Your 8th Sense Changes EVERYTHING: Interoception (part 1)

This season is about the evolution of you, and this episode is part one of a two part conversation with Melissa Lever from the Body Intuition Collective.

Melissa is a physiotherapist with 20 years of experience, a Pilates instructor, a clinic owner and a mum of three. Through her work she brings together the science of physiotherapy with the world of interoception, our eighth sense and our body's internal communication system.

In this episode you will learn what interoception actually is, how most of us were taught to override it from childhood, and why that override becomes unsustainable during hormonal transitions like puberty, pregnancy, postpartum and perimenopause. Melissa explains what she sees in the clinic when people push through for too long, how the vagus nerve carries most of its messages from the body up to the brain rather than the other way around, and why singing and humming are more powerful than you think.

You will also get three simple questions you can ask yourself in two minutes to start rebuilding trust with your body, no matter how busy your season is.

If you are missing a village, you are in the right place.

What You Will Learn in This Episode

What interoception is, and where it sits alongside your five senses, proprioception and vestibular processing

Why we are born with interoception and how life teaches us to override it, from classrooms to clean plate rules

The physical signs of poor interoception that show up in a physio clinic, including neck tension, lower back pain and injuries

Why all or nothing eating and rigid food rules can be an interoception issue, not a willpower issue

How hormonal transitions change the way your body signals, and why signals get louder rather than quieter

Why estrogen affects far more than reproduction, including your heart, bones, muscles, mood, brain and even your hearing

How constantly putting others first teaches your brain to only speak up at the extreme

Why eating within the first hour of waking is a message to your body that it is safe and held

The real cost of pushing through a deadline season, and how to protect yourself while you do it

The three questions that take two minutes and rebuild body trust over time

How to listen to your body without becoming hyper vigilant about every sensation

Why tracking devices can turn body awareness into another to do list

The vagus nerve explained, and why humming and singing reset your nervous system

How your regulation shapes your household, your children and your team

Why interoception directly affects decision making, and its link to gut feeling

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Cassie Davenport is an experienced and degree qualified naturopath and nutritionist, Cassie is passionate about co-creating achievable and sustainable solutions with her clients. Her approach involves combining the latest evidence based research with traditional herbal medicine methods and believes small changes can create a big impact.

The information shared in this episode is general in nature and is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not a substitute for personalised medical, nutritional or therapeutic advice. Cassie is not responsible for any actions taken based on the content of this episode. Always consult a qualified health professional before making changes to your health, diet or lifestyle. If you loved this episode, follow Cassie on Instagram HERE for more, and HERE to learn more about working with Cassie one-to-one.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

The energy of the parents reflects in the household. I want you to think of it as sending a message to your body saying, hey, I've got you. You're fed, you're safe, you're being nourished.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

So we tell our brain, no, no, I don't need food right now. And so the brain goes, okay, well, I don't need food. And it keeps on putting out those messages until you're ravenous. And suddenly that message now becomes the override. So you'll be not hungry until you're ravenous. You'll be not tired until you're absolutely exhausted.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Welcome to In with Cassie. I'm Cathy Davenport, your host, naturopath, and clinical nutritionist. This season is about the evolution of you. Today I'm joined by Melissa Lepper, the Body Intuition Collective. Melissa is a physiologist, continued experience, a Pilates instructor, a clinic owner, and a mum of three. Through her work, she brings together the science of physiotherapy with the incredible world of interoception. In today's episode, we explore what interoception actually is, why it's so important during hormonal transitions like puberty, pregnancy, pre-menopause, and how it actually influences our nervous system, our emotions, our leadership, and why learning to tune into our bodies might be one of the most powerful health tools we have. If you're missing a village, you're in the right place. Come over and join out. Let's jump into today's episode. Big welcome to Melissa. For the people that have never heard the word interception before, what actually is it?

