The Constructed Awareness eBook: A Therapeutic Model for Integrating the Mind, Body, and External World
Tyler Orr, LPC, LCMHC
Introduction
In 2006, I worked as a music producer, deeply invested in my career, but neglectful of my family. The long hours and constant focus on work took a toll on my marriage, and soon, my wife and I found ourselves considering divorce. In a last-ditch effort to save our relationship, we decided to seek the help of a professional counselor. The work I did with the counselor was life-changing. It not only saved my marriage but also inspired me to pursue a career in counseling. Through cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), narrative therapy, and traditional talk therapy, my therapist taught me that changing certain aspects of my thinking could change my life. This realization set me on a journey of self-exploration that laid the foundation for the principles that would become Constructed Awareness (CA).
As a counseling student, I learned the standard therapeutic techniques taught in graduate programs, such as CBT. These methods, rooted in goal-setting and cognitive reframing, were validated in research but often fell short when applied in real-world practice with my clients. CBT worked well with certain clients but not with others. Despite my efforts, many of my clients—and I—became increasingly discouraged by the lack of progress. It became clear that something was missing in traditional therapy’s reliance on logic and willpower.
This realization compelled me to explore alternative approaches to address what traditional methods were missing. I studied mindfulness-based approaches, Eastern philosophies, and somatic (body-focused) therapies along the way. These approaches emphasized a more holistic view of the human experience, incorporating the mind, body, and external world.
Through this exploration, I discovered that awareness itself is a powerful catalyst for change. I realized that lasting change does not come from trying to “fix” clients through willpower or cognitive control. Instead, it arises from helping them bring mindful awareness to their present experience. This understanding became a cornerstone of what would later develop into CA.
As I deepened my understanding of these holistic approaches, I came to see that our reality is constructed from three building blocks: thoughts, sensations, and external stimuli. This realization helped me understand why therapy had been effective for me with my first therapist. His approaches were primarily mentally oriented, engaging the mind and relying heavily on logic and reason. I realized that I, too, was mentally oriented, relying on logic and reason, which is why the mentally-oriented therapies worked so well for me.
However, while the therapy was beneficial, it didn’t support the development of other aspects of my experience—my connection to my bodily sensations and the external world—which remained underdeveloped. Applying this understanding to my clients, I noticed a similar pattern: many clients who thrived with CBT also relied heavily on their minds for regulation, while many of those who struggled with CBT tended to rely more on their bodies or external environments for self-regulation. It finally started to make sense: not everyone is motivated to change in the same way. I theorized that logic-driven willpower works as a change agent for those wired to respond to mentally-oriented therapy.
Drawing on these insights, I developed CA as a model that emphasizes awareness over control. CA allows therapists to guide clients in exploring a more holistic view of themselves and facilitating transformation through mindful observation of all parts of their experience rather than attempting to change through discipline or willpower. The remainder of this eBook focuses on the development of CA, its core principles, and therapeutic resources for integrating it into practice.
Who Is This eBook For?
CA is an emerging and innovative model of therapy that integrates various theories, interventions, and resources. The challenge in developing something new lies in introducing fresh perspectives in a world already filled with countless psychotherapy approaches. With hundreds of established therapeutic models—each offering different foundations, techniques, and goals—CA stands out as a unique option within this vast landscape.
This eBook is written primarily for therapists, but it is also applicable to non-therapists and potential clients seeking alternative approaches to personal growth. Whether you’re a therapist looking for a fresh, original model to incorporate into your practice or a non-therapist who has found traditional therapy methods ineffective, this guide is designed for you.
My goal in writing this eBook is to introduce CA and demonstrate how it stands out among the many therapeutic models available today. You’ll learn the core principles of CA, explore the CA theory, and discover how it can be applied both in therapy and personal development. Additionally, I’ve included guided audio to complement these concepts. For therapists, these tools can be integrated into your personal life, allowing you to evaluate whether CA is the right fit for your approach. For non-therapists, these resources are intended to promote personal growth and self-awareness. Ultimately, whether you’re a therapist or a non-therapist, my hope is that this eBook enriches your life and offers new perspectives on mental health and self-discovery.
Chapter 1: The First Principle of Constructed Awareness
CA is built on three core principles, each of which guides the therapeutic process and offers a new perspective on how clients experience themselves and their world.
Principle 1: Bringing awareness to the client’s experience changes their experience.
Awareness is a powerful catalyst for transformation. While many therapeutic models focus on altering a client’s thoughts or behaviors, CA emphasizes that mindful awareness holds the power to illuminate thoughts, sensations, and external stimuli, creating space for mental, emotional, and behavioral change without the need for force or control.
