Felt Sense Vocabulary
During our session we work with tuning into the body often. This means FEELING - SENSING - NOTICING what the body is doing.
Many people have learned to “tune out” or go numb to their bodies sensations, but we all have them and it takes time to become attuned to the “felt sense” of our bodies. The body has an intelligence and wisdom that is vital to the healing and transformational processes.
This vocabulary list will help you have words for what you feel, sense or notice as we travel on this coaching journey. These are descriptive words that can be used when I ask, “what are you feeling in your body and where do you feel it".
Being able to describe what we feel is an important part of making sense of our experiences. To do this we need to have the vocabulary to do so. Having the words to describe our sensations is not that common; in fact it is something that a lot of us learn in adulthood. Understanding and communicating our experience is a foundational component of healing and building resiliency. Just like how learning emotional vocabulary is important for emotional intelligence, so too is having a diverse somatic vocabulary to describe our felt sense.
Achy
Bloated
Breathless
Brittle
Bruised
Bubbly
Burning
Buzzy
Calm
Clenched
Cold
Cool
Damp
Dense
Dizzy
Dry
Dull
Electric
Energized
Flaccid
Flushed
Free
Frozen
Full
Fuzzy
Heavy
Hollow
Hot
Icy
Itchy
Jittery
Jumpy
Knotted
Light
Nauseous
Numb
Open
Pounding
Pressure
Prickly
Puffy
Pulsing
Queasy
Quivery
Radiating
Raw
Releasing
Shaky
Sharp
Smooth
Sore
Spacious
Spinning
Sweaty
Tender
Tense
Throbbing
Tight
Tingling
Trembling
Twitchy
Warm
Wobbly
Finding Words
“Through the healing process I support clients in turning towards their bodies to process, to feel, to gain clarity, to release, and revivify. Initially this can be complicated by a nervous system that is more often than not in a state of dysregulation. In addition, we may have little capacity to describe what we are experiencing in our bodies. This can be confusing and lead to exacerbated hypervigilance and immobilization symptoms. This makes it hard for us to decipher between real threats and perceived threats.
Why is a felt sense vocabulary important?
It helps us build a skill called interoception which is our ability to listen to and understand our internal cues. On a basic level it tells us that we are hungry or need to go to the bathroom and on a more fine-tuned level, interoception informs our perceptions and evaluation of people and situations. Combined with the information we take in from our external environment (exteroception) it helps us accurately measure our sense of safety or threat, known as neuroception.
Having a better sense of self is supported by understanding our internal sensations and this is a skill I assist clients in developing in part through language.”
-Words of a fellow VITA Coach