Beyond Overwhelm: Attention and Awareness in Emotional Experience

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Instead of identifying with your emotions, which often means they overwhelm you, attention and awareness offer powerful ways to be with your feelings.

Identification
In a state of identification, we are caught up in our experience. Imagine, for example, someone said something that upset you. If I asked you how you felt about it, you might say: “I feel really angry about what she said.”

We tend to identify ourselves with an emotion, sometimes becoming completely overwhelmed by it. This kind of identification can be with pain, an emotion, an opinion, an ideology, etc. We can become ‘identified’ with a thought in the same way. A thought carries us away into the past, the future, or somewhere else that’s not here and now.

Imagine this like someone sitting in a dimly lit room with a box on their head.

Instead of getting caught up in our experience, we can choose to be present in the moment and in relationship with whatever is happening. We can choose to pay attention.

Attention
This involves stepping away from identification by intentionally focusing on one aspect of our experience. Instead of “I feel really angry about what she said,” we notice that there’s a part of me that’s feeling anger. Working with attention is often associated with mindfulness practice, but there’s a related approach in therapy called emotion labelling. Bringing our attention to difficult or intense emotions and gently naming them can be helpful. There are also crossovers with Gendlin’s Focusing approach, which is foundational to my work.

If identification is like being in a dimly lit room with a box on our head, attention is taking off the box and exploring with a powerful torch.

Stones balanced on top of one another. The sea in the background.

Awareness
Awareness isn’t better than attention, but it offers a complementary practice. However, in mindfulness, attention practice typically precedes awareness practice, which is why I’ve placed it here.

Awareness is wider than attention. A range of mental and sensory experiences are held in awareness without focusing on any one of them. What’s my overall experience at this moment? What sounds are around me? Where does my body contact the ground? What is my breathing like? What areas of tension am I aware of? All these aspects of experience – and more – are simply witnessed, gently held in awareness without specifically attending to any of them.

Going back to the example above, I might say: “I am aware that there is anger. I am aware of heightened tension in my chest. I am aware of an elevated heart rate.”

It’s now as if the lights have been turned on in the room, and you are aware of everything around you.

Attention and awareness are two fundamentals of mindfulness practice. Both are valuable, and you might switch between them.

Psychological research has shown that attention enhances perceptual sensitivity and neural responses, while awareness is linked to widespread neural integration. The ramifications of those findings are profound.

This framework is fundamental to mindfulness, and I’ve already noted that it’s related to Focusing. It’s also relevant to metacognition and the work of Viktor Frankl. It’s probably elsewhere too, as it is a core practice for managing human experience.

Experience Matters More Than Facts

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The UK press picked up a recent study from Miles Richardson’s team at the University of Derby, which found that the strongest indicator of nature connectedness was spirituality. I was initially intrigued about this research, and then it started nagging at me. I had a felt sense that I was missing something here, but what?

Suddenly, the penny dropped: people have been writing about this reality for decades, so why the sudden interest from the press now? I wanted some context, so I pulled a couple of volumes from my bookshelf. Then more. I found a dozen books that explore the deep relationship between spirituality and nature connectedness—and this is just my collection. Clearly, it’s only the tip of an iceberg.

A pile of books about nature connectedness and spirituality

This increased attention is significant for two reasons. First, the UK press showed enthusiasm for the Derby research because it’s backed by statistics. There’s a lot of data here, so it’s seen as more scientific and therefore more worthy of our attention. The irony, however, is that the research showed higher levels of nature connection in societies that prefer faith over science. Second, despite decades of writing about nature connection and spirituality, there has been little impact. All those books, all those profound ideas, and yet our level of nature connectedness is falling.

Which brings us to a fundamental question: what motivates behavioural change? Environmental campaigns have typically used facts, and that hasn’t made much difference. I’m beginning to think that experiences matter much more than data.

