Devon Hornby LMT
“The most precious thing we can offer another person—or ourselves—is our presence.”
One of the most common questions I hear in clinical practice is remarkably simple.
“What does this mean?”
Someone notices tightness in their chest.
A heaviness in their stomach.
An ache in their neck.
An emotion they can’t quite explain.
Naturally, they want to understand it.
So they begin searching.
Perhaps it’s childhood trauma.
Perhaps it’s repressed anger.
Perhaps it’s stress.
Perhaps it’s something deeper.
Our minds are remarkably skilled at creating explanations.
Sometimes those explanations are insightful.
Sometimes they’re even accurate.
But over the years I’ve become increasingly interested in a different question.
What happens if we don’t explain our experience quite so quickly?
The Habit of Interpretation
Human beings are storytellers.
Stories help us make sense of our lives.
They organize memory.
Create meaning.
Allow us to communicate with one another.
There is great beauty in that.
But stories also have a shadow.
They can become so immediate that they replace direct experience.
Before we’ve fully felt the tension in our shoulders, we’ve already decided why it’s there.
Before we’ve listened to the sadness in our chest, we’ve explained it.
And sometimes our stories do something even more troubling.
They can keep us trapped in the very moment we long to leave.
A painful memory may be replayed again and again.
The same fear.
The same shame.
The same helplessness.
The same tightening in the body.
Without any discernible way through the experience, we may find ourselves reliving it rather than truly meeting it.
This is one of the reasons I believe our stories can sometimes retraumatize us.
Not because story itself is the problem.
But because when we repeatedly return to an experience without moving through it, we may continue to reactivate the wound instead of allowing it to complete.
Experience has taught me that if we do not move through an experience or memory, we will continue to relive it.
This understanding is powerfully supported by the groundbreaking work of Peter Levine, whose observations in trauma healing have helped many of us recognize that the body often needs a pathway through experience, not merely an explanation of it.
The explanation may be correct.
Or it may quietly prevent us from discovering something far richer.
Experience Comes Before Explanation
One of the great gifts of phenomenology—the philosophical tradition explored by Maurice Merleau-Ponty—is the invitation to return to experience before our concepts about experience.
This same movement appears throughout contemplative traditions.
In mindfulness practice, we are invited to observe thoughts without becoming entangled in them.
In Taoism, we learn not to impose ourselves upon the natural unfolding of life.
In Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, practitioners are taught to orient toward Health with receptive awareness, allowing the tissues to reveal their own story rather than imposing one upon them.
Although these traditions differ in language and purpose, they share a common discipline:
Listen first.
Interpret later.
Sometimes much later.
And when trauma is present, this discipline becomes even more important.
Because if we rush too quickly into meaning, we may bypass the very process that allows the organism to complete what was interrupted.
The Wisdom of Sensation
Our bodies are constantly communicating.
Not in sentences.
Not in explanations.
But through sensation.
Pressure.
Warmth.
Coolness.
Movement.
Stillness.
Pulsation.
Density.
Expansion.
Contraction.
These experiences are often subtle.
Yet they form the language through which the organism continually expresses itself.
The invitation is not to decode them.
It is to become intimate with them.
Just as we would never interrupt a dear friend before they had finished speaking, perhaps we need not interrupt the body with premature conclusions.
And perhaps we need not keep returning to the same painful story as though repetition alone will somehow resolve it.
Sometimes what is needed is not more analysis.
Sometimes what is needed is a way through.
An Experiment in Listening
Choose one area of your body that calls for your attention.
Not necessarily where the pain is greatest.
Simply somewhere that feels present today.
Perhaps your jaw.
Your throat.
Your chest.
Your abdomen.
Your lower back.
Rest your attention there.
There is no need to change anything.
No need to relax.
No need to breathe differently.
Simply accompany the sensation.
Notice its qualities.
Is it sharp or diffuse?
Heavy or light?
Warm or cool?
Does it move?
Does it remain still?
Can you become curious without needing an explanation?
As thoughts arise…
“This must be because…”
Gently acknowledge them.
Then return to direct experience.
Again and again.
You may discover something surprising.
When explanation relaxes, perception often deepens.
And when perception deepens, something in us may begin to move.
Not away from the experience.
But through it.
Interoception: Learning the Language of the Body
Contemporary neuroscience has given us a word for our ability to perceive the internal state of the body: interoception.
Researchers increasingly recognize that this capacity plays a central role in emotional regulation, decision-making, and our sense of self.
The more clearly we perceive the subtle signals arising within us, the more skillfully we are able to respond to life’s changing conditions.
Yet interoception is not simply the accumulation of information.
It is the cultivation of relationship.
Like any meaningful relationship, it deepens through patient attention rather than force.
And in the context of trauma, this patient attention may be what allows an experience to finally move through rather than remain frozen in repetition.
What I’ve Observed in Practice
Over the past three decades, I’ve watched something remarkable happen.
A client begins describing a painful sensation.
Almost immediately, they begin explaining it.
Then, together, we return to the sensation itself.
The story gradually becomes quieter.
The body begins speaking more clearly.
Sometimes the sensation changes.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
Sometimes an unexpected memory arises.
Sometimes there is simply a deep sigh.
Sometimes there are tears with no obvious reason.
Sometimes there is trembling.
Sometimes warmth.
Sometimes a sense of spaciousness where there was once constriction.
None of these outcomes are the goal.
The goal is presence.
Again and again, I’ve found that the organism seems to possess its own rhythm of revelation.
It rarely appreciates being hurried.
And it rarely benefits from being trapped in the same story over and over again.
When we stay with sensation long enough, something often begins to organize itself.
Not because we force it.
But because we finally allow it to move.
The Difference Between Story and Wisdom
Stories are valuable.
They help us understand our lives.
Wisdom is different.
Wisdom often arrives before language.
As a subtle shift.
A feeling of relief.
A quiet knowing.
An unexpected sense of direction.
These moments rarely announce themselves with certainty.
More often, they emerge because we remained present long enough for them to appear.
Perhaps the deepest listening is not the search for answers.
Perhaps it is the willingness to accompany experience without asking it to become something else.
Perhaps it is the courage to let a memory move through us rather than relive it endlessly.
Looking Ahead
Throughout this series, we’ve been learning to perceive more deeply.
In our next article, we’ll take one final step.
We’ll explore how this growing capacity for embodied knowing begins to transform our understanding of ourselves—not as isolated individuals, but as expressions of an intricate web of relationships that extends through our bodies, our histories, one another, and the living world itself.
Further Exploration
Contemplative Traditions
- Buddhist mindfulness practices emphasizing direct observation before conceptual elaboration.
- Taoist writings on effortless awareness and natural unfolding.
Philosophy
- Maurice Merleau-Ponty — Phenomenology of Perception
- Eugene Gendlin — Focusing
Neuroscience
- A. D. (Bud) Craig — research on interoception.
- Sarah Garfinkel — interoception and emotional awareness.
- Antonio Damasio — The Feeling of What Happens
Clinical Perspectives
- Franklyn Sills — Craniosacral Biodynamics
- Anna Chitty — teachings on perceptual skills and orienting toward Health.
- Peter Levine — pioneering work on trauma, somatic experiencing, and the importance of moving through experience rather than remaining trapped in it.