These internal signals have a name: interoception.

What Is Interoception?

Interoception is the way your nervous system senses and interprets what’s happening inside you. Researchers define it as “the registration and interpretation of our bodily signals, and the ability of our nervous system to represent our internal world through sensing and integrating information about our inner state” (Chen, W. G., et al., 2021).

In simpler terms: it’s how you register hunger, fullness, taste, and pain. It’s also how you build physical and emotional awareness — and reduce distress in response to sensations and emotions. The research is clear: better interoceptive awareness leads to improved emotion regulation (Price, 2018).

Why It Matters

When you register sensory information, you build a new communication pathway from your body to your brain. This pathway directly influences how safe, connected, and regulated you feel — by modulating your autonomic nervous system.

The greater your interoceptive awareness, the greater your ability to feel safe — in your body and with others.

There’s another layer, too. A region deep in your brain’s limbic system — the anterior cingulate cortex — receives sensory messages from your body and sends them to other parts of your cortex to be processed into emotions and thoughts. This means each sensory message has the power to inform you about yourself.

Who you are.

The more you tune into your interoception, the more you know yourself. And the more you know yourself, the more empowered you become.

What Interoceptive Awareness Makes Possible

Meet sensations with more groundedness and calm. This is especially important when sensations feel unsafe — including the ones that arise in eating disorder recovery.

Develop greater emotion regulation. When sensations would otherwise leave you in reactivity, interoceptive awareness gives you a new option.

Help secure your nervous system’s steadiness and expand its flexibility.

Grow your body awareness and your connection to it.

Feel more empowered, grounded, centered, and connected in your life.

In my work with clients recovering from eating disorders and healing from trauma, I’ve found interoception to be one of the most essential skills we can learn.

If this resonates, I explore all of this more deeply in my Befriending Your Body Program™ and in my new book, Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm (Shambhala Publications, 2026).

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They attend joint sessions. They are willing to learn and grow in their parenting. They engage with the skills and interventions I need them to use for their child to heal.

There is one thing they will not do.

Let go of their own disordered eating behaviors and diet mentality.

The Crossroads

This is the tough conversation we face in session. The open question that hangs between us:

Can your child recover — can they learn to listen to, trust, and respect their own body — when the adults around them are actively disrespecting and ignoring their own?

Recovery from an eating disorder is not an individual issue. It is a cultural and familial one. Our culture, with its obsession with thinness and “health at any cost,” shapes families and their belief systems. Those beliefs are then passed down, generation after generation.

The question becomes: Where and how does it end?

The Hardest Thing I Say to Parents

As difficult as it is for parents to hear, I am honest with them:

“I may not be able to help your child fully recover if dieting and intentional weight loss are being actively pursued in your home.”

I am often met with disappointment and confusion. That reaction itself reveals what we have all been enculturated into: the belief that we can separate the individual from the system’s impact.

But teens need role modeling to develop their growing sense of self-identity. Asking them to change their behavior while the rest of the family’s behavior stays the same creates an incongruence that works against their healthy self.

Recovery Starts in the Home

It starts with the family system learning to re-embody — not just the child.

The good news? When parents are willing and ready to break through the divide and heal their own disembodied relationship with their body and food, their children are often eager to follow.

Why? Because children and teens are still close to their remembrance of what it feels like to be connected to their bodies — before the separation happened.

Where to Begin

Parents, you can help your child’s recovery — and heal yourself along the way — by engaging in the following:

Cook together. Invite your child into the kitchen. Let them plan a meal. Take them shopping for their favorite foods without criticizing their choices.

Stop the criticism. No longer criticize your food choices or your body in front of your child. If this is hard for you, start by being conscious of when it happens — and commit to not doing it in their presence.

Share your food history. Pass down family recipes. Tell them about the foods you used to enjoy before diet culture told you not to.

Be honest about your own struggle. Let them know when your own body and food struggles began. Tell them you wish for them to not have to carry that weight into adulthood the way you have.

Commit to your own healing. Ask them to commit to theirs — and match that commitment with your own.

Make compassion a family practice. Choose it as a value, not just an intention. Practice it daily. Together.

