The Felt Sense
Growing up we’re often told that we have fives senses, the ones we are most familiar with- taste, touch, hearing, seeing, and smelling. These senses relate to how your body/mind takes in your external environment.
As it turns out, these five senses only part of the story. We have more than this, three more actually, and our felt sense is one of them.
Your felt sense is less about the environment around you and instead relates to the environment within you.
The scientific name for the felt sense is interoception, and it’s part of a bi-directional system between body and brain.
American philosopher Eugene Gendlin coined the term “felt sense” in the 1950’s as a way to describe the observation that psychotherapy clients who greatly improved were distinctive in their ability to tap into the sensations in their body, a somatic experience. Clients who were not connected to this “felt sense” experience made less progress.
We all have this sense, though how deeply connected we are to it can and does vary from person to person. However, no matter how old or young you are or what you have been through in your life, there always lies within you the possibility to strengthen your connection to your felt sense.
So what is your felt sense? And why should care?
The felt sense or interoception describes the quality and characteristics of your internal landscape. This landscape is constantly changing and evolving in response to what you take in externally with your other five senses, as well as from internal cues like body temperature, pain, tense or relaxed muscles, and even from our thoughts. In many ways, the awareness of your felt sense can act like a two-way street, for example, where your thoughts influence your felt sense, and your felt sense can also influence your thoughts.
This inner experience can sometimes be loud and obvious, like the anger you might feel when you are in a heated argument. However, in many cases the felt sense is actually quite soft and even vague. Imagine the feeling within when you’re in a conversation and holding onto something you want to say, it’s right there “on the tip of your tongue,” but then when it’s your turn to speak it slips your mind. It was there, but then it wasn’t. You have to take a moment to search for it, and if or when it comes back, there’s a sense within as if it’s “arrived.”
Let’s try it out for a moment, shall we?
Imagine that someone looks you in the eye and says your name is (insert a name that is very much NOT yours). Feel into what swirls or comes alive in your body as someone distinctly calls you by a different name.
Now, imagine someone looks at you and says your name is (insert your actual name here). There is probably a feeling of alignment. A sense of “yes, that is correct.” Maybe it’s a feeling like when you get the combination correct on a lock. A clicking. Something you might not typically have awareness of but that is definitely there, and definitely different from how it feels when someone calls you by the incorrect name.
There are common ways you are likely connecting with your felt sense without even realizing it. Below are a few-
Noticing the sensations that indicate you are hungry, full, thirsty, or satiated.
Noticing the fullness in your bladder that tells you it’s time to use the restroom.
Noticing when your energy levels drop and you need to take it easy or get some rest.
Noticing when you feel hot or cold, and adjusting the thermostat or what you are wearing to bring yourself comfort.
These types of sensations that relate to addressing your basic needs tend to be more loud or obvious ways to connect with your felt sense. Increasing awareness of them is a great entry point into beginning to explore the more subtle layers of embodiment that exist, or “shades of emotion” as they are called.
How does the felt sense relate to trauma healing?
We don’t arrive at a felt sense through thinking and talking. It’s a process that happens through being in your body. When we connect with our felt sense, we are experiencing ourselves directly, without the constant narration or interpretation of the thinking mind.
In somatic therapy, we hold space to facilitate this “felt sense” experience in order to support you in transforming patterns that are stuck at their root, in the nervous system. Why’s that? Well, your nervous system doesn’t speak in rational, logical thought. Instead, it communicates primarily through sensation. Getting in touch with your felt sense is one way to communicate with your nervous system directly.
We can use our felt sense to better understand ourselves and what lies beneath the surface of our thoughts and emotions. It centers on the body sensed from the inside, where new things arise. In fact, simply by bringing your awareness to your felt sense, things your body has held deep within can become unstuck and make it easier to process unresolved trauma.
While connecting with your felt sense can be an enriching, enlivening experience, it may also carry with it some activation, especially if being in touch with your body is an unfamiliar experience. Remember that you always have choice about where you place your attention. Being with our internal world tends to carry with it more awareness of our emotional state. So if or when this comes too much, experiment with intentionally placing your attention on your external surroundings (noticing things like the colors, textures, shapes, etc) to act like a brake, slowing down the activation.
If you can’t tell, I love this stuff! Holding space for others to get in touch with their own felt sense lights me up. I’d love to hear from you if your interested in support to befriend your own inner landscape!
Til next time, my sweet friends!
xo Amy Williams, MA, LMHC, CYT
