Getting things done without paying active attention can, of course, help us deal with many of the complex experiences we have to navigate daily, like acquiring what we’ll eat, coordinating our daily commute, and remaining aware of the changing social etiquette. But the habitual tendency to mindlessly engage with daily life can also lead us to eat without tasting our food, overexert our muscles when they need rest, and interact with others without actually connecting with them.
Because my body was overwhelmed by decades of unmet physical needs and accumulated emotions, I didn’t feel comfortable spending much time in it to feel or understand to my physical sensations. I had no idea how fast my heart beat, how deeply or calmly I could take in the air around me, whether my energy was constricted or light, or how my muscles felt. Those sensations created my emotional landscape every minute of every day, but I wasn’t paying attention to them. And I didn’t know why I should or how I could.
During my dark night of the soul, I learned a lot about our physical body, which was when I discovered that our emotions live inside us—in the physical cells of our muscles, fascia, and organs. Your issues are literally in your tissues, or so the saying goes. Our emotions get activated when our body has a biological response (hormonal, neural, and cellular) to trauma. Shocked and inspired, I began spending more time consciously aware of my body every day, using my Future Self Journal (FSJ) to help me keep that daily intention. (You can download your own free copy with a how-to guide on my website, www.theholisticpsychologist.com.)
At first, it was difficult to feel what was happening inside my body since I’d been disconnected from it for so long. Most of my sensations felt uncomfortable. My heart rate was often erratic, my breathing was shallow and constricted, and my jaw always seemed to be clenched. At the same time, I knew those sensations were telling me something, that I was existing in a state of fear and stress. My nervous system dysregulation was causing me to shut down, which explained my fainting episodes (a progression of the freeze response) and why I couldn’t remember so many moments in my past that others could easily recall. I was basically living in a state of numbed overwhelm.
Learning about the evolutionary function of our emotions and our nervous system responses helped me understand why I never felt able to truly relax or find peace in my body. It explained why a “perfect” appearance or environment calmed me only temporarily. It explained why the alcohol and other substances I had relied on from such an early age had never really taken away the deep-rooted pain inside.
Though that realization was alarming, it was also incredibly empowering, setting me on a path to create body consciousness. Using my FSJ, I recorded my daily intention to check in with my body every day, several times throughout the day. Then, every few hours, I would set an alarm on my phone to remind me to do a body consciousness check-in (see here).
That practice helped me recognize how often I looked to others to meet my physical needs and how I still relied on my mom for health advice, even when I knew how to take care of myself. It helped me more clearly see how sharing my health-related stress or worry was my attempt to connect with my mom and others emotionally. I saw how regularly I continued to prioritize my “obligations” or “achievements,” diving right into my to-do list instead of taking a moment in the morning to connect with and care for my body. I noticed how consistently I felt as though I had to “earn” moments of rest or relaxation by first completing a task, like sending a work email, always pushing myself to be “done” with my never-ending list of projects.
I was starting to see all of the ways I was carrying the dysregulation that had lived inside me since I was a child wherever I went as an adult. It was like the famously titled Jon Kabat-Zinn book Wherever You Go, There You Are.
I also saw that the more I turned inward and spent time with my body rather than cycling through the loop of my conscious thoughts, the more capable I became at sensing my physical sensations and recognizing when my nervous system was activated. And during the times when I knew something deeper was happening inside me, I started to become curious about what was prompting my reactions.
Over time, I became better able to discern when I was actually hungry or needed to move or rest my body, which helped me feel more grounded and less irritable in general. I started to stretch the tense muscles in my body that had been frozen or constricted from years of stress-related tension and began to eat more nourishing foods. I maintained a regular sleep schedule for the first time in my life, going to bed and waking up earlier to sync my natural circadian rhythm with the sun. I started moving my body and stretching my muscles almost daily while taking rest when my body needed it.
Becoming more connected to my body, I started creating safety for myself whenever I felt my nervous system becoming activated. When this occurred and I sensed I was shutting down or going into a freeze response, I practiced the Wim Hof Method, a breathing method that helps activate our sympathetic nervous system and pull us out of a shut-down parasympathetic state. When I noticed that I was overstimulated or going into fight-or-flight mode, I took some slow, deep belly breaths to help calm myself down. We’ll explore these different breathing techniques here.
