Feeling listened to and understood changes our physiology; being able to articulate a complex feeling and having our feelings recognized, lights up our limbic brain and allows us to develop more choices in how to respond.
At the core of recovery is self-awareness. Body awareness puts us in touch with our inner world, the landscape of our organism.
Simply noticing our annoyance, nervousness or anxiety immediately helps us shift our perspective and opens up new options other than our automatic, habitual reactions.
Neuroscience research shows that the only way we can change the way we feel is by becoming aware of our inner experience and learning to befriend what is going on inside ourselves. The technical term for this is interoception - Latin for ‘looking inside’.