As an embodiment and somatic psychotherapist and eating disorder specialist, I’m left with a set of urgent, under-asked questions: What happens to a person’s relationship with their body when the very signals that keep them connected to it are muted or erased? And if someone is already struggling with that connection, can a GLP-1 help rebuild it — or will it push them further away?

What Is Embodiment, Really?

Embodiment means feeling in relationship with your body — no division between mind and body. But more than that, it means staying connected to your sensory messages and inner experience.

This sensory information is called interoception — the ability to sense internal states like hunger, fullness, heartbeat, and emotion. And it’s not just about feeling connected to your body. It goes much deeper.

Interoception is how you know who you are. It lights up the area of the brain responsible for forming a sense of self. That’s how powerful it is.

Which is why the surging use of GLP-1s leaves me deeply concerned. What happens when one of the most primal interoceptive signals — hunger — simply disappears?

The Silencing of Hunger

As a developing fetus, you were fed automatically. Then you were born into a world where the only way anyone knew you were hungry was through a sensation that triggered communication with the outside world. You cried. Loudly.

Why? Because hunger is primal. It is an interoceptive signal wired for survival.

GLP-1s are known to shut down the sensation of hunger and quiet the mind’s preoccupation with food — the so-called “food noise.” But what’s rarely discussed is this: the majority of people seeking out these medications are folks who have had disrupted sensory signals for a long time — probably for most of their lives.

That disruption can come from many sources:

• Trauma

• Chronic dieting

• Body and food shame (the true birthplace of food noise)

• Neurodivergence

• Brain trauma

• Addiction

• Eating disorders — recent research suggests sensory disruption may even be a precursor to developing anorexia

We are not starting from neutral ground. We are starting from a place where the body’s internal communication system is already compromised. And then we remove one of its loudest, most essential signals.

Making the Choice: Embodiment Questions to Ask

I’ve had many important conversations with clients — people in larger bodies recovered from binge eating disorder but continuing to struggle with the stigma of being “fat” in a world that seems to despise it along with wishing to move more freely and feel less inflammation and more freedom and ease in their bodies-all valid embodied reasons. They wonder whether to begin these medications. They have legitimate fears about their hunger cues disappearing as these are folks who have already gotten their hunger signals back on track and feel close to their bodies again.

We talk through the decision using these embodiment-focused questions:

1. Can your provider prescribe a microdose that allows you to still sense and feel your hunger cues?

2. If weight loss occurs, do thoughts about losing even more start to consume you again?

3. Are you able to nourish yourself properly — three meals a day, with the macronutrients your body needs?

4. Do you know what your body actually needs to support its inner health and well-being?

5. And most importantly — if your body suffers side effects despite the weight loss, will you listen to it and protect it by stopping the medication, knowing you will regain the weight?

These are the real questions of embodiment. The last one especially. If weight loss overrides your body’s signals begging for protection, GLP-1s become a slippery slope toward greater disembodiment — not healing.

A Companion on the Path

If you’re navigating this decision — or supporting someone who is — I wrote Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm: A Somatic Guide to Forgiving and Healing Your Relationship With Your Body to walk alongside that discernment process. It’s not a book that tells you what to do. It’s a book that helps you hear what your body is already saying.

Because whether or not you take a GLP-1, the goal remains the same: to live in your body, not apart from it.

How “Othering” Our Bodies Breeds Disempowerment — and How Interoception Can Bring Us Back

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Disruption in embodiment happens the moment we shift our attention from how we feel inside to how we look outside.

As we move from being feeling, sensing children — attuned to what our bodies need and enjoy — to losing touch with those internal signals, we experience our first disconnection from the body. This is where body separation begins. This is where objectification starts.

Dr. Niva Piran, a leading researcher in embodiment and creator of the developmental theory of embodiment, calls this process “othering.”

The Stories That Stay With You

Years ago, I heard Dr. Piran speak at a conference about her qualitative study of girls ages nine to fourteen. Over several years, she gathered their stories — and identified five dimensions of embodiment.

Like many in the audience, I was moved to tears.

These girls described a time when they felt agency and freedom in their bodies. They played. They connected with others without competition or comparison. They were attuned to their own needs and desires, responding to them with joy.

Then something shifted.

They began focusing more on their external appearance than on their internal experience. Agency and autonomy faded. Instead of cooperating with their same-sex peers — which had once felt natural to their female bodies — they became preoccupied with competition, comparison, and self-judgment.

As Dr. Piran notes: When our relationship with our body is disrupted, the body becomes an uncomfortable “other.”

What “Othering” Does to Us

The process of othering creates a profound change. It breeds disempowerment.

We lose our sense of individual agency. We become detached from our bodies and our sensory experiences. We stop listening to ourselves.

As a result:

• It becomes harder to understand and trust our bodies.

• It becomes difficult to feel safe within ourselves.

• We lose touch with interoception — the sense of our internal body experience.

Young women and girls, at tender ages, begin to turn away from natural desires. Hunger. Fullness. What feels enjoyable. What feels comforting. What feels unsafe.

They stop paying attention to their own sensory cues.

Interoception Is the Foundation of Self

When we lose touch with our interoceptive skills, we lose touch with ourselves.

Interoception is the building block of agency. It is the basis for a “sense of self” schema. From the most tender ages onward, it helps you answer one fundamental question:

Who am I?

When little girls can answer this question — and continue to answer it based on their likes and dislikes into adolescence and beyond — they possess a greater ability to maintain an embodied sense of self.

Empowerment shines over disempowerment.

They are not afraid to use their voice. They are not afraid to stand out in a crowd. They do not hide away, change who they are, or change their bodies to conform.

Want to learn more? My book, Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm: A Somatic Guide to Forgiving and Healing Your Relationship With Your Body, releases July 21st, 2026 with Shambhala Publications.

Body image and body image disturbance are everywhere, especially now, as a new dangerous message that ultra-thin is in has taken the world by storm.

Images of shrinking celebrity bodies, perfect skin no matter what age, and weight-loss medication’s enticing invitations promising this is what you have been waiting for are everywhere, infiltrating not just what we see but also what our bodies feel.

More Than Meets the Eye

Body image is not just about what we see. It’s a complex mix of feelings, thoughts, memories, associations, and sensations that our brain attempts to process and filter moment by moment.

Neuroscientists at MIT have found that the human brain can process entire images the eye sees in as little as 13 milliseconds. We are constantly taking in images — whether of others or our own, not to mention the bombardment from social media. Our brain receives these images at a rapid pace all day long and attempts to understand what is being seen and make sense of it.

Neuroscience informs us that there are two pathways to body image: perceptual and affective.

Perceptual refers to what we see and our evaluation of our body size through the images our brain takes in and processes (our brain’s understanding of what it sees).

Affective refers to our emotions and how satisfied or dissatisfied we are with what we see.

This is where nervous system regulation matters most.

What Is Nervous System Regulation?

Nervous system regulation means being able to filter information from our environment and others, as well as from what’s happening within our bodies and our sensations, and to notice reactions in both our bodies and our thoughts.

For instance, you may see a picture of yourself and immediately respond with “I hate this picture.” Left at that, you have immediately reinforced a negative association with viewing pictures, and your nervous system responds defensively, in a hyperaroused state, to protect the moment. That protection may result in behavior such as avoiding picture-taking or attempting to correct flaws over and over again. The cycle continues without ever knowing what really happened below the surface.

Without pausing to notice our sensory responses and accompanying emotions, we miss an important opportunity to regulate our nervous systems.

The Body Image–Nervous System Loop

Uncomfortable sensations often elicit strong emotions, which contribute to the affective response and, in turn, to the perceptual evaluation of our body image.

Take the same example of the picture. If that was a day you were having a lot of fun and connection with others — laughing, playful (all indicators of nervous system regulation) — and someone snaps a picture in that moment, you may perceive it very differently than when a picture is taken on a day you are experiencing body pain, exhaustion, or any distressing emotions.

It’s important to check in and notice the thoughts you have on days like this. Perhaps self-critical or self-evaluative thoughts are already swirling in your mind (all indicators of nervous system dysregulation) long before the picture was taken.

