Interoception and Your Inner Self-Helper
Interoception (sometimes called neuroception) is a sensory experience, in which you feel sensations in your body (viscera, heart, throat, etc.) that 
may be warning signs of limbic surveillance or inner continuity of your inner self-helper – that part of you and your brain that hopes to help you in whatever the situation you are experiencing. Interoceptive awareness is one of the most important mindfulness skills to practice. In the following meditation, we will visit your interoceptive self and augment its power by repeated the practice. In neuroscience a common understanding is that the larger number of neurons activated in more and more brain areas implies the variant of power (potentiation); more neuron firing in more brain areas results in a more significant life experience. This is one reason why PTSD is such a devastating disorder, and why it is NOT easy to treat successfully. Also, let us not forget the ultimate power of LOVE; people gives their lives for it, and people kill others over it. Let’s get into the practice.
- Sit in a comfortable meditation posture, and close your eyes if you prefer to. If you like you eyes open, gently fix attention downward toward the floor and hold a gentle gaze.
- Now take a few very deep and very slow breaths, in and out. Track the feelings/sensations of the movement of your breath into and out of the body. Focus attention on this for a few more deep, slow breaths.
- Now fully engage your imagination and follow the next few steps. Try to think less, and try to just BE more so.
- Focus full attention into your heart area and the viscera below it. See if you feel any form of sensations – even the most tiny sense of kinesthetics. Be with that feeling, and try to keep your mind on it without lots of thinking.
- Please do your best to accept that this inner feeling (no matter how slight) is the home of your inner self-helper. it is your intuitive area.
- Now our work begins: Using your mind’s eyes, is there a color to this feeling? Focus on it.
- Does the feeling inside your body have any shape? If so, what shape is it? See it, and feel it.
- How large or small is the area you feel it in?
- How about texture? Is there a discernable texture to your inner sensations?
- Is your feeling more hard or more softer?
- Does your inner feeling produce a memory of any sound or sounds?
- Now focus your energies on making that inner feeling stronger so it can have power to protect you.
- Now focus on making that feeling larger – feel your self-helper power This is your self-protector.
- Stay with the experience for a few minutes of silence. See what happens.
- Become aware, really aware of this feeling. Befriend it fully!
Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC
From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont and the Home of The Monkton Sangha
Author of Mindful Happiness
sensation to spread this way. Move it down the arms all the way to your fingertips. Recall a substance-free happy experience and smile more. Feel the emotion, even perhaps love. Now slowly and gently place both hands over your heart and rock gently. Continue for a couple minutes. Notice!
This strange behavior continued for some time, until the robin had forced me to move within two feet of of our above-ground pool. The robin persisted by flying closer and closer to my head, to “push” me closer and closer to the pool until I reached its frame. Then I saw it. Then I realized how this intelligent bird figured out a way to get me to see its chick now having great difficulty staying afloat in the pool water. I knew I could not touch the chick, but I had to save it. So in the pool I went and netted it in an old bird nest sitting on the deck. I placed the “saved” chick in the nest on the deck just high enough to protect it from cats and allow its parents to come to its rescue. Soon they were feeding it. In a few days the chick was gone and so were the parents. I assume it flew correctly without landing in what must have seemed to be a gigantic ocean to the very small chick. I experienced very strong feelings of gratitude at that time. Gratitude for my actions, for the chick, and for its parents. Gratitude for the beautiful and mysterious Tao of nature surrounding me in life.
an adult delivered food to the nest. So what to do? I did not want to leave the chick to its fate, and I did not want robins pecking at my head in defense of their own. I grabbed a flat piece of wood and a scissors; I went out to the porch, quickly cut the plastic string and caught the chick in its fall on the board. The chick landed eventually on the porch floor. It was breathing heavy, and I think its leg had been injured in the tangle. By that time several robins were harassing me; they meant business. My good deed done, I left the chick on the floor and observed several robins flying on to the porch. When I looked out a few minutes later, the chick was gone and no adult birds were anywhere to be seen. Worried that the injured chick had fallen off the floor onto the ground below, I went out to investigate. I was unable to find the chick. Soon, however, two robins came to the porch making all kinds of noise – probably trying to communicate with the chick. Then I noticed the adult birds very cautiously (after quite some time of just hanging out) flying to the ground where I had been searching for the chick. I watched one robin go into the brush nearby, entering with an insect in its mouth and leaving empty-beaked. I guess they found their chick, and were continuing to nurse it back to health. Because I cannot disturb it, I will never know if that chick made it or not. One thing is certain, the parents were in no mood to give up; they continued to cautiously land on the ground with food. I think it is a happy ending just like story 1.
we should always appreciate the preciousness and miracle of human life – our own life no matter what the challenges are.
provided us with a reasonable set of steps to navigate this painful process. Whatever pathway you select, the following information may be helpful to reduce the intensity and duration of your suffering. We do need to allow the process until it works its way out of our life. If you get stuck and cannot find your way out, get good professional help (therapy not just pills).
