Dr. Pedram Shojai

Episode Description:

In this Lights On course coaching session, Dr. Pedram Shojai guides students through week three: interoceptive awareness training. Most people have been trained their entire lives to ignore their bodies—overriding tiredness with caffeine, hunger with schedules, and pain with pills. This disconnection means missing early warning signs before they become injuries or burnout, and struggling with emotional regulation.

Dr. Shojai breaks down the eight dimensions of internal awareness (cardiac, respiratory, gastric, elimination, muscular, vascular, temperature, and pain/inflammation) and addresses common blocks like dissociation, alexithymia, chronic stress, and cultural conditioning. He explains that emotions are your brain’s interpretation of body states—when you can sense your heart racing and chest tightening, you can regulate the physiology instead of spiraling into panic.

This session provides practical guidance for the week’s practices and emphasizes that interoception is a trainable life skill that develops with consistent practice.

Listen to the episode on Spotify here or on your favorite podcast platform and check out the Urban Monk Academy here.

Podcast show notes:

[00:00:00] Course Structure and Week Three Overview

• Lights On course format: modules drop Thursdays, live discussions following Tuesdays
• Week three focuses on interoception—turning awareness inward to sense internal body states
• Acknowledging that week three is often harder than previous weeks as novelty wears off

[00:01:00] Why Most People Ignore Their Bodies

• Childhood training: “stop fidgeting,” “you’re not really hungry,” ignore bathroom needs
• Adults override tiredness, hunger, pain, and stress signals
• We treat bodies like separate vehicles we’re driving rather than integrated systems

[00:02:00] The Cost of Disconnection

• Missing early warning signs: aches become injuries, stress becomes burnout
• Inability to regulate emotions (emotions are body sensations)
• Poor decision-making (gut feelings are interoceptive signals)
• Struggles with basic self-care: can’t distinguish hunger from boredom, fatigue from depression

[00:03:00] Why Interoception Is Foundational

• Not a luxury—it’s foundational to health, emotional regulation, decision-making, and consciousness itself

[00:04:00] The 8 Dimensions of Internal Awareness

1. Cardiac: Can you feel your heartbeat?
2. Respiratory: Can you sense your breath moving?
3. Gastric: Can you tell true hunger from boredom or emotional eating? Feel food moving through you?
4. Elimination: Can you sense bowel/bladder fullness without ignoring signals?
5. Muscular: Are you holding tension right now?
6. Vascular: Can you sense blood flow, warmth, circulation?
7. Temperature: Can you feel internal heat, coolness, gradients?
8. Pain/Inflammation: Can you read discomfort as inflammation?

[00:05:00] Two Dimensions of Interoceptive Skill

• Accuracy: Can you correctly perceive what’s happening? (Is that your heartbeat or tension?)
• Sensitivity: How much attention are you paying?
• Goal: High accuracy with appropriate sensitivity—feel what’s important without being overwhelmed by every sensation

[00:06:00] Common Blocks Students Encounter

• Dissociation: Trauma history causes nervous system to disconnect from body sensations for protection
• Alexithymia: Difficulty identifying emotions because you can’t feel the body sensations (trainable as adult)
• Chronic stress: Nervous system stuck in fight-or-flight, numb to subtle signals (everything is fine or emergency)
• Cultural conditioning: Western “mind over matter,” “no pain no gain,” “push through” messaging

[00:08:00] Emotional Interoception: Where It Gets Powerful

• Antonio Damasio’s research: emotions are your brain’s interpretation of body states
• Anxiety = rapid heartbeat + shallow breathing + chest tightness + shoulder tension + stomach churning + cold hands
• Brain takes all those signals and labels it “anxiety”

[00:09:00] Why This Matters

• If you can’t feel emotions in your body, they just happen to you
• When you can sense “chest is tight, heart is racing,” you can:
  • Identify emotions more accurately
  • Regulate by shifting physiology
  • Respond instead of react
• Core of emotional intelligence starts with interoception

[00:10:00] This Week’s Practice Guidelines

• Continue 3-2-1 reset with more internal awareness
• Inner landscape practice: body scan through all 8 dimensions
• Heartbeat detection meditation for cardiac awareness
• Mini practices throughout the day:
  • Morning body scan before touching phone
  • Check hunger level (1-10) before eating
  • Notice fullness after eating
  • Ask 3x daily: “Where am I at? What am I feeling physically?”
  • Evening body scan before bed
• Track patterns and notice where awareness has been unaware