The dramatic reduction in the use of plastic packaging didn’t come because people suddenly knew the facts about the problem. David Attenborough’s ‘Blue Planet II’ showed us albatross parents unknowingly feeding plastic to their chicks. Viewers had an experience, and there was a shift in people’s attitudes towards plastics. I recently overheard someone saying how important it was to reduce plastic packaging because it kills ocean animals. That may not capture the full complexity of the issue, but frankly, I care much less about that than the change in that person’s behaviour. Experiences matter more than facts.

it’s not what you know, it’s the way that you know it

I’ve long argued that the key to real change is embodied knowing; it’s not what you know, it’s the way that you know it. Another way of saying this is that experiences matter more than facts. Facts come into conscious awareness and occasionally shift our beliefs. More often than not, they get forgotten or re-interpreted to fit our pre-existing worldview. But experiences can create or modify embodied knowing, and that sticks.

If you want to delve into the fact and theory behind spirituality and nature connectedness, go to a library. If you want to experience it, go to the woods.

Stories the Forest Told Me

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In the acknowledgments for my new book, ‘Nature Connection: Remembering Wholeness‘, I wrote:

“Many of the exercises—and most of the ideas—arose from my time in nature. Thank you to the more-than-human world: my inspiration, my refuge, and my first love”.

Although I drew on established research for the book, the core lessons came from the more-than-human world. The book is structured around the Three Keys to Nature Connection: slow down, get curious, and use all your senses. These Three Keys came to me on a nature walk, arriving complete as if dropped into my mind by another intelligence.

“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking”.

Nietzsche

I write about the importance of storytelling: “A story forms an invisible thread connecting past to present, and present to future.” I illustrate this through stories woven into the text, notably glimpses into prehistoric life. These tales reveal moments in the lives of Nu and Fa, parents of two children. Several chapters feature the family; in most cases, I had a clear purpose in mind. For the ‘Use All Your Senses’ chapter, my idea felt thin. Inspiration came during a quiet walk in the woods. Standing still, I listened, and all my senses awoke: I heard silence, felt the breeze, and smelled the subtle scent of the trees. This is how it was for our ancestors, free from the barrage of sensory noise we face. Without sensory overload, they honed their senses to a sharpness we can only imagine. Nature gave me an insight into my imaginary family’s world, which I’ve tried to share on the page.

gap in large rocks covered in lichen and ferns.

The book contains over 60 exercises, most of which are directly inspired by experiences in nature. Typically, I am inspired by my engagement with the non-human world, and then I consider how to help others have similar experiences. Sometimes a ‘conversation’ with the spirit of place guides this process. I know the human perspective well—and the spirit of place reveals the deeper reality we often overlook. It might say, through symbol, feeling, or inspiration, ‘It’s like this.’

Have I managed to translate the wisdom of the more-than-human world into words? I hope so.

Nature Connection: The Three Keys

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Humans have been on the planet for 300,000 years, and for 99.9 per cent of that time, we’ve lived in intimate contact with nature. But the vast majority of us have forgotten how deep that relationship was and have fallen for the lie that we’re not part of nature. This tragic disconnection has dire consequences, not least the ongoing climate and diversity crises. There’s also significant evidence that our loss of nature connection has negatively impacted mental health.

At least part of the solution to the triple crisis of mental health, climate, and diversity is rediscovering our relationship with nature. To that end, I’ve spent decades searching for ways to help people awaken to a deeper connection with nature—reading books, training with teachers, and immersing myself in practice. Approaches such as ecotherapy, forest bathing, Deep Ecology, mindfulness, and environmental psychology each offer value, but none have fully resonated with me.

Quote taken from my book that illustrate the point I've made in the first paragraph: "Our need for nature is primal and hardwired".

In late summer of last year, I was out on a day-long walk when everything suddenly fell into place. I realised that there are just three simple keys to nature connection: slow down, get curious, and use all your senses. Ever since I developed this model, I’ve been testing it in my nature connection workshops and my personal practice. I reckon it’s pretty much foolproof! This model is as simple as it is powerful. What’s more, it provides a structure that all the other precious teachings I already have can hang on.

I don’t have the space to consider every model I know, but there’s one that invites comparison because it claims to offer Five Pathways to nature connectedness. This is one of the best-known models, based on research by environmental psychologist Miles Richardson and his colleagues (Lumber, Richardson, and Sheffield, 2017). I was aware of Richardson’s model when I developed the Three Keys, but it isn’t obviously influenced by it. I wondered if my model, which is simpler and isn’t based on psychology research, is as robust as his? Let’s see!