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Yeah, so interoception is our body's internal sensing signals, and we all know it. It's our breath, our heart rate, our hunger, temperature, it's things that we know every day. We just haven't known the name interoception for it. And most of us grew up learning our five senses, so your sight, your sound, smell, taste, and touch. Then there's your sixth sense, which is proprioception, so it's knowing where your body is in space. So if you close your eyes, you're able to touch your nose with your finger, you know where your nose is. There's our seventh sense, vestibula, which is our balance and that sense of being upright and orientated. And it's the eighth sense, which is interoception, and probably the most important one of actually understanding what our body is telling us. It's knowing when to move, when to eat, when to rest, and um if we're okay to keep pushing through, if we've got that capacity, or if our body's just saying, no, no, we need to stop. So yeah, when we're regulated, we uh have a day of calm and clarity to us. When we're pushing through and overriding that internal signal, we usually are not okay and we are stressed and snappy. So it yeah, it has a big involvement in day-to-day life.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

I have so many follow-up questions just from that little bit alone. Um but first of all, I just I think I know the answer to this, but it's something that we're born with, or is it something that we can develop as well over time? It's both.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

So we're definitely born with it. Think of a baby, you know. As mothers, we've had our little babies, and when they cry, they're saying they're hungry or they've got a dirty nappy. When they settle because they're getting that cuddle, they know they're getting nurtured and safe. So babies are definitely born with it. However, with life, we start to override it. So things like when you're in a classroom, kids are told to sit still when they might need to move. We're told to sit down and have a meal because it's dinner time, but we might actually not be hungry. Or, you know, if we're born up in the uh 1980s, it was like you will eat every meal and finish everything on your plate, even though we might be saying, My stomach is actually telling me I'm full. And so we've been taught from quite an early age, you know, to override these signals. And then unfortunately, it gets worse in adulthood when life is busy and we've got that push-through culture of just keep being productive, keep getting it done, no matter how tired you are, how burnt out you might be, we've just got to keep going. So we can actually train this system and tell ourselves, no, no, what is my body telling me? What do I need right now? And yeah, stopping to listen to it.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

I love that that it can be reinstated because I definitely think I've done some overriding in my time. What are some of the signs that somebody might have poor, and am I saying this right, interoception? Yes, interoception. Interoception. Okay. So what are some of the signs that somebody might have poor interoception?

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Well, I'm a physio, so I unfortunately see it quite a lot in my clinic, and that's where I've come into doing body intuition collective is teaching people how to listen to their body. So, what uh as a physio I see is usually neck tension and lower back pain. Um, so things as simple as people at the gym have been lifting too heavy, have strained their back. But the problem was they didn't listen to their body to tell them, hey, that weight is too heavy. Or again, fatigue, where they just are insistent on running for mental health, but their body is at fatigue and they aren't concentrating, roll their ankle because they didn't see that pothole. It just minds off with the fairy. So, you know, you're seeing it all the time in the clinic. Uh, those women and men who are high achieving corporate life sitting at their computer for hours and hours, getting that neck tension, getting the headaches, and yet constantly pushing through to the point where they then need to see me. And they're like, why is this so bad? And I said, It's because it's been trying to tell you I'm tense, you're overloaded, and you're not listening to your body. So it definitely is those physical presentations of you haven't been listening to me, I now have to shout at you and tell you to stop, see a physio.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Wow. I find that so fascinating because I guess it from my perspective as well, and it's definitely more around food and nutrition. I definitely see people come in with an all or nothing mentality, like there's no gray area, so it's like they're either on and they're eating. I'm using um bunny E quotation marks, like I'm eating really clean, or I'm eating really high protein and uh and you know, you're three veg, which I tend to like generally, but it's when it's super strict and rigid and there's no wriggle room, or they're having cheat days where these massive blowouts and I guess to a degree, I don't know if you've done any sort of sport or anything like that. It's almost like you've been trained that way. I was just lifting weights in the gym last Friday, and I I stopped because I was like, oh, something just flicked over my knee, like that hurt. And my trainer, she was like, Stop. She was like, That's your body telling you too much. She was like, We're stopping. And I was like, No, no, no, no, I can keep going. Like, I'm fine. Like it was just a little flicker, like it didn't even really hurt. I just noticed it. She was like, you need to stop. That is your body telling you. She's like, we're doing something else.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