[00:12:00] Student Check-In and Discussion

• Poll: How many have done inner landscape practice?
• Questions: Easier or harder than expected? Aha moments? Which dimensions are easiest/hardest?
• Common challenge: Many struggle with heartbeat detection

[00:13:00] Talk Is Cheap—Do the Work

• Becoming the person who notices patterns and catches early signals
• Example: Recognizing tension in neck before migraine starts

[00:14:00] Student Experiences

• Nicole: Can feel heartbeat in face, neck, fingertips but not often in chest
• After workout: Can feel heartbeat everywhere, but when things slow down, need to quiet mind

[00:15:00] Turning Awareness Inward

• Central practice: turning the light of awareness around (Luang Pin, Tao Pin lineage)
• Building multi-layered, textured awareness
• Decoupling physical sensations from crippling emotional labels

[00:16:00] Course Access and Catching Up

• Course designed as rolling parade—not too late to join
• Statistics: Most people fail New Year’s resolutions within 3 weeks
• Course will be there when they’re ready

[00:17:00] Different Nervous System Orientations

• Week four preview: equilibrioception and proprioception with movement
• Some people will struggle with internal work but excel at balance/movement
• Strategy: Leverage strengths while working on weaknesses

[00:18:00] Integration With Gut Health

• Stress worsens gut health; compromised gut ruins secretory IgA and cortisol levels
• Chicken-and-egg downward spiral
• Must take control of relationship with emotions and gut
• Learning to distinguish: Is this anxiety or anger? Sadness or fatigue?

[00:19:00] Interoception as a Life Skill

• Develops with practice—some days clear, some days foggy (perfectly normal)
• Practice isn’t about perfection—it’s about repeatedly turning awareness inward
• Noticing what’s there, even if it’s numbness, discomfort, pain, or confusion
• Building a relationship with your body takes time, consistency, patience

[00:20:00] Moving Forward: Proprioception Next Week

• Sensing body’s position, movement, and space
• Retaining internal awareness while adding new dimensions
• We’ve been fragmented through school, education, injuries, dogma
• Trained to move away from pain, stay in heads, stay abstract
• Lots of unlearning to do

[00:21:00] Use the Resources

• Audio tracks take significant time to develop—please use them
• Course will support research trial later this year with 150 people at major university
• Early results from test subjects: HRV increase, better sleep, cognitive improvement
• Benefits only come from doing the work, not just listening to lectures

[00:22:00] Student Comments and Q&A

• Sleep meditation and yoga help connect with body
• Eating awareness audio can be done in first 5 minutes of every meal
• Audio lengths clarified: 20-minute became 10-minute (use as foundation, extend if desired)

[00:23:00] Course Promotion and Community

• Small circle now will grow to several hundred people soon
• Take advantage of intimate group before expansion
• Doing the work keeps you engaged and at the table

[00:24:00] Final Comments

• Week 4 PDFs coming Thursday
• Weather situation: ice keeping everyone home but creating is happening
• Encouragement to do practices for next week’s discussion

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Most people have been trained to ignore their bodies—overriding tiredness with caffeine, hunger with schedules, and pain with pills, leading to missed warning signs and poor emotional regulation
2. The 8 dimensions of internal awareness are: cardiac, respiratory, gastric, elimination, muscular, vascular, temperature, and pain/inflammation
3. Emotions are your brain’s interpretation of body states—anxiety is rapid heartbeat + shallow breathing + chest tightness, and when you can feel these sensations, you can regulate them
4. Common blocks: dissociation from trauma, alexithymia (difficulty identifying emotions), chronic stress, and Western “mind over matter” conditioning
5. Interoception is trainable—it’s a life skill that develops with consistent practice and patience, even when you’re reversing decades of disconnection

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Lights On Course by Dr. Pedram Shojai
• Antonio Damasio – Neuroscientist whose research on emotions as interpretations of body states

This episode is for educational purposes only and not intended as medical advice. Consult with qualified healthcare practitioners for personalized guidance.

www.theurbanmonk.com