#4: Neuroception
Today I want to talk to you about neuroception. 🧠
Neuroception refers to the process by which the nervous system detects and responds to that may signal safety or threat. It involves the detection of subtle sensory information, such as facial expressions, vocal tone, and body language, that may indicate the presence of danger or safety. Neuroception operates largely outside of our conscious awareness, and is thought to play a critical role in shaping our physiological and emotional responses to the world around us.
I think of neuroception as a combination of “neural” + “perception,” your brain and body's mechanism for subconscious threat detection to decide if the world is safe. It doesn’t get considered nearly as often as it could be when it comes to activism. Especially in America, where I live, few people understand how the way we see the world is shaped by how our minds and bodies are shaped and reshaped through life. The implications for leadership, activism, and health are tremendous.
Understanding the Body and Brain
Why Activists Need This Idea
Activists need to know more about the body and brain. Very often, activists get very fixated on select issues without recognizing the role of their nervous system in how they interpret events. As a result, they may act unskillfully and work against their own cause.
One of the big mistakes that people make, especially people who have suffered a great deal of dysregulation or trauma, is not recognizing what they can do to center and care for their own nervous systems in their process of advocating for a better world. If that isn't properly attended to, people in these positions often end up making others responsible for their feelings or doing harm—as a supposed activist!
Another challenge that leaders and activists often run into is that they often don't recognize how the body and nervous system function as a whole when dealing with others. By not recognizing how energy moves through the body and brain and consequently, into the spaces and conversations we find ourselves in, people often get themselves into more trouble than is necessary, causing their agendas to backfire.
How Neuroception and Trauma Connect
There are many things that make up an individual’s neuroception, and while there are common patterns in terms of how we process what’s safe and what’s not, the variation among us can be considerable when it comes to neuroception. Trauma in particular can impact how we process events, and sometimes there’s hereditary variation too.
I love the way Dr. Hillary McBride, a therapist and psychologist based in Vancouver, talks about neuroception:
Neuroception is the somatic kind of knowing that’s happening when we walk into a room, or have some sensory experience, and feel afraid and unsafe before we even know why cognitively. Our body remembers what we have been through, and reminds us when we have unfinished business.
I also recommend Hillary's work in general, particularly if you're interested in feminism, embodiment, psychology, and spirituality.
The Takeaway
The body creates defenses to protect us, sometimes long after the danger is over. So what can we do about it? Healing is often a long journey, but here’s a start:
Take an inventory of your response patterns. Is there anything that makes you feel unsafe? A noise may feel triggering to one person, while a certain kind of speech may feel threatening to others.
Once you’ve identified some key triggers, you might ask: what can I do about that? Consider whether you need to change the situation or try and change your interpretation of that situation.
Start to see if you can identify how other people move through their own interpretations. Knowing that about them, how might that change how you choose to interact?
Here we’re talking about the world of interpretation and how your body processes certain signals and information. If you’re in danger or struggling with mental illness, please seek support from a licensed therapist or counselor who can support your immediate needs.
Sometimes it’s a long journey to get back parts of ourselves that were locked away to help us adapt and survive. But even knowing that our brain and body interpret things in a certain way based on past experiences and that we can participate in creating new interpretations of events can be tremendously helpful for beginning the path to healing and restorative leadership at last.
News and Resources
One of my favorite books on neuroception is How Emotions Are Made† by neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett. She talks about how we often participate in our own experience of the world and goes deep into the neuroscience to demonstrate how it works.
I know neuroception can sound very theoretical, but it is very real. If you want to read some stories of clients I’ve worked with on this specifically, you can go here and here. There is a lot of power in knowing how to identify and feel the emotions in our bodies and allowing our experience of the body to help us begin to heal.
Finally, here are some offerings, essays, and tweets you might like:
My intro lecture on Eris, Sacred Rage, is available for purchase! Those who have taken it have enjoyed the context it provides for 21st-century evolution and social change and the validation it has given them for the rage they've felt about our world's injustices.
The course pairs nicely with an essay I wrote about presidential candidate Marianne Williamson and how the Eris archetype expresses through her leadership. The essay has been read by over 2,000 people, so if you’re interested in activism or a new beginning for American politics, you might want to take a look.
I tweeted about why peace sounds boring to people caught in unnecessary conflicts, and why peace actually feels really good.
I also talked about the politics of how we view nature, either as a commodity or as a relational process. To save the earth, we must shift to the latter paradigm, but there are more people in the first group than you may think. Lots of people resonated with this one.
That’s all for now! Did anything stand out to you? If so, I'd love to hear from you. Otherwise, see you in the next issue.
To health,
Rayner
This post contains affiliate links. On How Emotions Are Made: This is a great book on the intersection of neuroscience and emotion. If you purchase from Bookshop.org, a certified B Corporation that supports independent bookstores, I make a small 10% commission. If you purchase it, I appreciate it!