I was like, and I think for many of us, we're very high achieving, overproductive, and that's what society has taught us to do to everything that we do make sure it's productive. So with food, let's hit our protein, let's hit our fibre, three veg, all of that. And then it gets to a point where it's not sustainable. And so it might be suddenly those binge days of you know not eating clean and having a shocking blowout. Or for me, it's the extreme back pain where your body has just shouted at you, this pushing through is not sustainable anymore. And I think we need to address that and say, Well, hang on, how can I get to understand my body before it gets there? You know, maybe that niggle of the knee is my body saying, Hang on, you've been doing a lot of squats, or you know, you're fatigued, or you know, you haven't stretched out enough. So let's readdress it. And obviously, your trainer did the right thing and said, Let's move on to something else.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

So training that she's very big on listening to your body. So she was like right onto it. She was like, Tell me, tell me what's happening. I'm like, No, I'm fine. Um so essentially it's the body's internal communication system. And if that's the case, I guess it does make sense as well that when our bodies change, the messages can change. So I'm just now thinking of women who are moving through hormonal transitions throughout their lifetime, whether that be, you know, puberty, pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, menopause. How do these hormonal transitions affect how we connect to our bodies?

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Yeah, absolutely. Well, hormones and estrogen and teroception are so closely intertwined. So when you're seeing those fluctuations as you do in puberty, in pregnancy, in perimenopause, the body is sometimes more difficult to listen to. So the signals that used to work will uh maybe become louder, or our um, I guess, nervous system regulation to that, we might normally be tolerant of it and we're not, and so we become more sensitive. And I think for a lot of women, I'm saying, you know, it's not that your body is failing, it's not that you're um broken, it really is that signals are becoming louder through perimenopause, they're not as easy to read, and so we just need to retrain it a little bit. And, you know, I think that push-through that might have been sustainable in our 20s and 30s, that override is no longer um sustainable in this age, and so we need to look at what new tools we can use, you know, is it um having rest? And I think again, for these women who are used to being so productive, rest and recovery is probably seen as something that's not necessary or again possibly a failure. And it's like, no, no, our body always needs this, you know. When you're training as athletes, you need to have your rest days. Um, it's all about listening to what your body needs, and I think when you're going through those hormonal transitions, it it does change, you know. As a mother, you've changed your identity, you're suddenly caring for your baby, and that's where your awareness goes rather than your own awareness. It's what's this little child need? And, you know, that's when I think you put yourself second because it's they need food. Oh, I don't have time to feed myself, I've got to feed my baby. So there is a lot of changes where we're pushing our interoceptive skills on the back burner to pay attention to others.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Yes, I think I have this conversation so often in clinic in terms of I didn't get to feel what I needed to feel because I was scaffolding, you know, emotionally for my five-year-old or whatever that looks like. But similarly to, you know, a newborn, if they're crying and they need to be fed, everything else for us gets put on the back burner. So do you think if we consistently and constantly do that, is it possible to then lose trust, I guess, in your body?

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Yeah, absolutely, because we are telling it we're not hungry. So the brain says, Oh, you've got hunger, so you need food, and we ignore it because we've either got our baby to to feed, to settle, we've got our five-year-old child who's having their regulation issues, and so we're calming them down. And so we tell our brain, no, no, I don't need food right now. And so the brain goes, Okay, well, I don't need food, and it keeps on putting out those messages until it point gets to the point where you're ravenous, and suddenly that message now becomes the override. So you'll be not hungry until you're ravenous, you'll be not tired until you're absolutely exhausted or depleted. So you've constantly taught your brain, do not ignore these messages, but I will listen to you when you're at your extreme. And so that's where we need to re-educate and train this skill of interoception of hang on, when I am hungry, yes, I might not have time to have a full meal, but maybe a banana, something quick and easy that I can sit and eat with my child, or you know, it's just finding those moments where you actually listen to what your body is telling you.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

I love that message. I often, because I'm big on women eating within that first hour of waking for cortisol and all of the things, but also just feeding their body. And I usually say to women, it's less about it being a meal, and I want you to think of it as sending a message to your body saying, Hey, I've got you. Yeah. You're fed, you're safe, you're being nourished. Yeah. So I was like, I don't want you to think about it as a meal. If you can get a banana and six cashews in or half a scoop of protein, whatever it looks like, it's less about it actually being a meal and more about it being a message to your body to know that it's held.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

And that supports your interoception skills, telling it, okay, like you said, you're held, you're safe, let's do this.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

And yeah, it's fantastic. How do we retune in to that system if it's something that we have put on the back burner? And I guess there might be some people who are listening in, this is like a two-part question now, who are saying, Well, I've got a deadline and I need to make it, and so I just need to push through for this next four weeks and the next six weeks. What would you say the cost of that is? And then is that something that you're able to do for a short period of time and then rebuild trust?

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Absolutely. So the cost is can be expensive, you know. Like that's where I see them in the clinic. That's where you might see your clients as well, where they're just having these uh gut issues if they're not new and nourishing their body with good food. And so the cost of pushing through is seeing health professionals because you are not at that point of breakdown, burnout, physical pain, gut issues because you've ignored it. And deadlines are important, you know, you can't push them off sometimes. And the good news is you don't need to spend half an hour, an hour of meditating or of breath work. It can be as simple as a couple of minutes. And what it is is pausing, asking yourself three questions what am I physically feeling right now? What um where am I holding that tension? And then what does my body need in this moment? So there are three really questions, yeah, which it doesn't take long, but it's giving your brain permission to listen to what your body is saying. And it's not to fix it, it's not to change it, it's just to listen. And it won't happen overnight, won't happen a couple of days. It does take weeks, and it's remembering to ask yourself those questions. But by giving yourself permission to listen, you will then be more open to spending further time of I need to walk in nature, I need to connect with my family, I need to actually rest and recover and give yourself what your body is needing.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

I love that so much. I think that is such a useful tool for so many people in so many different transitional periods because for many reasons, but depending on whether it be perimenopause or motherhood or even menopause, and I'm sure like I know I felt this myself as a teenager going through puberty of you go through these seasons of a transition and you don't really feel like yourself anymore. Like you're you, but you're it's everything's different. It's like the rug has been pulled out for some extent. And so being able to ask yourself those three questions to reconnect with who you are now, I think is so incredibly powerful because the flip side of what I see is people falling back on what used to work for me. And I think there can be a huge cost in that, particularly when we're looking around like hormones and food and eating and how you used to train. And I often say this how you trained as a 20-year-old can't be how you train as a 30-year-old or a 40-year-old, like you have such different needs at that time. And so I guess can the hormones change the way we interpret those body signals?

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Absolutely. So perimenopause is probably the one that I'm seeing now, obviously, with the life stage, my friends, and all my now growing out of that to real motherhood time. But even back in motherhood, you know, it's that change in identity that you've always been this individual, a career woman, a partner, a friend. And for the first time in your life, you're becoming a mother, and there's no manual on that. And you've got this massive fluctuation in your hormones, you're suddenly responsible for this newborn, and you do lose yourself. And then think of perimenopause, where it's not the decline of hormones cost causing the change, it's the fluctuation where our body is so good at adapting to stable states, it's when it's fluctuating and all over the place that suddenly our hormones mean that we're not actually able to listen to those signals very well. Um, they might become louder because you're not listening to them. And I guess our resilience is not as good as it was. So, what we used to tolerate is um we're much more sensitive to it. You know, I think there's a lot of women out there who can't stand the sound of their kids or their husbands eating. I do catch myself like, please eat quieter. Um, and so we are much more sensitive. And you know, something I learnt was that we've got estrogen receptors in our ears, and so when our estrogen is fluctuating, our ears are much more sensitive to noise. And so these hormones are everywhere in our body. I think we're traditionally thought of them being just our reproductive hormones, but they're for estrogen is in our heart, it keeps our bones healthy, our muscles healthy, our mood, our brain, our cognition, everything. And so you can see how if they're fluctuating, it's going to affect all of our systems. And suddenly, as you say, we might not trust our body anymore because it's it's not behaving the way it has traditionally. And so it's about stopping and listening to this new message and working out how we can help to regulate that.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

It's such an important message because one thing I do hear so much from women is I don't even know what I need anymore.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

And that feels like this conversation in terms of okay, how do we figure that out? Let's start with these three questions. Um I guess another question I have for you is how do we know when we're listening to our bodies versus when the fear of anxiety, I guess, is driving the bus.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Yeah, and I guess with the hormonal transition of perimenopause, there is that anxiety that stems. And so why that is is progesterone tends to decline sooner than oestrogen, and that's what helps to settle our nervous system, um, helps to support us in sleep. And you can imagine if you're not sleeping well, your mood is going to be affected. And so it is about um understanding firstly what the hormonal transitions are. I think you need to understand how everything is connected because you know, I think everyone just looks at their cycle and goes, Oh, that's what's changing, but it's your brain that's changing, it's your muscles that are changing, and hence why protein is so important. And so it is to think, okay, well, is the context, is there something to be anxious about, and what do I need to look at in this state of my life? Or could this be my hormones influencing the state of where I'm at? And maybe there is something that's on my mind, and so how do I process what's going on in my mind and what is my body telling me that I need? Does it need rest? Does it need to just acknowledge what's what's on my mind? Does it need to be witnessed in terms of someone um addressing also what the issues are? So it's it is definitely learning to differentiate between those hormonal, the context, and what your body is asking for.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

I guess my big question that I have around that then is I definitely see a lot of anxiety, as you said, come up in all of those hormonal transitions. But how do we become better listeners without becoming hyper-focused on every sensation?

SPEAKER_02 20:40

And I think that's big that you know, we've all got our tracking devices with the smartwatches and the rings and things like that. And I think again, sometimes when you're high achieving, you are all about checklists and monitoring everything and hyper-vigilant. You're actually not listening, you're just doing a to-do list again. You're saying, Where's my body? And you're not saying, Well, what does my body need? So it definitely is to be aware but not hyper-vigilant, obsessive about what it's telling you. Um, it's to pause and use breath. Breath can be so powerful in the moment that you know, sometimes the anxiety is not warranted, and we're over-exaggerating a situation, and just to calm your breathing down helps you to settle your body, tell it that it's safe, and then look at the situation again and think, okay, maybe it's not as big an issue as I thought it would be. You know, I've got a bit of a commute to work, and so traffic makes me quite anxious. And two things I find. I'm in that boat. Yeah. Two things I find really helpful is breath work and music. So when I'm in traffic, thinking, Am I gonna get to work on time? Obviously, as a physio, you've got your clinic hours where you need to be at a patient appointment, same as you. I know I Can't change the traffic. I know I will get there in time, and I will use breath work. So I'll do either paste breathing, box breathing, and I'll put on some good tunes because again, that nervous system regulation for me, having music to like get me upbeat without anxious is really powerful. So in my coursework and in the retreats I run, it's giving women all the tools and for them to discover what helps for them. So, you know, the good thing is there's such a massive toolkit of regulatory um skills that we can use, and not everyone will work for everyone. I had a girlfriend, I ran a retreat on the weekend, and one of my girlfriends was like, Love the breastwork, but really struggle. And my mind was everywhere. But she said, the minute I did Pilates, I could focus on my movement and I didn't think of anything else. So we know what our um I guess our skills are and where we're not so good at. And so it's finding what works for each of us to reset our nervous system, to bring us back to calm. Because life will never be calm all the time, but it's working out how to return to it by building that resilience, finding those tools that we can tap into whenever we need to.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

