Body Sense: The Science and Practice of Embodied Self-Awareness (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)

Like suppression of feelings, suppression of urges has consequences, especially if the need for suppression of the urge is in conflict with one’s desires. In addition to the chronic muscle tension and possible pain, these consequences include feelings of discomfort and longing, distracted and impaired thought processes, obsessive thoughts about wha

The problem with fear, and any type of threat to the self, is that awareness of the body becomes lost and replaced by the need to protect the self or to collapse. Suppression is the loss of our ability to feel ourselves. Suppression includes defenses of denial (I’m not really scared, just a little nervous!), intellectualizing (I don’t want to be a

Neural learning is reflected in physiological changes in the nerve cells and their connections. Practice leads to the growth of an increasing number of interconnecting fibers that can synapse between cells. The more synapses between adjoining cells, the more likely there will be a direct communication between them, and the stronger the neural netwo

This is why we often need someone else to guide us in and out of this state. With practice, we become better able to maintain ourselves there, but ultimately the full exploration of new emotional territory requires help from a coregulating other.

We can assume that the horror was a spontaneous and emergent emotion as Sacks connected—in the subjective emotional present of embodied self-awareness—his change in body schema to his interoceptive self-awareness. He graciously admits to us that he could not stay in that emotional present: the horror was too disturbing.

The body schema is related to the skeletomotor system and the parts of the nervous system that are responsible for making movements intentional (meaning that the movements are in response to our interoceptive needs and desires), coordinated (smooth linkages), and comfortable (without excessive effort, pain, or fatigue).

Research shows that this link between the ACC and the motor areas creates the motivational aspect of emotion, what the body wants to do (intentions and urges), what the body does (emotion related behavior, including expressions and vocalizations). In addition to coordinating messages about urges and actions to the skeletal muscles, the ACC can also

A good cry is restorative, creative, and cleansing. It can help us heal and regain a sense of hope. However, a good cry is paradoxical: it is about pain and relief, despair and hope, loss and gain.

Self-awareness treatments for such individuals need to work with awareness of thought processes, suppressed emotions, and suppressed body movements encased in chronic muscle tension

threatening events, especially if they are chronic, can fundamentally alter our embodied self-awareness.