June 5, 2025 • 17 mins
Your body knows things before your mind does. That uncomfortable feeling in your chest when someone walks in the room. The inexplicable dread about a perfectly pleasant social gathering. The tension that arises during conversations that seem fine on the surface. All of these sensations come from what we can call your "neuroceptive self" - the part of you that's constantly scanning your environment for signs of safety or danger without your conscious awareness.
Based on Dr. Stephen Porges' concept of neuroception from polyvagal theory, this internal surveillance system operates beneath language and logical thought. While your aware self wakes up in the morning and makes decisions, reads, reflects, and responds in full sentences, your neuroceptive self works silently in the background, interpreting every facial expression, tone of voice, and subtle cue around you. It doesn't weigh pros and cons - it simply reacts and feels, creating sensations that often leave us confused about our own emotional responses.
The disconnect between what we intellectually know and what we physically feel creates what coaching calls a "slippery brain." We say things like: "It's not like I think my friend doesn't care, but I get this pit in my stomach when we part ways." This happens because our aware self, trained to be rational and measured, rushes to explain away the pain without acknowledging it first. But real healing doesn't come from constantly rewiring your story to sound better - it comes from slowing down enough to honor what your body felt initially. By learning to decode these signals instead of dismissing them, you can transform confusion into clarity and begin to create genuine safety from within. When you understand that your felt sense of safety isn't found in escape or external circumstances but in your relationship with your body and with Allah, everything changes. Your neuroceptive self becomes not a source of confusion, but a sacred guide to deeper healing.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to Islamic Life Coach School Podcast.
Apply tools that you learn inthis podcast and your life will
be unrecognizably successful.
Now your host, dr Kamal Aftar.
Hello, hello, hello everyone.
Peace and blessings be upon allof you.
In today's podcast, we're goingto talk about a very fascinating
topic of the neuroceptive selfthat's yourself.
(00:25):
Beneath the self, there's anaware version of you that you're
very familiar with.
She wakes up in the morning anddecides what to wear, how to
respond to a text, how to behaveat work, how to speak to your
spouse.
She's the version that'slistening to this podcast, maybe
while multitasking, and sheoperates in full sentences to be
(00:46):
able to do this.
She's the one who readsjournals, explains, reflects.
You might be very familiar withher, and she is your aware self
, but underneath her, workingconstantly behind the scenes, is
another version of you.
That's your neuroceptive self,the version that never stops
working, even while asleep.
She doesn't use language, shedoesn't weigh pros and cons, she
(01:09):
just reacts, she just feels,without understanding where
that's coming from.
It's instant, intuitive, mostlywithout permission.
So I based this term on aconcept of neuroception, which
is a term coined by Dr StephenPorges of polyvagal theory.
It refers to your nervoussystem's non-conscious detection
(01:32):
of safety or danger around you.
This happens without theinvolvement of your thinking
mind.
It picks up on facialexpressions, tone of voice,
clutter in the room, thepresence of a closed door or the
way someone exhales.
The neuroceptive self usesthese cues to determine if
you're safe or not.
And the answer does not come inwords because, again, it
(01:55):
bypasses your thinking brain.
It comes in sensations a tightchest, a burst of warmth, a
shallow breath, tingling arms,dry mouth, expansive shoulders.
Your neuroceptive self onlyspeaks in the felt sense.
Now, most people in the worldwalk around completely unaware
that this internal surveillancesystem even exists.
(02:18):
They feel anxious, but theycan't name why.
They feel drained after aconversation that wasn't even
that bad.
They dread family gatherings,even though everyone is nice.
This is neuroception at work.
It's detecting what yourconscious mind is not able to
pick up.
It makes meaning without yourmind giving it language.
Your neuroceptive self is asacred, beautiful part of your
(02:43):
design.
It's the bridge between yourbody and your reality.
If you don't understand yetwhat it's saying, or, worse, if
you've been trained to dismisswhat it's saying, you will live
in confusion.
You will keep asking why do Ifeel like this?
What is my body telling meBecause something doesn't feel
safe, I don't know what's goingon.
This podcast is about makingthis voice audible and making
(03:08):
sense of this experience, givingher a name, letting her teach
you, Because once you do, yougain awareness, you gain access,
you stop being confused by youremotions and you start leading
by them, and that changeseverything.