The two models map the same territory: our relationship with the other-than-human world. But they do that mapping in different ways.

Richardson’s Five Pathways are:

  1. Contact. This involves engaging with the natural world through the senses.
  2. Beauty. Take time to appreciate natural beauty. This can be through appreciating nature itself or through the arts.
  3. Meaning. Think about what nature means to you. Reflect on how nature resonates with your life and values.
  4. Emotion. Open yourself to experiences of awe, joy, wonder, and peace in nature. Reflect on your feelings about nature.
  5. Compassion. What can you do for nature? Recognize your kinship with other living beings. Embrace a moral and ethical concern for the natural world.

My Three Keys cover a lot of the same ground, but they work best when taken one step at a time. Slowing down is essential for a deeper connection to nature, and all Five Pathways depend on it. In our modern lives, we’re often so busy that we barely even notice nature. First of all, pause and give yourself space to truly be in nature, rather than rushing through it.

My second step is to get curious. Opening up your curiosity invites you to explore your emotional resonance with nature, wonder about meaning, and notice beauty. It also encourages greater engagement with others—human or otherwise—which facilitates compassion.

My third key is to use all your senses, which aligns with the first of the Five Pathways, ‘Contact’.

Every element in both models overlaps with the rest. Any one of the Five Pathways will support the others, and many nature connection practices will involve more than one of them. For instance, a simple daily practice like noting ‘three good things in nature’ can involve contact, beauty, and emotion. It’s the same with each of the Three Keys: they’re mutually supportive. For example, when you start to get curious, you’re likely to use your senses more and will often slow down. Likewise, sensory awareness is a mainstay of mindfulness, which is the essence of slowing down.

To some degree, at least, my Three Keys encompass all Five Pathways. A careful reader might think that the Three Keys don’t particularly facilitate compassion, the fifth of the Pathways. I agree, but as you’ll see at the end of my post, there’s a twist.

While these two models share some similarities, they operate in distinct ways. The language is particularly relevant. All Three Keys are verb phrases, whereas the Five Pathways are all nouns. Verbs are more direct, and the Three Keys are invitations to embodied action. In contrast, Richardson’s nouns present abstract categories. This highlights how the Three Keys work. Each one invites you into an experience, and while you’re having that experience, you encounter each one of the Five Pathways.

These two models complement each other: The Three Keys are accessible and action-oriented, while the Five Pathways provide theoretical conceptual depth and structure.

My new book, Nature Connection: Remembering Wholeness, uses the Three Keys to provide a practical guide. I’ve included nearly 70 exercises, most of which are linked with one of the Three Keys. As is often the way with projects like this, the book spoke back to me. As I wrote what I thought was the final chapter, something fresh emerged. I realised that the Three Keys open a doorway to awe and gratitude, which in turn inspires compassion towards others and the natural world. On paper, the Three Keys don’t especially deepen compassion, but experientially, they most certainly do.

The nature of the mind

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Imagine a lake. A tree stands at the edge, so perfectly mirrored in the still surface of the water that reality and reflection are indistinguishable. Sometimes, when a bird lands on the lake, or a leaf falls onto it, the reflection is shattered into myriad pieces. Sometimes the wind blows across the lake, rippling the surface and breaking the mirror of reflection. At other times, a bubble of gas rises from whatever is rotting in the depths. The crisp mirror breaks as the bubble bursts the surface.

Left untroubled by bubbles from below, wind or visiting creatures, the lake remains flat as a mirror and calmly reflective of all that is around it.

Leafless tree next to a still lake with perfect reflection

Such is the nature of the mind. In itself, the mind is deep and still, reflecting the world as it is. Thoughts are like ripples or currents, momentarily moving across our mental awareness and passing away. Unprocessed material may bubble up from the depths, disturbing the mind as it rises and bursts into awareness. Everyday experiences arrive in mind; things heard or seen, a chance meeting or moment. How much or how long each of these will disturb the mind depends on the individual, but ideally no more nor less than each is due. As we let each interaction pass, reflective calm returns.

