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Sensing yourself
The sensing yourself exercise is very simple, but it has a tremendous effect on your nervous system and how you are feeling with your body.
Begin by bringing your hands together in front of you, and start touching one hand with another. Slowly explore your both hands (you can keep eyes closed or a soft gaze), and keep the touch very light. Slow is a keyword here, try to see how much you can feel with light and slow touch. How sensitive can your hands be? Try to forget the image of your hands from your mind, tune in like you would be exploring your hands for first time.
Slowly go ahead and in the same manner explore your full body. Feel free to change the touch sometimes to experiment with different qualities - light, stronger, slow and faster, and see how clearly you can feel your body. Can you even tickle yourself? You might get surprised!
There might be places in your body where the skin is not so sensitive, but don’t worry! Just explore and keep your senses open. When you repeat this exercise enough times, you might also start to feel difference in those places that very initially not so sensitive.
Once you have gone through your body, bring your hands together again and finish the exercise. Stay for a moment with you experience (keeping your eyes closed) to sense how your attention has shifted from the outside towards the inside.
In addition to bringing your attention to your senses and your sensing body, this exercise can feel very calming. Light touch sends the body a signal that it is safe and can let the guard down, so your sympathetic nervous system can step aside and take a rest!
Curious to learn more about interoception? Sign up for next course of Somatic Essentials!