Because there is so manyteachings that blur together.
I usually like to separate theneuroceptive mind with the
(03:29):
subconscious mind.
They very often work together.
They both live below theawareness, they both influence
your behavior before youconsciously decide anything, but
they're not the same thing.
Think of your subconscious mindas a massive inner library.
It stores memories, beliefs,learned behaviors, identity
(03:50):
scripts.
It's shaped by repeatedexperiences, imprints, emotional
intensity.
In NLP and in coaching, weaccess the subconscious through
imagery, sometimes metaphors andlanguage.
Your neuroceptive self, on theother hand, is not a library.
She's a scanner.
She's your body's built-insurveillance system, always on,
(04:13):
always decoding your environment, always asking one core
question am I safe?
This is your internal threatdetection system.
She doesn't care about yourthoughts.
She doesn't care if youunderstand the trauma theory.
She doesn't even care if you'vedone the work, if your husband
exhales sharply and that tonematches something threatening
(04:34):
from your past.
It will make your body flinch,because that's what it
neurocepts.
If your boss pauses beforespeaking, your heart rate might
spike long before you're able tomake sense of it in sentences
all because your neuroceptionworks faster than your awareness
.
As a result of all of this, myclients sometimes say I know I'm
(04:55):
safe, but my body doesn'tbelieve it.
I don't know why.
I know my friend cares, but Idon't feel like she's okay.
After we talked, I know mymarriage is fine, but I keep
waiting for something to gowrong.
This is not you being dramatic.
This is not you beingungrateful.
This is not emotionalimmaturity.
This is your neuroceptive self,the part of nervous system that
(05:19):
makes sense of things withoutthe conscious mind catching up.
Healing subconscious beliefsdoesn't automatically calm your
neuroceptive response.
You can reframe your thoughtsuntil you feel safe.
You can journal, you can getcoaching, you can get therapy,
but you might still experiencetension in your relationships if
(05:41):
your neuroceptive self codesfor danger.
The biggest reason I wanted tobring this to your attention
today is because, if you don'tunderstand this distinction, you
will start to shame yourselffor being triggered.
You'll think I've alreadyworked on this, I've already
forgiven them, or I thought Iwas past this.
You'll assume that yourrecurrent pain is failure, when
(06:04):
really it's just neuroception.
It's your nervous system stilldoing its job, based on outdated
cues.
So yes, both the subconsciousmind and the neuroceptive self
operate beneath the surface.
Both influence your emotionalreality.
But the difference is thesubconscious mind largely holds
beliefs.
It stores them in the body.
(06:25):
Neuroception deliverssensations to the body.
It's like an antenna, always atwork, and the healing isn't
complete until you work on both.
Your neuroceptive self is alwaysmaking meaning, not just about
big things like conflict ortrauma, but about every eye
contact, every pause, every tone, every argument.
(06:48):
She's also interpreting thisinformation that she's picking
up and more often than not, allof this information is coming
with a high emotionalconsequence.
That's why you might feelrejected, even though no one
said anything overtly unkind.
In coaching I call this symptoma slippery brain, when a woman
(07:09):
will come and say things likeit's not like I'm broke.
I know I'm fine financially,but I still freeze when I check
my account.
So this sentence of it's notlike I'm broke has been
interpreted by the neuroceptiveself as, yes, you are broke, but
the conscious mind doesn't letyou acknowledge that pain.
So the only thing that comes upis that slippery sense of I
(07:33):
don't know what's wrong.
Or they may also say it's notlike I think my friend doesn't
care.
But I get this pit in mystomach whenever we part ways,
whenever she doesn't reply to me, it's the same sentence.
It's not like I think my frienddoesn't care, when really your
neuroceptive self is saying Ithink my friend doesn't care,
when really your neuroceptiveself is saying exactly that your
friend doesn't care.
(07:54):
My clients will say things tome like it's not like I think my
husband means to hurt me.
I just feel a wave of sadnessafter he walks away.
It's not like I think I'm gonnafail, I just can't sit down and
do the studying.
And the clients are not confused, they are just trying to speak
(08:14):
from the aware self, the onethat trained to be mature, fair,
rational, measured, the onethat was trained to make sense
and hide the pain.
