Internal and External Body Attunement – Six Domains of Body Awareness

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As mentioned in the post Self-Attunement versus Body Attunement, body attunement involves “paying conscious attention to, understanding, and appropriately responding to your body’s needs, sensations, signals, actions, and reactions to make healthier choices and improve your overall well-being.”

In this post, I briefly discuss the internal and external body attunement domains, each comprising three types of attunement, making a total of six attunement domains.

In addition, I’ll relate them to the six core questions that are integral part of practicing or achieving body attunement.

As for the six attunement domains, the three internal attunement domains consist of:

• breath attunement,
• internal organs attunement, and
• vitality attunement,

while the three external attunement domains consist of:

• postural attunement,
• movement attunement, and
• sensory attunement.

Now, although the various domains will be discussed separately in subsequent posts to provide greater detail and clarity, it’s important to realize that in practice they are often simultaneously relevant in any bodily action.

To give an example: when I wash the dishes, all six attunement domains come into play. I assume a certain posture, I move my body — particularly my upper body and arms — feel the temperature of the water on my hands, notice how my skin reacts to the dishwashing soap, breathe in a certain way, experience an increase in heartbeat and blood circulation, and may feel either energetic or low in energy while doing it.

In addition to the example given, keep in mind that the six core questions are integrally part of body attunement. These questions can be divided into two distinct groups:

Exploring the body

• What am I doing?
• What do I sense? and
• Can I do it differently?

and

Resolving health issues

• When did it start?
• What has changed? and
• What can I change?

It may seem complex to pay attention to six attunement domains and six questions all at once, but believe me, it isn’t really so. As mentioned in the post What am I doing?, simply start with one daily activity. Once you master that, the rest will follow. Conscious body listening — or conscious body awareness — will gradually become a habit, and quite effortless.

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