Deep water is the essence of the lake. The deep body, sometimes called The Witness, is your essence. The narrative ‘small self’ is no more than a passing process, an illusion created by temporary disturbances of that quiet essence. Distorted reflections on the surface of the lake are not reality and neither are the endless mental disturbances that ripple across the mind.

Be the lake.

Should you trust your gut?

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Albert Einstein certainly did: “I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am” (1929).

Neuroscience supports Einstein’s conclusion. Antonio Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis suggests that emotions are crucial in decision-making. Damasio suggests that the brain learns to associate our experiences with specific emotional states, creating a “somatic marker.” These markers guide our future choices.

This demolishes two wildly held — but false — ideas. First, many people still believe that reason and emotion are incompatible. Wrong. Emotion and feeling are “indispensable” to the reasoning process (Damasio, 2003). Second, our culture is still suffering from the pernicious notion that the mind and body are separate. Descartes infamously promoted this nonsense; he may be the stupidest genius that ever lived!

Portrait of Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia by Elizabeth Godfrey

When Descartes first claimed that the mind and body are distinct, the philosopher Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia challenged him. She highlighted the importance of the body in thinking. Sadly, she didn’t convince him, and we’ve been suffering from the consequences of Descartes’ influence ever since.

Somatic markers are sometimes outside our conscious awareness but can be sensed as gut feelings. When we pay more attention to our gut feelings, we can learn to listen to them and even dialogue with them. The philosopher and psychotherapist Eugene Gendlin describes “a body-sense of meaning” that he calls a “felt sense” (1981). Felt senses give us access to embodied knowing that may be fresh because “your body knows much that you don’t know” (Gendlin, 1981). I use my felt sense all the time, especially in my therapy work, by applying Gendlin’s Focusing technique.

Gut feelings are most reliable when we have experience to draw on, and there’s a lot of subtle information to consider. Intuition can spot patterns, while analytical thinking tends to get confused by all the data. Lie detection is a good example. We’re pretty good at using our intuition to assess if someone is telling the truth, but if we’re asked to think it through and explain our reasoning, we tend to get it wrong.

Financial trading is a perfect example of a situation with masses of subtle information, and the experts have much experience. Unsurprisingly, traders often rely on gut feelings instead of market analysis. Research revealed that “the gut feeling of financial lore” brought market success (Kandasamy et al. 2016). One trader describes this gut feeling as “like having whiskers, like being a deer … something somewhere just gave you a slight shiver, but you’re not quite sure what, but it’s something to be careful about, something’s around” (Vohra and Fenton-O’Creevy, 2014).

Gut feelings are subtle, but as Gendlin showed, we can learn to be more attuned to our intuition. Recent research suggests that enhancing our emotional intelligence can improve our intuitive decision-making.

So, should you trust your gut? The answer is an empathetic ‘yes’ if there’s a lot of subtle information to consider and you have experience of similar situations. Improving your emotional intelligence and learning Focusing will help you listen to your gut instincts and get better at knowing when to trust them.

Spiralling back to ‘Sacred Ecology’

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I gave my presentation on ‘Sacred Ecology’ at the very first international conference on Pagan Studies in September 1994. Over thirty years later, I found myself quoting from it at an interdisciplinary discussion on ecosophy organised by Interstices: Center for Transversal Thinking. Ecosophy is a term coined by Arne Naess, and further developed by Félix Guattari, to describe an environmental philosophy of ecological harmony.

Environmental philosophy has been around for half a century and I created a website called The Green Fuse to try to make sense of it all. I was rather unkind about environmental philosophy in ‘Sacred Ecology’, claiming that it’s fixed in a philosophical tradition that’s at root of the ecological catastrophe. Is that fair?

pile of environmental philosophy books.

As I prepared my talk for Interstices, I began to reevaluate Naess’ Deep Ecology. I found clear parallels between his concept of ecological ‘Self-realization’ with my experiential iceberg model. For Naess, self-realization involves a “deepening of the self” that enables us to “see ourself in others” (Naess, 1988). He contrasts this wider self with with the egocentric “ ‘narrow’ self” (ibid.). I was delighted to see parallels between Naess’ ‘narrow’ and ‘wider’ self with my ‘shallow and ‘deeper’ self. In both cases the deeper, wider self is “conscious of our intimate relation to something bigger than our own ego” (ibid.). Had I been too dismissive of Deep Ecology all those years ago?