During times like this, pause and ask:

• What has this day been like for me and my body?

• What am I noticing inside before I take this picture?

• Is this a day I can “fairly evaluate” what I see?

If not, note that body image distortion may be higher today than at another time.

On days you feel joyful and engaged with others, note what that is like inside. What kind of thoughts do you notice on those days? Perhaps those are days when you feel strong in your body and more balanced and centered. These felt experiences indicate greater balance and flexibility in your nervous system.

3 Simple Steps to Return to Balance

Even if you do not experience these regulated states often, you can help your system return to balance with a few simple steps:

Step 1: Pause and Self-Compassion

As soon as a self-critical thought arises, pause. Press your hands together or place your hands on your heart, take a deep breath, and state:

“This moment is hard.”

This self-compassionate statement helps to secure your nervous system to a more resourced state — one that can take in multiple things happening at once, such as being present in the face of a challenging moment.

Step 2: Notice and Ground

Notice what’s happening inside — tightness, tense areas in your body, challenging emotions. Press your feet into the ground and name:

“I can be present to what’s happening inside.”

This helps your nervous system recognize that this moment is safe and begin forming new associations with it, rather than the old, defensive, protective response.

Step 3: Acknowledge and Build

The final step is to explicitly acknowledge that, during these moments, it will be difficult to fairly evaluate what you see when you are in a dysregulated state. And to know that the more you practice the above steps, the more regulation you will build around these moments — and the less they will take you away from the moment.

Your Sensations Are NOT Complaints. They Are Information

What if our bodily sensations are exactly what our body wants us to know? The pit in your stomach might be a signal that you feel uneasy around someone. A clouded mind could be your body’s way of telling you it’s time to leave a situation. Anxiety rising in your chest and throat might be a sign that you’re longing to express yourself honestly.

As I often tell my clients, “I can help you regulate around most things, but should you?” We live in a culture that fears feeling anything but calm, neutral, and centered. Women, in particular, are socialized to be demure, prioritize others’ needs, and avoid making waves. But constant restraint and contraction in our bodies send important signals to our autonomic nervous system. It’s our job to learn how to listen to them without turning away.

Regulation Is Not Always About Calming

The idea that regulation means being calm is misleading. True autonomic regulation has little to do with achieving a calm state and everything to do with developing flexibility and responsiveness to internal and external stimuli. This flexibility is born from noticing, naming, and responding to our body’s internal signals, rather than turning away from them.

What Helps

When we can detect the early signs of a threat response – which I call a sense of energy shifting into overdrive (hyperarousal) or underdrive (hypoarousal) – it’s time to investigate how that shows up in our bodies. Instead of running away or trying to eliminate these sensations, ask yourself:

• What are your body’s first signals of these internal shifts?

• How do you know?

• What changes in your sensory body?

• What changes in your thoughts?

• What happens if you let your body know you’re listening, rather than chasing its messages away?

By staying with our sensations and feelings, rather than trying to regulate them away, we can develop a new sense of trust in our bodies. This approach allows us to cultivate interoceptive literacy and respond to our internal signals in a more compassionate and informed way. From this place, you can then assess with greater clarity what your body really wants you to know about these moments.

Have you ever wondered why so many women feel divided, conflicted, vulnerable, disconnected, or even filled with shame and blame toward their bodies? How do we move from being embodied, living, breathing, sensing, fully connected individuals to feeling divided, disconnected, and shame-filled toward our bodies?

We live in a mind-body-divided world, one in which bodies are devalued relative to the thinking mind. As the mind-body division collides with the image-obsessed world, we get pulled further away from our body’s truth, its nature. The more we stray from our internal, sensory-based, intuitive understanding, the more disconnected we become from our body.

Body disconnection is a global tragedy perceived as an individual one. When it persists throughout our lifespan, it can permeate our entire lives and become so mentally and physically ingrained that we start to believe that the thoughts we have, the feelings we experience, and the sense of disconnection and unease we feel in our bodies are our fault.

