How to Listen to Yourself—in 7 steps
SELF-TRUST, IFS
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How to listen to yourself:
Learn interoception.
Learn how to notice your emotions, body cues and sensations, and your thoughts. Go back and notice what you were thinking when you got triggered. With time, you will learn how to notice it sooner until you can notice it in real time. You may not have language for different sensations, reactions, or internal experiences yet. That will come in step 4. For now, just hone your noticing skills.
Learn mindfulness.
Mindfulness helps you access the pause between you and your thoughts. Between you and your emotions. It gives you the pause you need to decipher them and make choices about how you want to act on them.
It also helps you notice your emotions, thoughts, and body sensations without reacting to them. And by reacting to them I mean jumping in to fix them, avoiding them, judging them, shutting them down, or walling them out. You can learn to notice without reacting.
This takes practice. It takes time to build new neural pathways that support this spaciousness. Meditation and yoga are easily accessible ways to practice mindfulness. EMDR therapy, IFS therapy, and other modalities can also help with this. Getting a Stellate Ganglion Block is another way to reset your nervous system so you have this space to think before you act. The Stellate Ganglion Block is most helpful for resetting a nervous system experiencing PTSD.
Take everything as information.
Now that you are able to notice what you think and feel, it’s time to do something with that information. Since we’re not jumping in to judge or fix it, what do we do with it? The first step is to recognize that it’s not fact, it’s information.
What your emotions tell you, what your brain and body tell you—it’s all information.
Also, the messages you receive externally are all information you can take with mindfulness. What your friends share, what authority figures say—it’s all information. The pressures you feel from society—it’s all information.
I learned this in grad school for Clinical Psychology and it revolutionized my relationship with my emotions in particular. I had been taught in my Southern Bapist church as a kid that emotions were not to be trusted. So, I learned to stuff them away. This caused anxiety and chronic tenseness in my body. It was such a relief when I learned that emotions are clues! They are clues about our experience. They are not dangerous and will not lead us astray. They are in reality part of our guidance system.
What does it mean for you to learn that all the things you hear externally and internally are information? They are information that we can sort through and decide what to do with. We don’t have to jump in and judge them, shove them aside, or react to them at all. Instead, we can learn what they mean.
Learn what the information means.
You can learn to be a detective of your own thoughts, feelings, and sensations. To notice what you are thinking and feeling, and then decode it. That’s where mental health, emotional intelligence, and body wisdom come in.
You can learn about each of these in therapy or coaching, or through resources that provide psychoeducation about each topic.
Mental Health tends to focus on our thoughts and our brains. How what we’re thinking impacts our emotions and reactions. This is the heart of CBT, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It is a great way to learn about how to change limited thinking patterns.
Emotional Intelligence is understanding what you’re feeling and what it means. I am passionate about Emotional Intelligence. I wish I had learned this as a child, and I wish all of us learned this along with reading and math. It is just as important. It troubles me that there isn’t a clear way of learning this until you’re struggling and suffering and start seeing a therapist, who helps you begin to understand these basic things about how we work as humans. I didn’t know these things until I started studying Psychology and went to therapy for myself. How about you? Have you learned about Emotional Intelligence? If so, where have you learned it?
To start learning Emotional Intelligence, try noticing what you’re feeling and use an emotion wheel to give it a name. Naming it helps you understand it just a little better.
Another important thing to know about emotions is that they are like water. They need to flow. They want to move through us, and they don’t do well when they’re blocked off. Then they could come raging in like a flood. Instead of blocking them off, we can learn to invite them in as temporary guests that have something to teach us and share with us. Feeling our emotions to some extent is the way our bodies know how to resolve and move through an experience.
With the advent of somatic therapies, we are learning more about Body Intelligence too. What the body has to tell us. For example, your body is your best radar for what’s safe. You should pay attention to your intuition and body cues when it comes to safety. That gut feeling that tells you to be cautious about someone is something to pay attention to. You can approach cautiously, rather than overriding your gut instinct.
Learn self-compassion and self-curiosity.
Self-compassion and self-curiosity are the antidotes to internal shame, guilt, and judgment. It enables you to see and support yourself, two pillars of our attachment needs. To create a safe-haven for yourself inside, rather than one racked by guilt and plagued by internal criticism. Compassion is not caregiving or rescuing. It is being present, supportive, and accepting while also allowing for autonomy and self-determination. And curiosity is not nosiness or pushing for answers. It is a respectful, interested stance that wants to understand and support.
Learn how to befriend yourself.
All of your emotions, thoughts, and body sensations are carried by parts of you. And these parts of you want the best for you, although they can try to accomplish that in unhelpful ways.
Think about a time that you said to yourself, part of me wants to do xyz, but another part of me doesn’t. That’s parts. The little personalities inside of us that are like our inner family or village. We all have parts inside of us. It’s not a disorder. It’s human nature.
Your Core Self is the main attachment figure, mediator, and leader for all of these parts. Think of yourself as the orchestra conductor leading all of the orchestra players. Or your favorite teacher in front of a classroom of students. That’s how your inner world interacts. With the compassionate, calm, clear, curious, connected, creative, courageous, confident leadership of our Core Self, we thrive.
In order for our inner world to be in harmony, we befriend each of these inner parts that make up our personality. We learn to thank them for their efforts and value them. We make sure they are unburdened and living in their desired state. That they are doing the jobs they were intended to do for us. That they don’t feel stuck, alone, or rigid. Then we help them work together as a team, to collaborate, rather than try to take care of us on their own.
If you want to learn and experience this process of befriending, sign up for my signature course Befriend Yourself.
Celebrate!
Celebrate that you know how to trust and value the information your body brings you. Celebrate that you know how to listen to yourself, value yourself, and relate to yourself now. And if you want to take the next step, learn how to trust yourself next!
Hi! If you’re new here, I am Catherine and I’m so glad you’re here. I’m a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Self-Trust Coach, Podcast Host, a mom of two, and a writer. My blog is where I share everything about Self-Trust, Neurodivergence and IFS. This is a place for play, relief, rest, repair, and renewal.
My signature group program "Befriend Yourself: An IFS Sanctuary" is open for application through August 22, and starts in September. I would love for you to join us. Meanwhile, explore my Substack writing, books, podcast, and learn 3 steps to trust yourself and about me.
