Interoception · Rooted Alchemy

28d (edited) • Qi Talks✨

Interoception

Attached you will find a document I created several years ago for my students on the concept of interception. It is something I wrote several years ago so please allow me to add some more context and connect it to our shared practice more intentionally. Interoception is now becoming the more common scientific term to refer to the internal sensations of the body. You will hear it come up in conversations about nervous system regulation and poly-vagal theory.

I first learned of this term and the associated concepts when I was working as a behavioral therapist for autistic children in my 20's. Each child I worked with had a 'sensory diet' of activities that would help them regulate their nervous system. I had just begun training martial arts and yoga and I immediately could see(feel) the parallels. I was blown away by how much focus and energy could be harnessed when working with these populations simply by taking these concepts into consideration and working them into your understanding of the method. How I apply them in the practices of tai ji and qi gong are very much the same. Our practice is about integration and awareness so leveraging new concepts such as these, which are really just describing a universal, timeless experience, are an important part of the process.

The first line of the Tao Te Jing states, "The dao that can be spoken is not the eternal dao, and the name that can be named is not the eternal name". From this perspective we can say, "what's in a name anyway?" and give ourselves permission to broaden are understanding of concepts as new information becomes present. It also important to remember that the early Taoists were notorious jokesters and the Chinese language with its classical writing style sometimes at odds with the common tongue is uniquely suited to expressing this concept. From a purely, orally spoken perspective, someone without the knowledge of classically written Chinese may simply hear the saying as, “The dao that we can talk about is better than nothing, so don’t get caught up in names.” Place these two interpretations at odds and they create a humorous balance that creates more space in our practice to explore and study.

Please let me know your thoughts or where you notice these concepts in our practice or other areas of our lives. I will start below.

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