There’s a phenomenon I see all the time: feeling outward. People can tell me exactly what their partner is feeling. They know when their boss is stressed. They can sense tension in a room before anyone says a word. They anticipate needs. Manage energy. Track moods. Notice subtle shifts. Adjust themselves accordingly.
But when I ask: “What are you feeling right now?”
…the room often gets quiet. And lately, I’ve been noticing this pattern everywhere, both in my own life and in the people I work with.
Many of us know exactly where everyone else is emotionally. Yet we have a hard time pinpointing ourselves on the map.
At first glance, it can seem like we’re simply thoughtful, caring, or highly aware. And often, we are. But somatically speaking, something important is happening underneath the surface.
Our attention becomes externally organized.
This shift happens because the nervous system is adaptive, and looking outward can mean survival.
Human beings are wired for connection and social engagement. From the very beginning, our bodies learn to orient toward relationship as a way of maintaining safety, attachment, and belonging. We learn through feedback. Through expression. Through response. Through attunement.
The body is constantly asking: Am I safe here? Am I connected? Am I accepted? Do I belong?
And for many people, the answer became tied to how well they could track the world around them.
If a child has to choose between staying connected and staying true to themselves, the nervous system will almost always choose connection. Because connection is survival. And most of the time, this isn’t a conscious choice.
A child doesn’t sit down and decide their needs don’t matter. The body simply learns what helps preserve connection, belonging, and safety.
Maybe being agreeable helped keep the peace. Maybe staying quiet reduced conflict. Maybe being helpful brought approval or affection. Maybe paying close attention to everyone else’s emotions made the environment feel more predictable and easier to navigate.
Whatever the strategy was, it was intelligent. It developed for a reason.
The challenge is that many of us continue running that same strategy long after we no longer need it. We keep orienting toward everyone else, while forgetting that we are part of the conversation, too.
So attention moves outward. Toward parents. Partners. Children. Workplaces. Communities. Expectations. Emotional climates. Responsibilities. Survival.
At first, this outward orienting is intelligent – necessary, even. But over time, something quieter begins to happen. The relationship with ourselves becomes harder to access beneath all the noise.
Not because it disappeared, but because attention is a finite biological resource. The nervous system can only track so much information at once, and over time it tends to prioritize whatever it believes is most important for survival, connection, or belonging.
And if most of our awareness is consistently extending outward, there’s often very little left to notice: What do I feel? What do I need? What’s true for me? What’s happening in my body right now?
This is one of the reasons turning inward can feel so surprising. People often expect awareness work to feel peaceful. Clarifying. Like coming home.
And sometimes, it does. 🧘
But sometimes the first thing that happens when we begin listening inward is that the mind gets louder. More thoughts. More loops. More analysis. More “what ifs.”
We explored some of this in last month’s newsletter on intrusive thoughts. This isn’t failure. This isn’t regression. It’s simply what happens when a system that has been oriented outward for a long time finally has a little more space.
The body has been waiting. And the mind, doing what it learned to do, tries to get ahead of whatever is coming.
That’s the intelligence of overthinking. It was always trying to help.
The Part We Don’t Talk About Enough
While all of this is happening, the body never stops communicating.
A tightening in the chest. A knot in the stomach. A subtle holding of the breath. The sudden urge to withdraw. The exhaustion that appears after saying “yes” when we meant “no.”
These moments are easy to overlook because they’re often quieter than the needs, emotions, and expectations we’re tracking around us. But they are part of the conversation.
The body is constantly responding to how we’re living, where our attention is going, and whether we’re including ourselves in the choices we’re making.
The question isn’t whether the body is speaking.
The question is whether we’ve learned how to listen.
This Is Where People Get Tripped Up
People often imagine “healing” as learning how to calm down. Regulate. Meditate. Think differently. And while those things can absolutely be supportive, the deeper work is often much more relational than people expect.
The real question isn’t: How do I get out of my head?
It’s: Can I remain connected to myself while connecting to others?
That’s the practice. Not disappearing into someone else’s emotional experience. Not abandoning yourself to maintain harmony. Not becoming so externally focused that your body only gets your attention once it’s exhausted, overwhelmed, anxious, or shutting down.
The goal isn’t to stop caring about others. The goal isn’t hyper-independence. The goal isn’t needing no one. The goal isn’t choosing yourself instead of everyone else.
It’s learning that you are one of the people your care belongs to. It’s becoming included in the relationship too.
You Are Part of This, Too
One of the most important shifts I witness in somatic work is the moment someone realizes: Oh. I’m part of this, too. Not just the other person. Not just the relationship. Not just the situation.
Me. My body. My needs. My pacing. My truth.
Many of us were never taught how to include ourselves in the equation. We learned how to accommodate. How to understand. How to care. How to connect.
But we weren’t always taught how to stay connected to ourselves while doing it.
Healing isn’t learning how to disconnect from others. It’s learning how to stay connected to yourself while connected to someone else.
The Moment You Catch Yourself
This is why awareness matters so much in this season: because awareness is what allows us to notice the moment our attention leaves our selves.
The moment we automatically say yes before checking in internally. The moment our breathing changes in response to another person. The moment our body tightens while our mouth keeps smiling. The moment we override exhaustion because everyone else’s needs feel louder than our own.
And at first, noticing this can feel almost disorienting.
Many people discover they don’t actually know what they feel until long after something has happened. They can identify everyone else’s emotional state with incredible precision while struggling to name their own experience in real time.
The nervous system often resists this at first, because it learned that staying connected required leaving yourself behind. Noticing the gap between what you track outward and what you can’t yet name inward isn’t a problem to solve. It’s the beginning of a different kind of attention.
That’s practice revealing itself.
What Changes When You’re Included
Attention, like any pattern in the nervous system, becomes shaped by repetition.
What we practice strengthens.
So the invitation this season is small and consistent.
In the middle of your life – not in a quiet room, not in a perfect moment – pause and ask: Where is my attention right now?
Not as a judgment. Just as a question.
It might look like:
- Pausing before responding.
- Noticing your jaw while someone is talking.
- Feeling your feet during conflict.
- Recognizing the urge to immediately fix, manage, or accommodate.
- Taking one full breath before saying yes.
- Realizing you’re exhausted before your body forces you to stop.
Tiny moments.
But tiny moments practiced consistently begin changing the relationship we have with our own attention. And eventually, something surprising often emerges.
People don’t feel less connected to others. They feel more connected overall. Because they’re finally included in the experience, too.
That’s the shift.
Not withdrawing from the world. Not becoming less caring. Not choosing yourself instead of connection. But learning that you are allowed to exist inside the relationship as well.
A Practice to Carry With You
The next time you notice your mind spinning, or catch yourself tracking everyone else in the room, try this: Pause.
Place a hand somewhere on your body.
And instead of asking What does this mean? or What should I do? Ask: What am I noticing right now?
Not what you think. Not what you should feel.
Just what’s actually here.
A sensation. A tightness. A breath. A need.
Or perhaps just a part of you that has been waiting quietly to be included in the conversation.
Sometimes that’s all the body is asking for.
Not to be fixed. Not to be optimized. Not to be transformed overnight. Just to be noticed. To be included.
To have a seat at the table after years of watching the conversation happen around it.
And that, more often than not, is where the relationship begins.