This self explains things verywell.
It gives people the benefit ofthe doubt.
It avoids appearing needy orunreasonable.
So if you come to me incoaching saying it's not like I
(08:37):
think I can't travel alone, it'snot like I think that I can't
afford this or that I know inthe background, that's exactly
what your neuroceptive mind ismaking things mean.
But your aware self is whathides it, just because it wants
to hide the message thatadmitting to the husband not
paying attention or the friendnot responding or you not being
(09:00):
rich enough to have the nexttravel adventure, the aware and
conscious mind is going tosuppress these painful stories.
So then I have to coach on acondition I call the slippery
brain, where the sentence startwith it's not like fill in the
blanks when the answer is it'sexactly like that.
So how it's working is thatyour neuroceptive self creates a
(09:24):
painful narrative and you feelit before you can craft a
narrative or words about it.
But what comes out of yourmouth is he's probably tired and
you convince yourself that it'sprobably my old patterns.
And what gets labeled asemotional reactivity is very
often your neuroceptive selfbegging to be heard before she
(09:47):
gets silenced by logic.
And if you constantly overridethis felt sense, if you explain
away the hurt withoutacknowledging it, you miss the
opportunity to heal thisslippery mind.
Business is very tricky becauseit's the part where you're
thinking that doesn't lie butslides too quickly into
(10:08):
explanations.
It rushes past the pain andlands in neat conclusions that
keep you and everyone elsecomfortable.
Well, it keeps you comfortableon the surface, but underneath
you do have emotional turmoilthat needs to be dealt with, and
this is why many brilliant,thoughtful, spiritually
committed women feel stuck.
(10:28):
Brilliant, thoughtful,spiritually committed women feel
stuck because theirneuroception is still on very
high alert and they have notbeen able to interpret those
messages.
The only thing they have doneis trained themselves to explain
away the alert before it can behonored.
But the body, as it relates toyour neuroception, does not want
a tidy answer.
It wants to be believed.
(10:49):
Neuroception does not want atidy answer.
It wants to be believed, itwants to be witnessed, it wants
to be led.
That's what real healing is Notrewiring your story constantly
so it sounds better, but slowingdown enough to hear what your
body felt first.
If you're the kind of person whoenjoys travel, the version who
relaxes on a trip, all of asudden you're a person who wears
(11:12):
brighter colors, take up morespace, you feel like yourself
again.
You say things like this is sorelaxing, I'm so easy going when
I'm traveling.
I didn't realize how much Ineeded this.
In this case, your neuroceptiveself is finally registering
safety from your environment.
She feels the absence ofclutter, of being needed, of
(11:35):
keeping everything together, andinterprets it as safety.
She notices that your time isyours.
Your surrounding of novelty,lightness and space is something
to be accepted and liked andenjoyed.
Your nervous system, theneuroceptive self, doesn't call
it vacation or a trip.
It codes it as relief.
(11:57):
The reason I wanted to give thisexample for neuroceptive self
is the danger is, if you don'trecognize what's really going on
, you'll start to believe thatyour everyday life is a problem
If you're not constantlytraveling, you're at home, stuck
.
That your home is a prison,that your routine is suffocating
, that your marriage is draining, that your obligations are too
(12:18):
much, that your only access toaliveness is to leave and escape
.
And you won't say it that way.
What you'll say is I just needa break.
I'm looking forward to my nextvacation already.
What your body means is I don'tfeel safe in the life I've
created.
And that's what needs to beaddressed, because you're
(12:38):
welcome to take all of thevacations and all of the trips
you want, but if you use them asan escape, your body will
always have that sense of dreadand this contrast becomes a trap
.
If you don't address it.
You start chasing environmentsthat signal freedom because they
make your body feel likeopposite of what it usually does
Not responsible, not observed,not tight.
(13:00):
You scroll Airbnbs like it's alifeline and you plan trips not
because you want to explore, notbecause for the love of it, but
because you want to escape thatneuroceptive self that detects
danger.
In the now.
The relief of travel is veryreal, the aliveness is real.
But if you don't realize thatyour neuroceptive self is doing
(13:23):
the work, you will startbuilding an entire identity
around needing to be somewhereelse to be okay, and that in
itself is not true, because youcan create safety exactly where
you are, and that is the wholework.
