Feel Within: Interoception and Your Body's Secret Weapon
Disconnection from purpose stems from a disconnection from self.
It's that simple. And it's that profound.
Interoception is the key to clarity, connection, and abundance in life. But what is it, really?
The Energy Within You
It's estimated that if you were to collect all of the neuroelectrical energy happening within your body and add it together, it would equal the strength of a lightning bolt. That's a lot of energy. And with that, a lot of potential available to you at any given moment.
Most of us are so overwhelmed by the outside world that we miss the energy of the inner world. That is where interoception comes in.
Interoception is your body's internal awareness system—your ability to feel from within. It's the felt sense of life moving through you. When you direct your energy inward—into your energetic body—you begin to reclaim what's been wasted.
By tapping into this awareness, you unlock energy and potential that were always there.
The Disconnect
When you're hyper-vigilant to the outside world, your internal awareness dies. And when your internal awareness dies, so does your connection to purpose, clarity, and genuine peace.
For most people, interoception has atrophied. You've learned to read everyone else—your boss's stress, your partner's emotions, the room's energy—while becoming deaf to your own signals. You can sense fatigue in others but miss your own exhaustion. You can feel someone else's anxiety but ignore your own intuition screaming that something's wrong.
This imbalance is foundational to disconnection.
This is how burnout happens. This is how you lose yourself.
Where Attention Goes, Energy Flows
"Where attention goes, energy flows"—but there is a constant flow of energy and attention moving within. Can you feel it? Do you feel it?
Interoception isn't fixed. Neuroscience confirms it: interoception is a skill. And like any skill, it can be developed, strengthened, and refined.
Developing the skill of interoception is foundational to regulation. When you bring awareness to what's happening inside, you gain control over what happens outside. A body stuck in fight-or-flight remembers how to rest. Emotions that felt abstract suddenly become tangible. For many people—especially men—emotions can be difficult to grasp, but the body doesn't lie.
Instead of "I feel angry," you might notice: "I feel tightness in my chest."
That physical awareness is everything. Because our decisions are guided by energy.
What Interoception Unlocks
When you reconnect to your internal awareness, everything changes. Interoception opens the door to:
Decision-making — You make choices aligned with your actual needs, not your conditioned responses
Processing emotions — You feel what's really happening instead of suppressing or numbing it
Connecting to purpose — Purpose isn't something you search for; it's something you remember when you listen to yourself
Identifying and overcoming burnout — You catch the warning signs before you crash
Interoception doesn't just soften external stimulation—it also quiets the noise of the ego. And as a breathwork facilitator, it's powerful to see science backing what the body already knows: conscious, controlled breathing supports pain regulation, anxiety reduction, and mental wellbeing.
The Most Direct Path Inward
Feel the breath enter your lungs. Notice the expansion of the ribs, cool air through the nasal cavity, tension release on the exhale. Feel it not as a thought, but as a sensation.
This is interoception: the nervous system's native language. The felt sense of life moving through you. It is the most direct path inward.
Breathwork is one of the most effective tools to enhance interoception. When you bring awareness to the breath, you bring awareness into the body. It sharpens your ability to feel. It down-regulates the nervous system.
The most impactful benefit of breathwork isn't just reduced anxiety or better sleep—it's increased interoception. Because when you can feel yourself, everything else becomes possible.
The Practice
Reconnect to your breath. Reconnect to yourself. Reconnect to purpose.
Feel the breath enter. This is a practice of interoception. It is a powerful tool, and a grounded anchor for meditation and mindfulness.
Feel it to heal it. Breathe it to heal it.
To listen here—to this internal knowing—is to reclaim a relationship with the self. To find peace not as a concept, but as a physical reality.
An anchor not in abstraction, but in the biology of your own being.
That lightning bolt of energy living inside you? It's not waiting for you to find it. It's waiting for you to feel it. The question isn't whether you have what it takes. The question is: are you ready to feel it?
JT
Resources:
My thoughts on Interoception:
https://x.com/justin_ternes/status/1987190626874761648?s=20
Article on Interoception:
Interoception in Whole Health:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41231765/
Huberman on Interoception:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CR1WmfOHlWr/?hl=en
Connection to Intrinsic Health: