You’ve probably heard someone say “behavior is communication” before. Have you ever used your own behavior as a clue to listen to yourself? When you’re struggling to make sense of your own feelings, needs, or wants, your own behavior might give you messages that you can interpret more easily than your body sensations or your … Read more
One skill that has been really helping me in these past few weeks has been the skill of being able to describe to myself in my head, in detail, what feels bodily wrong when things feel wrong. This is a relatively new skill for me. For the majority of my life, if I felt bad, … Read more
In adulthood, I am actively working on increasing my own interoception (sense of my inner body)…on listening to my body and what it needs. More often than not, I used to ignore my body telling me that it is hungry. Or telling me that it needs to go to the bathroom. Or telling me that … Read more
I’ve written before on here about my own strategy of enjoying yelling along to music, as a means of preemptively self-regulating. Because when I’m stressed out, I have a tendency to want to yell (at my kids), so I take that need, recognise it, and preemptively meet it in a non harmful way, when I’m … Read more
When some kids come to me, they don’t know how to break outside of the school model. They aren’t sure what to explore, with the freedom to explore whatever they want. They aren’t sure what to create, given access to loads of art materials and free time and space to do it. They aren’t accustomed … Read more
As more and more parents, caregivers, and adults start undertaking the work of helping the next generation of children feel safe to express their feelings rather than repeat unhealthy habits from the past, it can be hard knowing where to begin or which way is up. Co-regulation, self-regulation, interoception, what do these words mean? What … Read more
When I was a kid, I really loved marshmallow cereal (like Lucky Charms or Marshmallow Mateys, the knockoff brand that we actually usually ate). I really wanted to pick out all the oatmeal pieces and eat them first, so that I could have a big bowl of marshmallows left at the end and try eating … Read more
I had an unusual moment recently that reminded me of a sensory feeling from my childhood that I’d completely forgotten about. For me, it was a good illustration of the way that interoception — or inner body senses — work. Your inner body sense sort of describes 2 types of internal feelings (at least the … Read more
In the infamous “Duck Cake” episode of Bluey (season 2, ep 44), it’s little sister Bingo’s birthday and she is looking through a cake book for which cake she would like to have for her birthday. She chooses a duck cake because, when she looks at it, her tail starts wagging, which she knows means … Read more