If you don't come to thisrecognition, your real life
becomes the enemy.
You resent your children'sneeds, you resent work, your
(13:46):
colleagues, your routine.
It is never your location thatchanges you.
It is always your nervoussystem responding to cues that
changes you.
If you can learn to decodethose cues, you can learn what
your neuroception loves aboutcertain places and learn how to
recreate those signals insideyour daily life, even if they're
(14:09):
on a microdose level.
The question that needs yourattention is can you bring home
the version of you who existswhen you're away.
Can you teach your nervoussystem the same level of safety
when you're folding laundry orwhen you're paying bills?
How are you going to get tofeel the freedom inside devotion
, inside the life you've alreadychosen?
(14:31):
You can train your neuroceptiveself not through lectures but
through felt experience.
The sigh of a parent, a slam ofa door, an unpredictable mood
of a caregiver all of thatbrings early childhood
programming into you.
Then neuroceptive self when itinterprets things it says love
(14:52):
can disappear without warning.
Being seen is risky.
Connection always ends inrejection.
Silence means danger and as anadult, you go through your
entire life believing that thosethings are absolute truths.
And I have a podcast onimprints exactly for this reason
, because these repeatedpatterns become imprints, very
(15:15):
deeply wired subconsciousbeliefs that seem like truth,
repeated on a somatic level,absorbed over and over by your
nervous system.
And now, as an adult, even ifyour relationships are stable,
even if you have an abundantfinancial life, even if you're
trying your level best to bespiritually sound and faithful,
your body might still be onalert.
(15:37):
This is why so manyhigh-functioning women are
exhausted.
They're constantly trying tofix something in the present
that's actually coming from thepast.
Your neuroceptive self is abeautiful design, but all you
have to start thinking andbelieving is that you're no
longer a child, you're no longerin survival mode.
(15:57):
Your neuroceptive self stillexpects to be blamed, abandoned,
dismissed and hurt, but thatisn't necessarily always what's
going to happen.
Your felt sense of safety is notanywhere else.
It's inside your relationshipwith your body.
Safety is not anywhere else.
It's inside your relationshipwith your body.
It's inside your relationshipwith Allah SWT, and when you
(16:18):
rebuild that relationship, yourentire life begins to respond to
it.
With that, I pray to Allah SWT.
O Allah, the turner of heartsand the knower of what is hidden
, turn my inner signals towardspeace.
Soften my reflexes of fear andreplace them with a sense of
(16:38):
safety that you have provided methrough your mercy, ya Allah,
replace my survival with thegentleness that is around me, my
constant fears with thethoughts of your memory and your
dhikr.
Replace my confusion withclarity of trusting you.
O Allah, ameen, ya Rabbul Ameen, please keep me in your du'as.
(16:59):
I will talk to you guys nexttime.
Welcome to Islamic Life Coach School Podcast.
Apply tools that you learn inthis podcast and your life will
be unrecognizably successful.
Now your host, dr Kamal Aftar.
Hello, hello, hello everyone.
Peace and blessings be upon allof you.
In today's podcast, we're goingto talk about a very fascinating
topic of the neuroceptive selfthat's yourself.
(00:25):
Beneath the self, there's anaware version of you that you're
very familiar with.
She wakes up in the morning anddecides what to wear, how to
respond to a text, how to behaveat work, how to speak to your
spouse.
She's the version that'slistening to this podcast, maybe
while multitasking, and sheoperates in full sentences to be
(00:46):
able to do this.
She's the one who readsjournals, explains, reflects.
You might be very familiar withher, and she is your aware self
, but underneath her, workingconstantly behind the scenes, is
another version of you.
That's your neuroceptive self,the version that never stops
working, even while asleep.
She doesn't use language, shedoesn't weigh pros and cons, she
(01:09):
just reacts, she just feels,without understanding where
that's coming from.
It's instant, intuitive, mostlywithout permission.
So I based this term on aconcept of neuroception, which
is a term coined by Dr StephenPorges of polyvagal theory.
It refers to your nervoussystem's non-conscious detection
(01:32):
of safety or danger around you.
This happens without theinvolvement of your thinking
mind.