And I guess I just want to echo that message because I don't know if you see this often, but I definitely see it as women quite a lot, is people will come in and say, Hey, I am having this smoothie because my friend started having it and she saw it somewhere, and she thinks it's really great, and she's lost two kilos. So I've started having it for breakfast, even though I guess they're hungry an hour after they've drunk it, or they don't really like the taste of it, or they don't want a smoothie. They prefer eggs in the morning. And I think that's such an important message of finding out what actually really works for you, and it's going to be different for everyone. There's no one size fits all, and what works for somebody might not necessarily work for the next person, and that's okay. We're built like that, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:59

And I think that's what you would see a lot in your clinic, and definitely with physio, you know, there's um recommended treatment for each of you know back pain, neck pain. But if we taught treated everyone the same, no one would get better because no one is responding to a recipe. We really need to find out for each individual what's causing their pain, what exercise is going to be the most beneficial for that patient. And that's where it's transitioned into what I do with Body Intuition Collective is there's a million tools. Here they are, but let's really tailor them for you that you might find connection with your friends is what resets your nervous system, that you just need to have that phone call on the way home from work, a walk in nature with your girlfriend, whatever it might be. Or for some people, it is that breath work that they just find that resets them so well. So it's just um teaching each individual, these are the tools you can use, but let's work together to find what actually works for you.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

I love that. Do you have like a very broad, I know I've just said every everything's different for everyone, but do you have a broad, like possibly top five simple ways that women could try and reconnect with their body throughout the day? If they're like, okay, I've got five minutes between the meetings, like what's something that they could quickly grab or tap into?

SPEAKER_02 25:18

Well, being a physio, movement. I love movement. So it's good, isn't it? Yeah. And you know, movement can look different for everyone. Sometimes it's shaking it out, you know, just getting rid of any of that tension, or you may have been sitting at your desk for a while. So you literally need to get rid of that restlessness. For some people, it's reconnecting with nature, and so it's using the walk and five minutes outside. Again, it doesn't need to be long. As you say, what are those quick little things we can do? Breath, you know, three deep breaths, just letting it all go. You might be holding your tension because you're working at your computer, so take that big breath in, and as you breathe out, just allow those shoulders to relax, to reset. And that can be amazing in terms of how to then go into your next meeting or your next set of work. So movement, breath work. I quite like music. I find music can really reset our nervous system.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

So I'm right there with you. I love music, and I'm a terrible singer. I have no pitch, I'm awful, and I will be singing at the top of my lungs.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Well, interestingly, so where interoception comes from is our vagus nerve, which runs from our brain down to our gut. Yes. 80% of the messages are actually coming from our body to our brain. So it's not the brain telling the body how to operate, it's the body telling the brain how to respond. Respond. In our gut, we're hungry. If it's in our heart, our heart is racing, are we anxious? But the vagus nerve goes through your voice box, and that's why singing is so powerful. So it's not to music. It's actually humming, singing. You can breathe, and as you breathe out, you can let a little hmm hum through the vagus nerve. But yeah, it's voice and singing is so powerful for resetting the vagus nerve and bringing us back to calm.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

I love that. I remember I used to hum Silent Night because it was the only song I could think of when my firstborn was born. It was like all of the Christmas cables, and I'd be like, just a nice calm song, and I'd forget the words. I'd be like, mmm, mmm.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

But it was probably something for you and them as well, wasn't it? Like just that music. And I think music for different situations. Like I say, when I'm in the cartel work, I like more of an upbeat. But sometimes if I'm feeling a little bit stressed and anxious, I'll go actually for calmer, uh, you know, instrumental music, just to bring myself to say I'm safe. I don't have to be stressed about this situation. So it's amazing how powerful music, and we've got a memory of it. I'm sure your child will remember Silent Night for the rest of their life.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Hopefully, not my tone of it, though. Um something that has really interested me is that we've talked about a lot of this being, you know, women who are I well, I think all women are high achievers anyway. Like we're juggling all of the balls and we've got all of the checklists, we're running households and working and managing children and doing all of the things. And so something that really fascinated me about this conversation is how this extends, I guess, beyond health and into leadership, even if it's around our children and how we can, I guess, demonstrate for them how to tap back into their own bodies. So, how would you say that this influences, I guess, the way we lead and parent?

