Interoception
a.k.a The Missing Puzzle Piece You Didn’t Know You Needed
You can follow every self-care checklist. Eat the kale. Lift the weights. Sleep eight hours. Meditate, journal, hydrate… And still burn out, or get blindsided by your own body.
Because if you’re not feeling what’s happening inside you, you’re just ticking boxes — not actually meeting your needs.
Ever wonder:
Why you suddenly snap after a “good” day?
Why you “do all the right exercises” but still get injured or plateau?
Why you rest but never feel restored?
Why your anxiety hits like a truck out of nowhere?
It’s not as ‘sudden’ as it seems. Your system’s been trying to send signals — you just never learned how to hear them.
Interoception — your ability to feel your body from within — is what lets you:
Notice stress before you spill over your Window of Tolerance
Address pain, tension, hunger, emotions, or fatigue while it’s still manageable
Actually partner with your body, instead of constantly playing catch-up
You’re not meant to just “push through.” You’re meant to notice, and respond. Your sensitivity is not a weakness, it’s intelligent.
Interoception is the key to stop crashing, and start catching yourself before you hit the wall.
What is Interoception?
Interoception is your ability to feel what’s happening inside your body. It’s like checking your internal dashboard — telling you when you’re hungry, thirsty, tired, stressed, full, energized, anxious, or calm.
It’s how you can ‘hear’ when your body tries to tell you: “Hey, something needs attention.”
Most health advice is about wrestling your body into submission. Interoception is about being in conversation with it.
It takes the guess work out of self-care because you’re feeling what you need, in real time.
Signs You Might Struggle With Interoception
If you never learned to listen to your body’s subtle signals, you’re essentially playing life on hard mode.
Here’s what it can look like:
♦️ Physical Signs
You don’t notice you’re hungry, thirsty, or tired until it’s extreme
You push through pain or fatigue until your body forces you to stop
You feel like you have “random” injuries, crashes, flare-ups
🔷 Emotional Signs
You struggle to name how you feel without a big event to blame it on
You describe your emotions physically (“I feel heavy,” “I’m buzzing”) but struggle to label them
You “numb out” or dissociate when things get stressful
You feel fine… until you very much don’t
🔶 Cognitive / Behavioral Signs
You constantly second-guess yourself (“Am I overreacting? Am I imagining this?”)
You gaslight your own needs because you didn’t catch the early warning signs
You find yourself crashing into shutdown, burnout, or emotional overwhelm "out of nowhere"
If you only hear your body when it’s screaming, interoception is where the healing starts.
Why You Suck At Interoception
You aren’t ‘inherently bad’ at interoception. You were trained to tune yourself out.
Here’s how it usually happens:
🔹 Chronic stress or trauma
Your system gets used to scanning outside for danger — so it stops paying attention inside.
When survival depends on staying hyperaware of other people’s moods, body language, needs, and threats, your own sensations become background noise.
🔹 Neurodivergence
ADHD, autism, sensory processing differences — all can impact how you receive, interpret, or prioritize internal signals.
Sometimes the body’s messages are muted. Sometimes they’re overwhelming. Either way: it makes self-awareness harder to access reliably.
🔹 Social and cultural conditioning
Being praised for “pushing through” discomfort
Being shamed for “being dramatic” or “overreacting”
Being taught to value performance, not presence
You learn early that your body’s signals are inconvenient. So you tune them out to fit in. To survive. To succeed.
You lost touch with your body because you had to adapt. But now that you’re the adult in charge, you can make a life that feelsf safe enough to come home to yourself.
How to Develop Body Awareness
You can’t think or perform your way back into your body. You have to listen your way back in — slowly, gently, without judgment.
Here’s how to begin:
👁️ Orient externally and internally
Notice the room around you (colors, shapes, textures).
Then gently notice: “What’s happening inside me right now?” (Not to fix it. Just to notice.)
🦶 Do micro body scans
Pick one part of your body at a time… What do you feel there? Warmth? Pressure? Tingling? Tension? Buzzing? Nothing?
You’re not looking for anything in particular — just gathering data.
💗 Label sensations (not stories)
Instead of “I’m a mess” or “I’m fine,” try “My chest feels tight” or “My hands feel warm.”
Simple, neutral, descriptive.
🌀 Track subtle shifts
Instead of waiting for huge crashes or spikes, get curious about small changes… “Do I feel a little heavier after that conversation?”… “Did my breathing change when I opened that email?”
This is how you catch things before they boil over.
🧘 Slowww down
You can’t notice what’s happening inside if you’re rushing through life like a speeding bullet. Your body’s signals are subtle, and they get drowned out when you’re flying too fast.
Practice slowing everything down — even just for a few breaths. Slower speech. Slower movements. Longer pauses.
Give yourself space to catch the signals as they come.
💃 Move your body (mindfully)
Gentle, mindful movement gives your nervous system feedback. It creates new sensations for you to notice, without needing pain or overwhelm to get your attention.
Try slow, subtle rocking, swaying, stretching, tapping. Not to burn calories or “fix” yourself — just to practice being with your body as it moves and shifts.
Movement that registers as ‘safe’ to your nervous system is one of the fastest ways to rebuild interoception over time.
💡 Pro Tip:
Every time you catch yourself thinking “I should ___,” pause for just a moment.
Put your hand on your chest or belly, and ask: “If I forgot about all the ‘shoulds’ and only listened to my body right now — what would I do?”
It doesn’t mean you have to ignore your responsibilities. You’re just giving yourself a real choice, instead of running on autopilot and chronically overriding your needs.
This is how you start rebuilding body trust: One tiny moment of listening at a time.
Want more ways to tune into your body?
I’ve got a whole library of mind-body magic waiting for you✨