It picks up on facialexpressions, tone of voice,
clutter in the room, thepresence of a closed door or the
way someone exhales.
The neuroceptive self usesthese cues to determine if
you're safe or not.
And the answer does not come inwords because, again, it
(01:55):
bypasses your thinking brain.
It comes in sensations a tightchest, a burst of warmth, a
shallow breath, tingling arms,dry mouth, expansive shoulders.
Your neuroceptive self onlyspeaks in the felt sense.
Now, most people in the worldwalk around completely unaware
that this internal surveillancesystem even exists.
(02:18):
They feel anxious, but theycan't name why.
They feel drained after aconversation that wasn't even
that bad.
They dread family gatherings,even though everyone is nice.
This is neuroception at work.
It's detecting what yourconscious mind is not able to
pick up.
It makes meaning without yourmind giving it language.
Your neuroceptive self is asacred, beautiful part of your
(02:43):
design.
It's the bridge between yourbody and your reality.
If you don't understand yetwhat it's saying, or, worse, if
you've been trained to dismisswhat it's saying, you will live
in confusion.
You will keep asking why do Ifeel like this?
What is my body telling meBecause something doesn't feel
safe, I don't know what's goingon.
This podcast is about makingthis voice audible and making
(03:08):
sense of this experience, givingher a name, letting her teach
you, Because once you do, yougain awareness, you gain access,
you stop being confused by youremotions and you start leading
by them, and that changeseverything.
Because there is so manyteachings that blur together.
I usually like to separate theneuroceptive mind with the
(03:29):
subconscious mind.
They very often work together.
They both live below theawareness, they both influence
your behavior before youconsciously decide anything, but
they're not the same thing.
Think of your subconscious mindas a massive inner library.
It stores memories, beliefs,learned behaviors, identity
(03:50):
scripts.
It's shaped by repeatedexperiences, imprints, emotional
intensity.
In NLP and in coaching, weaccess the subconscious through
imagery, sometimes metaphors andlanguage.
Your neuroceptive self, on theother hand, is not a library.
She's a scanner.
She's your body's built-insurveillance system, always on,
(04:13):
always decoding your environment, always asking one core
question am I safe?
This is your internal threatdetection system.
She doesn't care about yourthoughts.
She doesn't care if youunderstand the trauma theory.
She doesn't even care if you'vedone the work, if your husband
exhales sharply and that tonematches something threatening
(04:34):
from your past.
It will make your body flinch,because that's what it
neurocepts.
If your boss pauses beforespeaking, your heart rate might
spike long before you're able tomake sense of it in sentences
all because your neuroceptionworks faster than your awareness
.
As a result of all of this, myclients sometimes say I know I'm
(04:55):
safe, but my body doesn'tbelieve it.
I don't know why.
I know my friend cares, but Idon't feel like she's okay.
After we talked, I know mymarriage is fine, but I keep
waiting for something to gowrong.
This is not you being dramatic.
This is not you beingungrateful.
This is not emotionalimmaturity.
This is your neuroceptive self,the part of nervous system that
(05:19):
makes sense of things withoutthe conscious mind catching up.
Healing subconscious beliefsdoesn't automatically calm your
neuroceptive response.
You can reframe your thoughtsuntil you feel safe.
You can journal, you can getcoaching, you can get therapy,
but you might still experiencetension in your relationships if
(05:41):
your neuroceptive self codesfor danger.
The biggest reason I wanted tobring this to your attention
today is because, if you don'tunderstand this distinction, you
will start to shame yourselffor being triggered.
You'll think I've alreadyworked on this, I've already
forgiven them, or I thought Iwas past this.
You'll assume that yourrecurrent pain is failure, when
(06:04):
really it's just neuroception.
It's your nervous system stilldoing its job, based on outdated
cues.
So yes, both the subconsciousmind and the neuroceptive self
operate beneath the surface.
Both influence your emotionalreality.
But the difference is thesubconscious mind largely holds
beliefs.
It stores them in the body.
(06:25):
Neuroception deliverssensations to the body.
It's like an antenna, always atwork, and the healing isn't
complete until you work on both.
Your neuroceptive self is alwaysmaking meaning, not just about
big things like conflict ortrauma, but about every eye
contact, every pause, every tone, every argument.
