In adulthood, I am actively working on increasing my own interoception (sense of my inner body)…on listening to my body and what it needs.
More often than not, I used to ignore my body telling me that it is hungry. Or telling me that it needs to go to the bathroom. Or telling me that it needs to move around and not sit still any longer.
I didn’t usually think of it in those terms. I didn’t usually think to myself, “I’m not allowed to go to the bathroom,” or, “I don’t need to move, I need to sit still.” Instead, I would think things like, “If I could just pay attention for two seconds I could finish writing this report. I can get up and take a break when I’m done. I’m not allowed to until I’m done. What is wrong with me? Why am I like this? Ughhhh. Maybe I should bribe myself with a snack. Maybe I should punish myself by turning off my music.”
It took—and still takes—time, and conscious effort, to change those internal messages back to ones of listening to my body. To remind myself, “Maybe if I stand up and stretch, it will help my brain wake back up.” “If I am struggling to focus, then beating myself up about it will not solve whatever underlying problem is here.” “I’m listening, body, what are you saying?”
I wonder how my journey would have been different if I had learned these messages from childhood.
I didn’t even have a drastically terrible childhood or anything. I just learned to ignore my inconvenient body for the sake of sitting still and doing school well. I did school beautifully for a long time. I was one of the kids who could suppress what I needed in order to please adults. There are lots of kids who can’t.
[Image description: A white background with soft green watercolor wash on it. There is black text overlay which reads: “We talk about ‘teaching kids to listen to their bodies’. Often kids are inherently good at listening to their bodies. It’s just that when they do it in inconvenient ways, we call it ‘behavior’.” It has my handle, @occuplaytional, written on it as well. End description.]