The whole point of the Interstices gathering was to explore across disciplines. Exploration typically involves challenge and discovery; I had plenty of both! Several participants provided an Indigenous perspective and it became clear to me how very Eurocentric Naess’ work is. His understanding of ‘nature’ goes back to the Ancient Greeks at least, but it isn’t self evident. Like many other Indigenous peoples, the Inuit don’t even have a word for ‘nature’. Furthermore, Naess’ core principle that we will care for ‘nature’ if we widen our sense of self seems strangely individualistic: The “protection of free nature is felt and conceived of as protection of our very selves” (ibid. My emphasis).

Comparing Naess’ Deep Ecology with Indigenous animist principles will make my point clearer. Animism recognizes that human primates are part of a wider community of beings. It isn’t about identifying with the other than human, but acknowledging relationships. Relationships emerge between beings and entail gratitude and reciprocity. As Robin Wall Kimmerer notes, many Native peoples have something fundamental in common: “we are rooted in cultures of gratitude” (2020).

Animist thinking offers a profound challenge to Naess’ Deep Ecology and Western environmental philosophy in general: I’ve concluded that these philosophies are, after all, tied into the roots of our catastrophe. Where does this leave my experiential iceberg model? I’ve identified clear parallels with Naess, so is it also tainted? The experiential iceberg is a powerful model of Western consciousness, so perhaps it’s no surprise that it reflects Naess’s work. However, it’s very flexible and can help us understand animism.

All of my thinking is influenced by the very Western ideologies I critique, but I believe that the kind of embodied knowing I extolled in ‘Sacred Ecology’ offers a radically different perspective. Therein lies hope.

How does psychotherapy work?

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How does psychotherapy work? There’s no simple answer because there are multiple interacting factors. However, something crops up again and again across myriad therapeutic approaches; the capacity to be with an experience rather than being engulfed in it.

I’ll use my Experiential Iceberg model to illustrate how this works. The Experiential Iceberg is a simple but powerful representation of the bodymind. It shows our everyday awareness at the tip of the iceberg, and directly below, our gut feelings. How aware of these feelings we are tends to vary for each of us and in different circumstances.

The Experiential Iceberg

Let’s zoom in on how awareness looks when you’re feeling anxious, depressed or distressed. The first thing to notice is that awareness is stuck at the tip of the iceberg, which is only a tiny part of the bodymind.

The tip of the Iceberg

Anxiety or depression can feel tight or contracted, and in the diagram, the space at the Iceberg’s tip is quite cramped. You’ll notice that gut feelings are leaking in, but the direction is only one way. All these feelings are coming into awareness, but there’s nowhere for them to go; they circle around in this contracted space.

If there’s someone you can talk to about these feelings, the space of awareness tends to expand. Instead of having these feelings – and the thoughts they inevitably prompt – circling your mind, there’s an outlet. Hearing yourself say something can be surprisingly transformative. Sometimes, you hear yourself say something you didn’t realise you knew! The space of awareness expands when you voice your unspoken thoughts and hear their truth. The expanded space provided by being able to express yourself is the start of being with your feelings and thoughts instead of being caught up in them.

This capacity to be with your experience is essential, and different approaches to therapy offer different tools to help develop that ability. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which draws on mindfulness, teaches a strategy called ‘cognitive defusion’. This technique teaches you how to get some distance from thoughts and emotions. Instead of your sense of self being fused with an unhelpful thought, cognitive defusion expands your awareness so that there’s more space. This lets you notice what you’re experiencing and changes how you relate to it.

Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin, who teach Focusing, recommend a different way to open up some space. Let’s imagine someone said something that’s upset you. If I asked you how you felt about it, you might say: “I feel really frustrated by what she said”.

Let’s try an alternative:
“Something in me feels really frustrated by what she said”.

