Learning to listen to your body, recognise your preferences and make room for boundaries in connection.
When I get on a crowded Tube train, I sometimes find myself standing with someone’s armpit in my face. My body has preferences about this arrangement. There is very little room to act on them.
So I put up with it. I want to get somewhere, and for the duration of the journey, that takes priority.
We do versions of this every day. We remain in an uncomfortable chair, continue a conversation when we are tired, or accept someone standing closer than we would choose. There are practical and social reasons for setting discomfort aside. We cannot always arrange the world around our preferences.
Sometimes, though, we become so accustomed to accommodating what is happening around us that we stop noticing what is happening within us.
If you often put other people first, struggle to know what you want, or feel disconnected from your body, being told to “listen to yourself” may leave you wondering where to begin.
These questions are part of my work with TRE®, and they have a great deal to do with intimacy.
Intimacy in relationships: being close and being present
We often use intimacy to mean sexual closeness. I am also thinking about friendship, family, affection and the experience of being with someone we love.
There can be intimacy in a conversation where we feel understood, in receiving a hug, or in sitting quietly with someone without needing to fill the silence. There is intimacy in allowing another person to know what we want, particularly when we are unsure how they will respond.
Each of these involves some contact with our own experience. What do I feel? What would I welcome? Is there something I want to say?
You can be exquisitely attentive to another person while finding those questions difficult to answer. You know their moods, their preferences and the small changes in expression that tell you something has shifted. Asked what you would like, you may find yourself considering their answer before your own has had time to emerge.
That attentiveness may have helped you maintain important relationships. It can also leave very little space for you within them.
Learning to listen to your body
“Is it okay if I sit next to you?”
This is a question I ask in my work as a TRE® provider. So are: “Would you prefer me to stand, sit or kneel?” and “Would a little more distance feel better?”
Most clients I work with, when we begin, cannot readily answer from their own experience.
“Whatever you like.” “I’m okay wherever you are.” “Whatever works for you.”
Often, they have never been invited to notice how another person’s position affects them. They may assume that I know where I should be. They may be concerned with making things comfortable for me. Or they simply have very little sense, initially, of what would feel different.
We pause here. I invite them to take a moment and listen to their body. We might explore me sitting in one place and then another. Does anything change? Would they like more space, or would closer company feel supportive?
There is no correct sensation to discover. Sometimes the first answer is uncertainty, and we allow that too.
For some clients, developing this body awareness and connection with their own preferences takes months. Being asked is unfamiliar. Taking time to find an answer is unfamiliar. Discovering that someone will respect the answer, without becoming disappointed or withdrawing, can be unfamiliar as well.
People pleasing, appeasement and your own preferences
You may recognise this as people pleasing: agreeing quickly, making things easy for someone else, and discovering your own discomfort only afterwards.
In my work, I also consider whether appeasement may be part of what is happening. Accommodating another person can be a way of preserving connection or reducing the possibility of conflict.
Recognising this possibility is central to how I work, particularly with women. A person may be so practised at making an interaction comfortable for someone else that they scarcely notice themselves doing it.
A quick “I’m fine” deserves attention, and we explore what does ‘fine’ actually mean right now, in this moment. It may accurately describe their experience. It may also be the answer they are accustomed to giving. I do not assume I know which it is. We slow down enough to explore together.
The invitation is simple: you do not have to organise this moment around my comfort. There is time to discover what works for you. Then my response needs to make that invitation trustworthy. If you would prefer more distance, I move. If you would like me to sit rather than stand, we adjust. If your preference changes, we respond to what is happening now. I stay present and connected with the client’s experience.
On the Tube, you may have little choice about who stands beside you. Here, your preference can influence what happens. This is part of what I teach in TRE® provider training: recognising appeasement as a survival response and creating enough time and space for someone’s own preferences to emerge.
Consent and boundaries, moment by moment
This understanding is part of how we establish a TRE® session, and it continues throughout our work together.
Agreeing to begin does not mean knowing in advance how everything will feel. You may welcome something initially and want it to change later. You may discover a preference only after experiencing an alternative.
The provider’s responsibility includes making those conversations possible. Someone who habitually accommodates others may need more than the reassurance that they can speak up. They may need repeated experiences of being invited to notice, given time to answer, and met with a comfortable response.
Over time, these exchanges can become practice in expressing yourself while remaining connected to another person. That is relevant to boundaries in relationships beyond a session. Can I ask a friend for company? Can I tell someone I love that I need space? Can I want affection without wanting anything further? Can I change my mind? Intimacy has more room to develop when these things can be expressed.
Learning to receive care and affection
TRE®, or Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises, uses a sequence of exercises to invite involuntary shaking or tremoring. In a supported session, someone accompanies you as you notice movement, sensation and your responses.
Receiving that attention can be significant in itself. You may be accustomed to being the capable one, the listener or the person who makes sure everyone else is comfortable. Having someone attend to you, without needing you to look after them in return, can take some getting used to.
You do not have to produce an impressive response. You can keep your story private. You can ask for something different. There can be a profound intimacy in being witnessed this way: allowing your body to move and discovering that you can be met with steady, accepting presence. Your experience has room to unfold, and your choices remain part of it.
What TRE® has changed for me
TRE® has changed my experience of intimacy profoundly.
My body has softened and expanded. Areas of longstanding tension, particularly around the pelvis, have begun to feel different. I have experienced more presence, more openness and more room for pleasure. Learning to receive has been crucial. My capacity to receive another person’s attention and presence has grown, and my sexual experience has grown with it.
This has unfolded over time. I cannot condense it into one session or promise someone else the same journey. I can speak about the significance it has had in my own life. Becoming more connected to myself has changed what I can bring into closeness with another person. There is more of my experience available to share: what I welcome, what I enjoy, what I want and where my limits are.
That is why boundaries belong in this conversation alongside openness. A relationship can become more intimate when we stop having to conceal a preference to preserve the connection. For me, the changes have been life changing precisely because they reach beyond the time spent shaking. They enter the ordinary experience of being with other people: receiving affection, expressing a wish, allowing pleasure and remaining present.
Sometimes the work begins with a question about where I sit. We take time with the answer because the person answering always matters.
Next in this series: Learning to receive—what TRE® changed for me.
If you would like to explore this approach, you can read more about TRE® sessions with me in London, Kent and online.
About Kate
Kate Munden is a Global TRE® Certification Trainer and Mentor and a trauma and embodiment specialist with over 30 years’ experience. She offers individual sessions and teaches TRE® in the UK and internationally.
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