How Do We Know What We Are Feeling?
This week we build on Week 1 Deep Listening In Our Body working with interoception and neuroception and our foundation for this work: staying present with the sensations in our body, witnessing the thoughts and memories that arise alongside them, and doing this all from a place of safety in the present moment.
The classical view of emotion is something fixed and automatic, like a switch that flips. Fear fires. Anger fires. Each one is thought to be tied to its own dedicated circuit in the brain, waiting to activate when stimulated.
Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett's research shows something different. Our brain builds each emotion in the moment, drawing on what's happening inside our body, what's happening around us, and the concepts we've learned over our lifetime for making sense of internal states.
The same body signal, a racing heart, a tight chest, become two different feelings depending on the situation and the words our mind has available to reach for. They mean something different anticipating a first date or going to a job interview.
Our brain needs time and information to build an accurate picture.
Our brain constructs meaning and emotion depending on the context. Widening our vocabulary for internal states directly changes what we're able to construct. We’ve been building somatic awareness of sensations and their associated thoughts and memories. This helps us. If we can distinguish fear from anticipation from protectiveness, we have more accurate options available, and our emotions gets built differently depending on what's actually happening.
We can practice this directly. Bring to mind a recent moment of strong or activated emotion, something manageable to work with, and locate where it shows up in your body first, before naming it. Is it hot or cold? Moving or still? Tense? An image?
Sit with the sensation longer than feels natural, noticing the urge to rush past it. When we notice a sensation feels too intense, we can move away from it for a bit and focus on the space around it instead.
We notice what shifts, moves, softens, or intensifies as we stay present. We name the first word that comes, then stay a little longer to see if other words want to replace or sit alongside what we first named.
Some of us may find that our first word and later words are different. Our brain is building a more complete picture the longer we stay present with it.
Some emotion resists naming entirely. It has no clear social permission to exist. It's fine if what we're sitting with doesn't have a name yet. Deep listening gives us an opportunity to learn about who we are and a nuanced understanding of ourselves and our emotions.
Join us Sunday at 10AM Eastern for community class and small groups and/or Monday at 7PM Eastern on Insight Timer. Details and links are here.