an introduction to the interoception series
Fifteen years after finishing graduate school, I’m back in front of one of my old professors, Brooks. Only now, he’s my therapist.
We’re staring at each other through a Zoom screen after I asked (well, desperately demanded) that he take me on as a patient following the traumatic death of an ex-boyfriend.
“Where are you feeling the grief in your body?” He asks.
I’m completely embarrassed. I must look pathetic and I’m too ashamed to meet his gaze. Staring at my keyboard, I’m struggling to answer his question.
“I don’t know”, I say.
And I mean it.
It’s strange how the feeling that demanded these (very expensive) sessions can’t be found in this moment. He gives me a sympathetic smile — one that I quickly interpret as “Bless your heart, you’ve got a long way to go.” It’s the kind of smile I gave to my little cousin last month when she came downstairs beaming, in a full face of makeup with eyeshadow up to her eyebrows and glitter everywhere.
It was earnest. It was a mess. But I loved her for trying.
That’s how I imagine I look now. Tender. Unready. And awkwardly stumbling through emotions that have grown since childhood, never having learned how to hold them.
Actual little cousin not pictured, but we were along these lines.
In the next year of therapy, I realized that I had a high level of self-awareness. I could trace the lines between my wounds, emotions, and triggers with clarity. But despite all that insight, I still felt at the mercy of my reactions. Awareness alone wasn’t enough.
I often found myself saying, “I know this, but it’s not connecting to my heart space.” I could understand my patterns intellectually, but I couldn’t interrupt them in real time. No amount of insight could stop the automatic response once I was triggered—a disconnect I now understand as the difference between awareness and embodiment.
Eventually, Brooks gently led me to an understanding that my healing wasn’t about gaining more awareness — it was about deepening a different kind of awareness: body awareness.
Learning to notice — really notice — what was happening inside my body. Hunger. Tension. Restlessness. Sadness. Fear. All of it.
At first, it felt like trying to learn a different language. Years of dissociation and distraction had muted my ability to interpret the signals from my body. But slowly, I learned how to tune in. Not just to what I felt, or why I felt it , but to where I felt it. How it signaled me. How it moved. And what it was asking for.
If you can relate — if you’ve analyzed your feelings from every angle, but still feel stuck, this series is for you.
Our next four essays will explore interoception; the ability to sense, interpret, and respond to the body’s internal signals, and explore how somatic awareness is often a missing therapeutic link between intellect and integration. Together, we’ll chart a grounded, practical path towards your emotional fluency and self-trust.