As innovators, the word empathy has been thrown around a lot in recent years. We are taught to engage with people to understand their thoughts, values, and feelings. This is incredibly valuable, but we often forget to consider ourselves.

Our own feelings, what’s alive inside of us, distort how we perceive external stimuli. To truly empathize with others, we must first recognize their emotions—but to do that, we need to recognize and understand our own.

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In order to uncover someone else's needs and desires, we first need to understand ours. This allows us to objectify our feelings and reduce bias. Self-awareness is key to empathetic understanding, though it takes time and effort to develop.

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Interoception: The Key to Self-Awareness

Luckily, our bodies have a sense that we rarely talk about, but it’s incredibly useful when trying to understand how we feel. As humans, we have eight senses, not just five.

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One of those senses is interoception. Kehlly Mahler, a therapist, explains that interoception is the ability to sense the internal condition of our body—how we’re feeling inside. This sense helps us experience sensations like hunger, thirst, pain, body temperature, and even emotions like anxiety or relaxation.

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When we become aware of these sensations, we can better identify and regulate our emotional states. For example, if you walk out of a store and see a dent in your car without a note, you might feel your muscles tense, your fists clench, your heart race, and your face flush. These physical sensations are the body’s way of signaling anger.

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Interoception, at its core, helps us answer the question, “How do I feel?” in any given moment. And by recognizing these signals, we are prompted to take actions to satisfy our emotional needs.

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The Link Between Interoception and Empathy

Research shows that the better we can read our own physical signals, the better we are at identifying and regulating our emotions. This skill directly impacts our ability to accurately read others’ physical and emotional cues.

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Non-Violent Communication: A Tool for Empathetic Engagement

In this journey of introspection, Marshall Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication (NVC) approach has been incredibly helpful for me. If you’re unfamiliar with NVC, I highly recommend diving into his work. For time's sake, I’ll focus on two areas: Needs and Feelings.

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Rosenberg asserts that all humans have universal needs. These needs include things like safety, peace, connection, creativity, and learning. Tied to these needs, we have feelings—which are neither good nor bad, but are simply responses to whether our needs are being met.

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When we understand our feelings in relation to our needs, we communicate more effectively. For example, during this quarantine, I felt overwhelmed by a need for privacy that I couldn’t manage with my parents. This insight helped me communicate my feelings more clearly.

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The Power of Interoception in Empathy

Before starting this talk, my heart was racing from nervousness, driven by my need to feel understood. But now, I feel immense gratitude as I fulfill my need for growth by sharing this moment with all of you.

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This journey of introspection, empathy, and self-awareness is vital not only for designers and innovators but for all of us in our personal lives. Paying attention to our bodies—listening to the quiet signals they send—can guide us toward better emotional health and deeper empathy for others.

 

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Questions to Consider

How can we improve our mental health by taking advantage of interoception?

 

How might we apply interoception in our own journeys of introspection?