When it comes to chronic pain and chronic illness a common coping strategy is to numb out.

This makes sense because a body in pain doesn’t feel like a safe place to inhabit.

In fact it can often feel like a very hostile environment.

And this leaves many people living from the neck up.

Sadly this makes things worse because it leads to thinking about pain more which actually makes pain worse.

Remember fear and attention fuel pain.

And the worse the pain gets the more pain catastrophizing and worst case scenario thinking take over.

And this creates a doom cycle of more fear and more pain.

Interoception is the sense of the internal state of the body or the signals originating within the body. The term was coined by British neurophysiologist Charles Sherrington.

It’s basically our ability to feel ourselves.

The more you suffer from chronic pain the more these signals can become disrupted or distorted.

And this can make it very difficult to heal.

While disassociation is a survival strategy trying to keep you safe, it also keeps you stuck in cycles of pain.

It hijacks the body’s innate ability to heal itself.

And healing can’t happen when the body, brain and nervous system are stuck in survival mode.

Numbing out and being stuck in a freeze response is a survival response.

Learning how to feel ourselves helps to thaw out the freeze response so we can shift from survival mode to healing mode.

Interoception is critical for our sense of embodiment, motivation, and well-being.

It’s the process of receiving, accessing and appraising internal bodily signals.

It’s intimately connected to self-regulation to support mental, emotional and physical balance.

Interoception aligns behavior with higher-order intentions. And when this happens two complimentary senses emerge:

#1: Presence.

Presence is our connection to the present moment.

Living in survival mode hijacks our connection to the present moment and keeps us stuck in the past and future.

#2 Agency.

Agency is our ability to effect change.

The more we can feel ourselves the more we can heal ourselves.

So the path to healing chronic pain is one where we start to reclaim our ability to feel ourselves.

Many of my clients feel like their body’s are war zones. And the last thing they want to do is feel themselves.

I get this.

Chronic pain becomes a combat zone of hypervigilance where the brain is always on the lookout for danger.

So your homework this week is to train the brain to be on the lookout for positive sensations.

Perhaps the warmth of the sun on your skin.

Or the weight of a comfy blanket.

Or the good feels of a happy memory.

You can literally let your imagination run wild with this.

Train your brain to pay attention to neutral or nice sensations.

Focus on activities that you love.

Connect with people you love.

Focus on learning something new.

This can all help you slowly start to feel yourself in safe ways.

And the more you feel yourself safely, the more you can thaw out the freeze response keeping you stuck in fear and pain.

And overtime you can grow in more presence and agency which can empower you shift out of surival mode so you can heal yourself.

It may take time and effort , but the more you practice, the easier it becomes.

And eventually the pain will lose its power and you will reclaim control over your life.

So each time you notice yourself numbing out or shutting down or overthinking try and notice a positive sensation.

The more you can lean into positive sensation the more you can feel and heal yourself.

More presence and more agency equal less pain.