Areas › Your body › Feeling from the inside
One question does a lot of work: is what my body is doing right now a fair match for what is actually in front of me? Ask it plainly, and let the answer be either yes or no.
The point is not to talk yourself out of the feeling. The signal is information and it deserves a hearing. But you can hold it up against the room and see whether it fits, and if it does not, you have learned something about where it came from rather than about the person you are with. Ordering yourself to stop feeling it just teaches you again to ignore yourself, which is the very thing you are trying to undo.
Qur’an and Sunnah
I do not pretend to be blameless, for man's very soul incites him to evil unless my Lord shows mercy (Quran 12:53). Even a verse saying the inner pull needs weighing says it without contempt, and ends on mercy.
۞وَمَآ أُبَرِّئُ نَفۡسِيٓۚ إِنَّ ٱلنَّفۡسَ لَأَمَّارَةُۢ بِٱلسُّوٓءِ إِلَّا مَا رَحِمَ رَبِّيٓۚ إِنَّ رَبِّي غَفُورࣱ رَّحِيمࣱ
I do not pretend to be blameless, for man’s very soul incites him to evil unless my Lord shows mercy: He is most forgiving, most merciful.’
Qur’an 12:53read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis of people preoccupied with bodily symptoms found their objective accuracy at detecting internal signals was not raised. What set them apart was the meaning they placed on those signals. So the fruitful place to work is the interpretation rather than the sensitivity.
Wolters C, Gerlach AL, Pohl A. (2022). Interoceptive accuracy and bias in somatic symptom disorder, illness anxiety disorder, and functional syndromes: A systematic review and meta-analysis.. PloS one doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Weighing a signal keeps whatever use it has, while overriding it teaches you to stop listening.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Stand on one leg for a few breaths. Your body has to work to keep you upright, and that work is loud enough to feel on a day when nothing else registers.
You are allowed to move. Wiggle your toes, rub one arm from shoulder to hand, put a palm on your chest. A body that is doing something is much easier to feel than one held still.
When someone is distressed, moving too fast to settle them can land as a message that their distress is not welcome here. Let them set the speed.