(06:48):
She's also interpreting thisinformation that she's picking
up and more often than not, allof this information is coming
with a high emotionalconsequence.
That's why you might feelrejected, even though no one
said anything overtly unkind.
In coaching I call this symptoma slippery brain, when a woman
(07:09):
will come and say things likeit's not like I'm broke.
I know I'm fine financially,but I still freeze when I check
my account.
So this sentence of it's notlike I'm broke has been
interpreted by the neuroceptiveself as, yes, you are broke, but
the conscious mind doesn't letyou acknowledge that pain.
So the only thing that comes upis that slippery sense of I
(07:33):
don't know what's wrong.
Or they may also say it's notlike I think my friend doesn't
care.
But I get this pit in mystomach whenever we part ways,
whenever she doesn't reply to me, it's the same sentence.
It's not like I think my frienddoesn't care, when really your
neuroceptive self is saying Ithink my friend doesn't care,
when really your neuroceptiveself is saying exactly that your
friend doesn't care.
(07:54):
My clients will say things tome like it's not like I think my
husband means to hurt me.
I just feel a wave of sadnessafter he walks away.
It's not like I think I'm gonnafail, I just can't sit down and
do the studying.
And the clients are not confused, they are just trying to speak
(08:14):
from the aware self, the onethat trained to be mature, fair,
rational, measured, the onethat was trained to make sense
and hide the pain.
This self explains things verywell.
It gives people the benefit ofthe doubt.
It avoids appearing needy orunreasonable.
So if you come to me incoaching saying it's not like I
(08:37):
think I can't travel alone, it'snot like I think that I can't
afford this or that I know inthe background, that's exactly
what your neuroceptive mind ismaking things mean.
But your aware self is whathides it, just because it wants
to hide the message thatadmitting to the husband not
paying attention or the friendnot responding or you not being
(09:00):
rich enough to have the nexttravel adventure, the aware and
conscious mind is going tosuppress these painful stories.
So then I have to coach on acondition I call the slippery
brain, where the sentence startwith it's not like fill in the
blanks when the answer is it'sexactly like that.
So how it's working is thatyour neuroceptive self creates a
(09:24):
painful narrative and you feelit before you can craft a
narrative or words about it.
But what comes out of yourmouth is he's probably tired and
you convince yourself that it'sprobably my old patterns.
And what gets labeled asemotional reactivity is very
often your neuroceptive selfbegging to be heard before she
(09:47):
gets silenced by logic.
And if you constantly overridethis felt sense, if you explain
away the hurt withoutacknowledging it, you miss the
opportunity to heal thisslippery mind.
Business is very tricky becauseit's the part where you're
thinking that doesn't lie butslides too quickly into
(10:08):
explanations.
It rushes past the pain andlands in neat conclusions that
keep you and everyone elsecomfortable.
Well, it keeps you comfortableon the surface, but underneath
you do have emotional turmoilthat needs to be dealt with, and
this is why many brilliant,thoughtful, spiritually
committed women feel stuck.
(10:28):
Brilliant, thoughtful,spiritually committed women feel
stuck because theirneuroception is still on very
high alert and they have notbeen able to interpret those
messages.
The only thing they have doneis trained themselves to explain
away the alert before it can behonored.
But the body, as it relates toyour neuroception, does not want
a tidy answer.
It wants to be believed.
(10:49):
Neuroception does not want atidy answer.
It wants to be believed, itwants to be witnessed, it wants
to be led.
That's what real healing is Notrewiring your story constantly
so it sounds better, but slowingdown enough to hear what your
body felt first.
If you're the kind of person whoenjoys travel, the version who
relaxes on a trip, all of asudden you're a person who wears
(11:12):
brighter colors, take up morespace, you feel like yourself
again.
You say things like this is sorelaxing, I'm so easy going when
I'm traveling.
I didn't realize how much Ineeded this.
In this case, your neuroceptiveself is finally registering
safety from your environment.
She feels the absence ofclutter, of being needed, of
(11:35):
keeping everything together, andinterprets it as safety.
She notices that your time isyours.
Your surrounding of novelty,lightness and space is something
to be accepted and liked andenjoyed.
Your nervous system, theneuroceptive self, doesn't call
it vacation or a trip.
