“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.” - Arundhati Roy, from FT, April 2020
I’ve noticed a pattern in my life, of, when faced with what feels like a turning point, imagining my life anew; when asking challenging life questions, I’ve turned to others for guidance.
The guidance I have received from others has been welcome - i’m glad and so appreciative to have received this in my life. However, I also noticed at times, that it became a way of avoiding tuning in to what I was experiencing myself, and avoiding my innermost guidance.
Why would that be? It’s possible that, whenever we are taking steps to grow and develop, that we face resistance, or avoidance. Maybe that’s why we might find every reason to avoid exercise, find it challenging studying, or taking steps to make big changes for the better in our life… that’s a whole other blog post, for another time :)
When I became aware of this skillful avoidance of noticing my inner experience, I decided to make a practice of trying to tune in to my inner experience, rather than avoiding it. It felt to me like something that I wanted to explore, and like, if I could find a way to tune in to my ‘inner guidance’ it would bear fruit, and help me in making decisions to big questions, and decide upon the life that I wanted to create. There are some questions that only we, each, can answer for ourselves.
My yoga practice and therefore my teaching over the last few years, has been quite focused on sensing and feeling inwardly. Those of you reading this who have experienced my practice will be familiar, for example, with a moment of ‘rest and digest’ to absorb a movement, and notice it’s affect, or really deep diving into the small sensations in the realm of the body / mind.
This sensing and feeling inwardly has a name : interoception. This is a lesser-known sense that helps you understand and feel what's going on inside your body. We use interoception to notice when we feel full, thirsty, hungry, tired, amongst other things. It is also the sense that will allow you to notice how a round of sun salutations or a warrior one has affected you : heart beat / temperature / register of our ‘level of energy’ or ‘quality of energy’. Just like a muscle, this sense can be strengthened and developed over time. Some of us are more kinaesthetic and tactile learners - meaning we have a good sense of body in space and body timing, and ability to sense / feel inwardly, we need to engage in an activity in order to grasp a concept, others are more visual learners - needing to see information and visualise it, and others more auditory - those who need to hear the information. Regardless of learning style, however, there is evidence that interoception is a sense that can be developed with practice - and putting it into practice is the way to strengthen it.
In my classes, we take a particularly interoception-strengthening approach. What can this be useful for? Amongst other things, noticing how we are at any one time. And using that information to help connect with our inner guidance - maybe that’s the answer to the question ‘what do I need right now?’ Example answers to this may be: rest, to move, support from someone else, or to be by myself.
How to tune in to sensation in the body
When I was completing training in a method called ‘Somatic Stress Release’ by Dr Scott Lyons, we were asked to partner with another person, and one person was blind-folded.. The person who wasn’t blind-folded handed the blind-folded person an object, so they could feel it, and tune in to the feeling of it, with their hands. Without the ability of vision to automatically label the object as ‘metal bowl, we used touch to notice the sensations, eg ‘shiny, cold, smooth, round object’. We were then asked to go deeper in to that sensation ‘so what is it about that shiny, cold, smooth, round, object that makes it distinct? ‘it’ s uneven and rough, and small in size’ and then going down deeper into the experience, we started to notice how the object affected us ‘the way in which I experience this is in my body, I notice (eg location of the experience in the body, name the qualities and characteristics of the experience, and whether it reminded us of anything - past experiences). This is something that can be practiced, over time, to improve our ability with it.
The practice : An embodied journalling exercise to help you connect with inner guidance
Approx 10 mins (more time if available / needed)
Have a journal / notepad and pen nearby!
if we are to throw a question into the depths of our body / mind, like throwing in a pebble to the ocean, what arises?
1. Find a comfortable position, either sitting or lying down, that allows your body to be alert but relaxed at the same time. Allow your awareness to come to your breath, and then down in to the centre of your body - like taking a submarine down into the ocean depths of your body.
2. Drop a question in, like dropping a pebble into the ocean, asking for example, ‘would it be closest to my truth to persue a career in …..’. Or whatever question is present for you.
3. Wait for a response. Be patient here, and notice if anything arises. Observe any sensations or ripples in your body or mind. You may wish to drop the question in, once or twice more, and notice again any ripples that arise as sensation or experience. This might arise as sensation, imagery or words.
4. As you notice what arises, would it be possible to describe it to yourself, to guage a ‘right fit’ - just like I described above in the partner exercise, we tuned in to description, and tried to go down through the layers, deeper, to really describe. This may take a couple or a few goes to really gauge ‘right fit’ for the experience.
5. Consider the strength of body reaction - strong or weak, and sense of mental clarity with this. Is the overall experience one of ease, and expansion? Or perhaps contraction?
You may wish to write about the experience straight after, to really seal in and help to process. With writing, it’s possible that the enquiry will continue to develop. However, firstly try and tune in to sensation, or imagery or words as they arose from the present moment experience, rather than jumping ahead to analysing them.
Good luck with this practice, I hope that it is helpful to you, as it’s been to me. Like with any practice, the more we do it, the more attuned to it we become… my advice would be to give it patience and keep going with it !