Every moment, we interact with our environment. Sometimes choices are easy: we might gladly accept a cold glass of water on a hot day but refuse a hot cup of tea. We choose to surround ourselves with people we love and who lift us up and we try to avoid those who drain our energy.
However, much of what affects us happens without our conscious choice. These are the "hidden fields" of energy, vibration, and invisible emotional currents that influence our well-being without us realizing it.
The moods of people we interact with can color our own temperaments and outlooks. Noise pollution can cause bodily tension, while environmental micro-toxins can make us feel ill. Certain media can lead us to distrust others. Within these hidden fields, we absorb what we encounter without much choice.
Of course, we can choose to avoid certain environments. But we can't remove ourselves from the world entirely. We will regularly encounter these hidden fields, and their constant presence silently builds a baseline level of stress, fear, and weariness. This state of low-grade chronic vigilance inclines us towards volatile behavior and negative perspectives. Unless we do something about it.
The Cost of Chronic Vigilance
Given our constant immersion in these hidden fields, our bodies, hearts, and minds are working tirelessly to remain vigilant. Dealing with so many unseen threats and environmental triggers is exhausting. On the outside, life may seem perfectly manageable, yet we feel restless, heavy, or irritable on the inside. We may even feel a gnawing sense of dread.
This collective stress comes at a real cost.
When we are on high alert, our nervous system is geared for protection, not pleasure. Simple joys – a walk on a nice day, a peaceful moment with family or friends, a favorite song – become harder to truly register. In this constant state of chronic vigilance, our immune system is compromised, we get sick more often, and our ability to form and deepen relationships diminishes.
So, how do we regain balance?
The Power of Interoception
Much of our attention nowadays is oriented outwards towards notifications, news cycles and social dynamics. Interoception helps us shift back inward.
In psychology and neuroscience, interoception refers to the brain’s ability to perceive signals coming from inside the body: the rhythm of breathing, the subtle tightening of muscles, the pace of the heart, the feeling of warmth, fatigue, or unease. These signals form a continuous stream of information about the body’s internal state.
To practice interoception, one might pause and simply ask: “What is happening in my body at this moment?”
This one little question does something remarkable: it short circuits the negative feedback loops perpetuated by ambient stress and collective unease. It empowers you to respond not to the external trigger but to your internal experience of it. Interoception not only reduces stress but allows you to respond to all stimuli (hidden or visible) with awareness and intention.
The beauty of interoception is its simplicity. You can start by noticing a few more breaths each day. Scan one area of your body – your shoulders, your jaw – and allow it to soften on its own terms, at its own pace. Just notice the beauty and fullness of you, as you are, in this moment.
With practice, you develop your own private language to understand what your body is telling you. You will notice the physical “alerts” that your body sends when you encounter a negative hidden field, and you will be able to make a choice.
If you read a stressful news article, you will recognize that you are absorbing a challenging stimulus that is outside of you, not a part of you.
If someone says something hurtful, you recognize their energy entering your personal field and allow it to pass, again as something external.
Awareness through interoception creates those necessary boundaries around the negative energy we constantly process.
Mutuality and Stability
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once noted: “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly”. This truth applies to both negative and positive energy. When we are caught in collective stress, our negativity ripples outward. If I walk into a store angry, that energy affects the person who serves me, and they may carry it home.
The good news is that what applies to negative energy applies even more powerfully to positive energy.
By coming home to ourselves internally through interoception and mindfulness, we can radiate peace and love to others from an authentic place of inner stability and clarity. This is not fluff, this is real.
Tuning into our bodies allows us to soften, which in turn allows us to open our hearts. Opening our hearts allows us to appreciate the people in our communities. By emitting positive energy throughout our own personal field, we can lift people up without their realizing it. They simply walk away feeling better and that much more likely to lift up someone else.
Try it today, this week. When you have a moment, check in with your body and truly come home to yourself. Then, observe how you interact with the surrounding world. You might just be surprised at how transformed you feel, and how easy it was to find your center.
We’re right there with you.
Find equanimity in hard moments with Meditations for the Moment, a 7-day program with Jennifer Johnson, available now in the InnerNow App.