Without comprehending the reasons behind this widespread issue, you may continue to blame yourself for the ongoing disappointment and distress you feel with your body, leading to an endless cycle of searching for what’s wrong and trying to fix it. Many women find themselves trapped in an endless loop, seeking everything from the right foods and body size to optimal health, strength, energy, and the latest strategies for anti-aging or illness prevention. Even if we aren’t actively seeking solutions, we are constantly bombarded with messages urging us to make our bodies desirable to others rather than focusing on what feels good to us.

We lost touch with the nature of our bodies, long before we were born, when the mind-body divide or Dualism became a cultural paradigm. This dualism of mind and body, also known as the Cartesian split, is attributed to the French philosopher René Descartes, widely known for his declaration “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito, ergo sum). Descartes’ theory proposed that the mind (or soul) and the body are fundamentally different substances: the mind is immaterial and responsible for thought, while the body is material and governed by physical laws.

Prior to the seventeenth century, bodies were viewed as spiritual entities. Bodies were believed to be a connected informative source of sensation, reason, and wisdom, with the soul or spirit within the body seen as the motivating force behind physiological functions, cognition, and reasoning. This perspective aligned with ancient spiritual traditions and Indigenous cultures worldwide.

Viewing your body as an object is a direct result of the dualistic, reductionist view that encourages us to observe and treat our bodies as objects instead of as intimate parts of ourselves. Neuroscience, trauma research, and consciousness studies now validate and respect what the great mystics, Indigenous cultures, yogis, and spiritual teachers of the past have long understood: Our bodies and minds are deeply interconnected.

We can allow this connection within to come alive each and every day, in the smallest of ways, by redirecting our attention inward. Take the most mundane daily routines and habits you are already doing and start turning them inward to observe what happens inside. When you have a negative, scary or self-critical thought—what happens inside? Notice where and what shifts. When you are enjoying a moment—what happens inside? When you are sad, lonely—what do you notice inside as those emotions shift your internal experience?

Reconnecting with your body to allow the mind and body to work together, as they naturally are intended to do, is not as hard as you may think it is. That’s just it—it requires less thinking and more sensing, noticing, and feeling.

Body image is not just about what we see; it’s a complex mix of feelings, thoughts, memories, associations, and sensations that our brain processes and filters. The parietal lobe plays a crucial role in this process, attempting to make sense of the information it receives. Damage to this area of the brain can lead to confusion and distorted perceptions of one’s body shape.

The Neuroscience Behind Body Image

Research led by neuroscientist Henrik Ehrsson at University College London in 2010 found that the parietal cortex is highly active when we experience illusions about our body size. In one study, volunteers’ brains were scanned while they were presented with an illusion that made them think their waists were shrinking, known as the “Pinocchio illusion.” This research supports the idea that our brains compute our body size by integrating signals from the skin, muscles, and joints, as well as visual cues.

The Cultural Pressure to Shrink

Our culture often perpetuates the idea that we need to shrink our bodies to fit in and belong. This message can be particularly damaging for women, who are often socialized to prioritize a certain body shape or size from a young age. This cultural pressure can lead to a sense of disconnection from our bodies, known as disembodiment.

Disembodiment and Embodiment

Disembodiment is a state of feeling disconnected from our bodies, like our minds have drifted away. On the other hand, embodiment means reconnecting with our bodily sensations and experiencing our existence as a whole self. When we focus on our bodily sensations, we can calmly perceive ourselves from the inside out, without judgment.

The Power of Sensory Experience

Sensory communication plays a crucial role in body image perception. When we tune into our bodily sensations, such as our heartbeat, breath, and muscle tension, we can experience a sense of connection and calm. For example, consider moments of strength, joy, or laughter, where our bodies respond with physical sensations like flushing, thumping, or ease of breathing. In these moments, our mind quiets, and our senses heighten, allowing us to experience a tangible sense of connection.

A New Approach to Body Image

Next time you experience a difficult body image day, try tuning into your bodily sensations. Invest in your sensory experience, and notice what you see. By shifting your focus from visual cues to bodily sensations, you can cultivate a more compassionate and accurate perception of yourself.