We’ve learned that we have unconscious patterns of behaviour driven by dopamine.
And that our nervous system dictates the thoughts we are having.
Today we are going to explore our hidden ‘sixth sense’, interoceptive awareness.
This is the key to building a strong relationship with our intuition and to start making decisions that are aligned with our truest self.
A few years ago, I was entirely disconnected from my body.
I had no idea that feelings had a physical component.
If I felt sad, it was because I was having sad thoughts. I wasn’t aware of a tightness in my throat or a heaviness behind my eyes.
If I was stressed it was because my mind was whirring with thoughts, not because my sympathetic nervous system was activated and my heart was racing.
I believed that I didn’t get angry. And any sensations I felt in my stomach were because of something I’d eaten.
This all changed for me when I went on a ten-day silent meditation retreat called Vipassana while travelling through Nepal.
For the first time, the volume of the external world was dialled down to 1 so that I could turn the volume up on my inner world.
I wasn’t speaking to others about their experience to make sense of my own.
I wasn’t distracting myself with worries about what people thought of me.
I wasn’t able to escape my feelings with technology.
And as I focused my attention inwards, I discovered a whole world that I had ignored.
An inner landscape that had been crying out to be heard.
As children we learn that we have 5 senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing. These are all focused on external stimuli.