Today, I still use intentional breathing and other mind-body practices to regulate my nervous system and help me navigate my emotions. Since I’m often activated within relationships, like most of us are, I try to practice body consciousness when I’m around others or before I react impulsively to help me make sense of and manage my emotions. If I don’t hear from my partner as quickly as I’d like and begin to worry about the security of our connection, I can drop into my body to practice the body consciousness pause. If I feel that my heart rate is elevated, my face is flushed, and my energy is agitated, I know that my nervous system is in a stress response. Although these feelings are real, I can now acknowledge the possibility that I’m reacting to old wounds rather than new slights. With this understanding, I may be able to reinterpret my situation. It’s likely that my partner still loves me and just needs space or is going through something stressful and needs time alone. In such moments, I can calm my body so that I don’t send a snarky text or do something else I might regret. I can go for a walk, practice deep belly breathing, or stand outside with my feet firmly planted in the grass, all of which can help bring my body back to safety. When my heart rate slows and my energy lightens, I can reassess the situation more calmly and objectively.
To tell the truth, I still struggle to consistently maintain body consciousness. Instead of living with and feeling my physical sensations, I sometimes ignore my body, running away from it by looping through my distracting thoughts, keeping myself busy with my endless to-do list, or numbing myself by watching mindless TV for hours on end. In such moments, I extend myself grace and compassion, understanding that these actions were my best (and only) way to regulate my big and overwhelming emotions as a child. I sometimes do still allow myself to check out for a few hours with my favorite TV programs, knowing that those moments can give my nervous system the rest it needs to rebalance and replenish itself especially when I’m feeling particularly stressed or overwhelmed.
Thankfully, I’ve paid attention to my body long enough to know that whenever I’m connected and listening to my body, I’m better able to meet my needs and calm my nervous system, no matter what’s happening around me or within my relationships. When I’m calm, grounded, and connected within myself, I’m better able to feel calm, grounded, and connected when I’m with others. And it’s only in those moments that I feel safe enough to be me, that will give me the opportunity to truly connect to you.
PRACTICING BODY CONSCIOUSNESS
The first step in our journey to connect authentically with another person is learning how to be present in our own body by practicing body consciousness. When we consistently begin to pay more attention to being in our body, we can begin to make intentional choices to help regulate its different emotional states. This is how we cultivate emotional resilience, giving us the opportunity to have a feeling without reacting or behaving in ways that don’t serve ourselves or our relationships. When we are emotionally resilient, we are able to deal with stress and other upsetting emotions and are flexible in our responses to our changing circumstances rather than staying stuck in our habitual or conditioned reactions.
Since many of us have been disconnected from our body for so long, spending time with our full range of physical sensations can be both difficult and uncomfortable at first. We may not be able to tell if our heart is beating quickly or slowly or if our energy is open and light or constricted and heavy. Practicing the daily body consciousness pauses you learned about in chapter 2 will help you reconnect with your body’s sensations.
Using Body Consciousness to Witness Your Emotions
As we explored in chapter 3, we can all learn to identify when we’re in a stress response, as well as which particular response we’re experiencing. If we’re able to notice and identify when we’re in a freeze or shutdown response, feeling detached from what’s happening around us, we can move or shake vigorously to reawaken our body to help us reconnect to the present moment. And if we notice we’re overstimulated in a fight-or-flight response, we can move and breathe more slowly to calm ourselves down. Once our body returns to safety, we can then open ourselves back up to connecting with others.
We can even learn to witness how different emotional states feel in our body so that we can use our actual physical sensations to shift our emotional experiences. Remember, we all experience emotions a little differently, so the physical sensations that signal fear in one person may indicate excitement in another. At the same time, all humans experience the six core emotions—anger, sadness, fear, joy/happiness, disgust, and surprise—in similar ways. The chart below can help you identify your emotions based on your physical sensations, along with the messages that these sensations may be sending you.
EMOTION
SENSATIONS
MESSAGE
Anger
Muscle tension
Flushed face
Clenched jaw/throbbing temples
Clenched fists
Elevated or loud tone of voice or speech
Boundary violation or unmet need
Sadness
Heaviness or low energy
Drooped shoulders
Difficulty smiling
Lump in the throat
Ache in the chest or stomach
Flat or whiny tone or speech
Loss
Fear
Increased heart rate
Shakiness
“Butterflies”or a “pit” feeling in the stomach
Quickened/shortened breath
Sweating (hands, armpits)
Quickened speech and dry mouth
Threat to safety
Joy/Happiness
Light and expansive energy
Warmth throughout the body
Smiling or laughing
