, we are constantly guided toward our fundamental needs by strong, gut-level feelings.

Children naturally follow this kind of guidance without overthinking it. Their reasons for doing things often boil down to “because it feels good” or “because it doesn’t feel right.”

These seemingly irrational motivations can baffle logical adults. Their thinking is analytical and aims to find the most efficient ways to meet their needs.

If we are not connected to our feelings and inner wisdom, we become too reliant on our thoughts.

These are often influenced by the expectations of parents, peer groups, and, all too frequently, the influence of high-paying advertisers.

We need to learn the delicate art of discerning what you genuinely want from what you’ve been taught to want.

📝 Journal prompts

Answer the following questions with a rating of 1 to 5, where 1 represents ‘never’ and 5 represents ‘always’:

1. I notice changes in my breathing, such as whether it slows down or speeds up
2. When I feel pain or discomfort, I try to power through it
3. I can notice an unpleasant body sensation without worrying about it
4. I can refocus my attention from thinking to sensing my body
5. When I feel overwhelmed I can find a calm place inside
6. I listen for information from my body about my emotional state
7. I trust my body sensations

Add up your scores and see where you place:

0-14: Low interoceptive awareness. You are quite disconnected from the sensations within your body and you are not easily able to direct your awareness.

15-24: Medium interoceptive awareness. You are fairly in tune with the sensations within your body and you sometimes are able to direct your awareness.

25-35: High interoceptive awareness. You are in tune with the sensations within your body and you are able to direct your awareness.

🛠️ Tool

RAIN

It’s easy to distract ourselves from our inner experience because it’s uncomfortable. We seek out distractions through the habits we explored yesterday.

We can learn to turn towards our suffering rather than away from it, to observe our feelings rather than avoid them.

The best technique I’ve found for this is called RAIN. It’s a step-by-step process that encourages you to be curious and present through interoceptive awareness:

Recognise what feelings and sensations are present in this moment

Allow the experience to be what it is in this moment, just as it is

Investigate or show interest in your feelings, in a caring and non-judgemental way

Nurture your feelings with care and compassion

For a deeper exploration of this technique, I’d recommend looking up Tara Brach.

🧘‍♀️ Guided meditation

One of my favourite tools to develop interoceptive awareness is somatic meditation.

This form of meditation focuses on bodily sensations. All too often we undertake breath-based meditation which keeps your awareness in the head.

Somatic meditation can help you release tension and connect with your physical experience.

Listen to the meditation here.

💫 Wrap-up

Today we’ve learned that by tuning into our bodies we can actually increase our intelligence as we are able to discern the signals our body is sending us.

Tomorrow we’re going to learn about the mental limitations we put on ourselves and how to actually take steps towards our dreams.