Does that feel different? Instead of identifying with your emotions, which often means they overwhelm you, this helps you be with your feelings. You can learn to be present, in the moment and in relationship with your feelings. Remember; you are more than your feelings. You can be with your feelings and not get taken over by them.

To sum up, when we’re stressed or anxious, our experience is stuck at the tip of the Experiential Iceberg. Although we’re not paying attention to the ‘gut feelings’ hovering under the wavy line, they’re still having a significant impact on how we feel and act. When we’re in this state of mind, we’re likely to react rather than respond. The Iceberg tip is quite a tight space, and our awareness tends to get caught up with our experience. There isn’t room to find space between me and my experience. The iceberg tip is a place of contraction that breeds a sense of urgency, but when we open a little to what I call the ‘Deep Body’, we slow down and feel more spacious.

I’ve picked two techniques from quite different therapeutic approaches that can help you find more space in your bodymind. They are an excellent start, but your awareness can expand much more. The first step is to move a little way down the Experiential Iceberg and sense into those mysterious gut feelings. If you choose to drop your awareness further into the Deep Body, then wonders await; healing, spiritual growth and altered states.

The journey begins and ends with greater awareness: How far you decide to travel is up to you.

Wake up from Disconnection

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What is embodiment, and how can we deepen our embodied experience? These fundamental questions have fascinated me for decades. I was curious to know what other people thought about them, so I invited some key thinkers and practitioners to explore them on my podcast. I planned to do one episode, but the subject proved so compelling that it became three. A wide range of perspectives are represented: academia, coaching, embodied practice, activism, environmentalism, mental health, life and death.

A key theme for me, and a personal fascination, is how interwoven we are as embodied beings. This theme resonates with many of us, as our culture often encourages a sense of being disembodied. We are dangerously out of touch with our embodiment, and several contributors agree that that is the root of many crises we face.

Glen Mazis, a Merleau-Ponty scholar and a published poet, expresses concern about the prevalence of a ‘disembodied culture’ that prioritizes mental manipulation over connections with others and the environment. Charlene Spretnak, a co-founder of Ecofeminism, highlights the “extraordinarily relational nature of being”.

In the latest episode, I speak to three Indigenous spiritual leaders and hear that theme again:

“We are not separated from nature, we are nature”, and yet “we are very disconnected from this consciousness, this awareness”.

Shaneihu Yawanawá

Albert Einstein wrote much the same:
“A human being is a spatially and temporally limited piece of the whole, what we call the “Universe.” He experiences himself and his feelings as separate from the rest, an optical illusion of his consciousness” (1950).

One of our most brilliant scientists confirms the wisdom of ancient Indigenous cultures, philosophers, artists, embodiment practitioners, activists and spiritual leaders!

And yet, as Plant Medicine guide Wachan Bajiyoperak says, “We are sleeping deeply”. The message here is clear: Although we are nature, we’re caught in an optical illusion of disconnection. I do not doubt this illusion will destroy us if we fail to feel our way out of it.

As Glen Mazis says, “you can have all the concerns you want about global warming and its effect on the economy and all its other dangerous effects. But if you don’t feel the connection to the environment, if you don’t feel the wonder of the trees that are blowing in the wind out my window, or you don’t feel the wonder of the plants and the earth and all these other things or the creatures around us, you’re trying to make up for some deficit that you’ll never be able to make up. And we’ll never really care for the earth in the way we should”.

So what do we do? The solution is both simple and oddly challenging. Martika Gomez explains that we have to build a deeper relationship with Mother Earth, and we begin to do that when “we give back to her in a symbolic way, just to have that connection, to honour you know, to know that she’s alive, and that the waters, the rivers are alive. When we give an offering of love with that consciousness, that we are having that relationship, we’re respecting it, the world will be so different, you know, we wouldn’t have all the problems we’re facing right now”.

Philip Shepherd says something closely related:


“what the body most deeply feels is the present. It feels the earth, it feels the breeze, it feels the sounds, it feels the world around it as it is unfolding in this moment. And I think what the body most deeply realizes is that everything is alive”.

Our culture finds this hard to grasp because it’s caught up in the illusion of disconnection: We can’t escape the illusion because it stops us from seeing the way out!