It codes it as relief.
(11:57):
The reason I wanted to give thisexample for neuroceptive self
is the danger is, if you don'trecognize what's really going on
, you'll start to believe thatyour everyday life is a problem
If you're not constantlytraveling, you're at home, stuck
.
That your home is a prison,that your routine is suffocating
, that your marriage is draining, that your obligations are too
(12:18):
much, that your only access toaliveness is to leave and escape
.
And you won't say it that way.
What you'll say is I just needa break.
I'm looking forward to my nextvacation already.
What your body means is I don'tfeel safe in the life I've
created.
And that's what needs to beaddressed, because you're
(12:38):
welcome to take all of thevacations and all of the trips
you want, but if you use them asan escape, your body will
always have that sense of dreadand this contrast becomes a trap
.
If you don't address it.
You start chasing environmentsthat signal freedom because they
make your body feel likeopposite of what it usually does
Not responsible, not observed,not tight.
(13:00):
You scroll Airbnbs like it's alifeline and you plan trips not
because you want to explore, notbecause for the love of it, but
because you want to escape thatneuroceptive self that detects
danger.
In the now.
The relief of travel is veryreal, the aliveness is real.
But if you don't realize thatyour neuroceptive self is doing
(13:23):
the work, you will startbuilding an entire identity
around needing to be somewhereelse to be okay, and that in
itself is not true, because youcan create safety exactly where
you are, and that is the wholework.
If you don't come to thisrecognition, your real life
becomes the enemy.
You resent your children'sneeds, you resent work, your
(13:46):
colleagues, your routine.
It is never your location thatchanges you.
It is always your nervoussystem responding to cues that
changes you.
If you can learn to decodethose cues, you can learn what
your neuroception loves aboutcertain places and learn how to
recreate those signals insideyour daily life, even if they're
(14:09):
on a microdose level.
The question that needs yourattention is can you bring home
the version of you who existswhen you're away.
Can you teach your nervoussystem the same level of safety
when you're folding laundry orwhen you're paying bills?
How are you going to get tofeel the freedom inside devotion
, inside the life you've alreadychosen?
(14:31):
You can train your neuroceptiveself not through lectures but
through felt experience.
The sigh of a parent, a slam ofa door, an unpredictable mood
of a caregiver all of thatbrings early childhood
programming into you.
Then neuroceptive self when itinterprets things it says love
(14:52):
can disappear without warning.
Being seen is risky.
Connection always ends inrejection.
Silence means danger and as anadult, you go through your
entire life believing that thosethings are absolute truths.
And I have a podcast onimprints exactly for this reason
, because these repeatedpatterns become imprints, very
(15:15):
deeply wired subconsciousbeliefs that seem like truth,
repeated on a somatic level,absorbed over and over by your
nervous system.
And now, as an adult, even ifyour relationships are stable,
even if you have an abundantfinancial life, even if you're
trying your level best to bespiritually sound and faithful,
your body might still be onalert.
(15:37):
This is why so manyhigh-functioning women are
exhausted.
They're constantly trying tofix something in the present
that's actually coming from thepast.
Your neuroceptive self is abeautiful design, but all you
have to start thinking andbelieving is that you're no
longer a child, you're no longerin survival mode.
(15:57):
Your neuroceptive self stillexpects to be blamed, abandoned,
dismissed and hurt, but thatisn't necessarily always what's
going to happen.
Your felt sense of safety is notanywhere else.
It's inside your relationshipwith your body.
Safety is not anywhere else.
It's inside your relationshipwith your body.
It's inside your relationshipwith Allah SWT, and when you
(16:18):
rebuild that relationship, yourentire life begins to respond to
it.
With that, I pray to Allah SWT.
O Allah, the turner of heartsand the knower of what is hidden
, turn my inner signals towardspeace.
Soften my reflexes of fear andreplace them with a sense of
(16:38):
safety that you have provided methrough your mercy, ya Allah,
replace my survival with thegentleness that is around me, my
constant fears with thethoughts of your memory and your
dhikr.
Replace my confusion withclarity of trusting you.
O Allah, ameen, ya Rabbul Ameen, please keep me in your du'as.
(16:59):
I will talk to you guys nexttime.
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