SPEAKER_02 28:39

Yeah, uh massively, absolutely massively. So I guess, and we can see from very early age when we're mothers to these little newborns that they respond to our energy. If we're stressed, that baby can is so in tune to how we're feeling. And then in, you know, those toddler years and early primary school, that the energy of the parents reflects in the household. And so if we're racing out the door to get ready for school, the kids are also more stressed because you're like, hurry up, we gotta get these shoes on and they're like, oh. Whereas if we're calm, like, guys, you know, we are running a bit behind, but let's just quickly like slowly gather gather your shoes, I can help you. If we address it calmly, they respond to that calm and they're not running around back and forth not being effective. They can go, okay, I need to do this task. Once that's done, I can move on to the next one. But also incorporate in leadership, you know, I think teams respond to how their leader is. And so if the leader is demonstrating burnout and stress, the team responds to that and sees it. Whereas if a leader is, I'm connected and in tune with what I'm feeling, and I we're struggling as a team because we have got this deadline. But guys, let's step out of the office and just have an hour of lunch together to reconnect, to calm ourselves down. We know that afternoon is going to be so much more productive than if everyone had sat at their desk continuing to eat and just pushing through. So I think the more in tune we are as adults, as leaders, as parents, the people around us can be much better in tune with their bodies, but also I guess have a better culture within the household, within the workplace of you know, listening to our bodies and responding appropriately to what their needs are.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

I love that. And do you think it affects also uh decision making?

SPEAKER_02 30:34

Absolutely. Absolutely. When you're not listening to your body, you can't think clearly. You know, if you're stressed, your decisions are going to be very different to if you are um regulated and calm. You'll be able to um look at all the possibilities and assess them appropriately versus just this feeling of overwhelm and I don't know which you'll just start to doubt it. You go, I don't know what's right. And I think that's where interoception is something we do inherently know, and it's commonly known as your gut feeling. Um think of it in your 20s when you're walking home at night time, you know, you didn't see anything off, but you just felt like I need to get out of this, whatever environment you're in, I need to be safe. And then, you know, having a conversation that you know is going to be difficult, but you know you need to have it, and you get those kind of anxious feelings, but you kind of go, no, no, this is the important thing to do. And most importantly, that decision, which may look good on paper, but your gut is telling you this is not the right decision. So the more in tune we are with what we're our body is telling us, the healthier decisions we can make.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

Changing gears now, because I I love that answer, and I think that there's so much that people will be able to take away from this conversation. But something that I wanted to touch on as well is that we know that so many, I guess, neurodivergent people experience the world differently. And can that interoception look differently with somebody who has, say, like ADHD or autism? Or is it just that their internal signals are potentially louder, quieter, delayed, or interrupted, I guess? I'm just sliding in to wrap up part one of my conversation with Mel. As you can hear, we're about to go into more depth surrounding the interoception, particularly for those with neurodivergence and much more. In part two of the conversation, we cover the connection between emotions, feelings, and physicality, how to interpret and understand what's really going on. We go into parenting energetic kids meeting needs and practical guidance you can start using straight away. Part two will be live for you next Tuesday, so make sure you've pressed follow and subscribe because you don't want to miss the next half of our chat. If there is a friend or someone you know who you think would benefit from this conversation, please forward this episode. It helps us immensely get the message out. If you have a topic that you'd like to talk to me about, head over to my Instagram, slide into my DMs, it's Cassie Davenboor underscore in I N. If this lands for you and you feel like you're in a tricky season and you would like some extra support, you don't have to figure this all out on your own. I offer one-on-one consults, mail me for a free discovery call to make sure that I am the right fit for you. If you would like to get in touch with Mel, all of her details and information will be in the show notes. In case nobody has told you today, the body tends to whisper before it screams. Listening in early is an act of self care. The more you tune in, the better you can respond to what you truly need.