But everyone I’ve interviewed talks about pathways of connection: mindfulness, dance, interoception, psychedelics, ceremony, nature connection, and Focusing. These practices offer a pathway from the illusion of disconnection to a new but ancient consciousness. All you need to do is start.

I leave the last word to Shaneihu Yawanawá:

“This is a very good moment for us to awake … everyone can contribute to this transition. There’s no excuse. Everyone needs to do her or his part”.

All episodes are available on podcast apps and the Embodied Pathways podcast.

‘Inner Healing Intelligence’; an embodied therapeutic process

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Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy is already an accepted approach in some parts of the world, and several influential treatment protocols suggest that its healing power is rooted in an ‘Inner Healing Intelligence’ (IHI). The idea of an Inner Healing Intelligence is fundamental to the MAPS protocol for MDMA-Assisted psychotherapy, and the principle is echoed in the draft rules on how to prepare clients for a facilitated psilocybin experience issued by the Colorado Office of Natural Medicine. The rules state that preparation should include a discussion of “the concept of trusting inner guidance”, which may include references to Inner Healing Intelligence, Wise Mind, Soul, etc.

Although the idea of some kind of inner healer is widespread in psychedelic circles – and quite common in psychotherapy – there’s no agreement on what it actually means. Nese Devenot frequently rails against the whole concept of an ‘Inner Healer’, and in a recent article, Jules Evans and Sam Woolfe identify numerous problems with the notion.

Many perceived problems with the idea of an ‘Inner Healing Intelligence’ emerge from the name, as describing something as ‘intelligence’ sets the stage for confusion. It would be far better to talk about a therapeutic process. My PhD thesis identified several processes that helped environmental activists deepen their connection with the more-than-human world and supported their wellbeing (2008). I subsequently realised that the same processes are used in therapy. These processes, which I now call the Embodied Pathways of Connection, are therapeutic because they all enable greater access to our embodied knowing.

Eugene Gendlin was a philosopher and psychotherapist who researched Rogers’s non-directive approach extensively. Gendlin has much to offer to the conversation about IHI, and his somatic experiential model points to that process. Gendlin writes that “your body knows much that you don’t know” (Gendlin, 1981). Those embedded in the Western cultural tradition often baulk at the idea that the body might ‘know’ something. The absurd Cartesian split of mind and body is surprisingly resilient, and Western philosophy is grounded in what Grosz describes as a ‘profound somatophobia’ (Grosz, 1994). However, evidence of the importance of embodied ways of knowing can be found in a diverse range of disciplines, including anthropology, business studies, cognitive neuroscience and religious studies (Harris, 2024).

Psychedelics can facilitate the kind of embodied experiential knowing that I’m talking about. Mat, one of the participants in the first Imperial psilocybin trial, explains:


“Talking therapy helps you believe something to be true. Psilocybin helps you know it to be true. And I think that’s why I felt, in my case, psilocybin worked well for me, because it showed me so much that I now know to be true.”

(Eastall, 2021).

Recent discussions support the idea of IHI as a process that facilitates embodied knowing. In their recent paper on IHI, Peill J, Marguilho M, Erritzoe D, et al. conclude that it can be partly understood as a process “where ordinarily occluded, suppressed or compressed information arises into conscious awareness” (2024).

Jules Evans and Sam Woolfe (2004) invited several therapists to comment on IHI. Dr Inna Zelikman echoes Mat’s experience, stating that psychedelics give “people access to their unconscious material”. Dr Ingmar Gorman, commented that IHI is sometimes called “intuition” or “inner wisdom”. He concluded that we should understand it as “a psychotherapeutic process”. Dr Max Wolff believes we can make sense of IHI within “a coherent scientific model of psychological change” and relates it to the actualising tendency which underpins the Rogerian approach noted above.

I propose that ‘Inner’ more accurately means ’embodied’, ‘healing’ is more precisely rendered as ‘therapeutic’, and the word ‘intelligence’ actually refers to a process. While referring to ‘Inner Healing Intelligence’ may prove to be useful in our conversations with those being treated using Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy, calling it an ’embodied therapeutic process’ is more accurate and facilitates scientific validation.