Let’s look at an example of how awareness can influence behavior. Imagine you’re singing along to a song in your car, completely immersed in the moment. Then, at a red light, you notice the driver in the next car watching you. Suddenly, your behavior shifts. You might stop singing, feel self-conscious, blush, or stare straight ahead. Or perhaps you sing directly at the person, likely causing them to change their behavior and look away after realizing they’re being observed. Either way, this demonstrates the immediate impact awareness has on how we act. The same principle applies to the internal experiences and behavioral patterns that often bring people to therapy.
People rarely come to therapy because of a one-time disturbance. They come because of recurring patterns of undesirable emotions and behaviors. I believe these patterns persist due to a lack of awareness about what happens during their recurrence. If we were fully aware of every thought, sensation, behavior, reaction, and external cue that arises when the pattern repeats, each moment of awareness could become an opportunity to observe the pattern and do something different. Without this awareness, we tend to function on autopilot, repeating the same undesired experiences over and over.
This is why CA doesn’t focus on forcing emotional change—because emotions, like many of our internal responses, are not within our direct control. I once heard that animals don’t choose how they feel, and this is especially true when it comes to stress emotions like fight, flight, or freeze. For example, if a zebra sees a lion running toward it, does it take time to decide to be afraid? Does it consciously tell its adrenal glands to release adrenaline? Does it choose to make its heart beat faster and increase its respiration? No—if it did, the delay would reduce its chances of survival. Instead, the emotions of all mammals, including humans, are involuntary. Our emotions are governed by the autonomic nervous system, with the prefix “auto,” meaning that these processes occur automatically, without conscious control.
This is important to consider in the context of mental health because it suggests we don’t control our emotions. However, this idea goes against what many of us were taught growing up: “Don’t be afraid.” “Don’t worry.” “Calm down.” From a young age, we’re told that we can and should control what we think and feel. But can we? Speaking for myself, if I had that kind of control, I’d choose to never feel bad again. I would be in a state of blissful euphoria for the rest of my life. Likewise, I’d never think another negative thought. Only brilliant, positive, and original ideas would come to mind, not the same repetitive, stressful thoughts that trouble me every day. The reality is, if you had full control over your thoughts and feelings, wouldn’t you change them?
Another problem that perpetuates the idea of self-control as the solution is the common belief that you can achieve anything if you work hard enough, something else many of us were taught growing up. While this advice may be helpful for accomplishing external goals, I believe it’s misguided when applied to mental health. Unfortunately, many of us believe we can change our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors simply because we were taught that we could. When it doesn’t work as easily as expected, we’re left with self-defeating thoughts, believing something is wrong with us for not being strong enough to think or feel differently. Traditional mental health models reinforce this belief by teaching clients to change, repress, or white-knuckle their way through undesirable thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
CA approaches mental health differently. As a CA therapist, I don’t tell clients how they should feel or think because I don’t believe they have full control over those processes. If they did, they would have already resolved their issues before coming to me. Instead of trying to change the client’s experience, CA therapists invite clients to deepen their awareness of their experiences and see for themselves how awareness brings about the change they seek. And that change doesn’t come from a specific intervention or advice from the therapist—it comes from the client’s own inner wisdom. This principle is the first and most important in CA, and we’ll return to it repeatedly throughout this eBook.
Practical Application in Therapy
A client struggling with chronic anxiety might enter a session with heightened physical tension, intrusive thoughts, and an increased startle response. Instead of focusing on reducing the anxiety or challenging the thoughts directly, the CA therapist guides the client through a process of mindful observation. By gently encouraging the client to notice their physical sensations, observe their thoughts without judgment, and pay attention to the safety of their external environment, the therapist helps the client bring awareness to their experience of anxiety rather than resist it. Over time, this practice of observation can help the client develop a healthier relationship with the thoughts and sensations associated with their anxiety and recognize the safety and stability of their external surroundings, thus reducing the intensity of their symptoms.
Chapter 2: The Second Principle of Constructed Awareness
The first principle tells us that awareness can bring about change. The second principle explains what we’re bringing awareness to.
Principle 2: The human experience is made up of three building blocks: thoughts, sensations, and external senses.
According to CA, the human experience can be broken down into three essential components: thoughts, sensations, and external stimuli. These building blocks form the foundation of how we perceive and respond to the world:
Thoughts (mental building block): The mental processes we engage in, such as what we see and hear in our minds.
Sensations (sensation building block): The physical experiences we feel in our bodies, like tension, warmth, or tingling.
External senses (external building block): Sensory input from the world—what we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell.
By observing these building blocks, you can better understand how your emotions are constructed.
This approach aligns with Lisa Feldman Barrett’s theory of constructed emotion (TCE), which suggests that emotions are not hardwired, predetermined responses. Instead, they are actively constructed by the brain, drawing from sensory input, past experiences, cultural influences, and thoughts. Emotions emerge from the combination of these factors. Drawing on TCE, CA explains emotions as the result of thought + sensation + external stimuli. Basically, CA argues that an emotion is just a word that identifies a combination of the building blocks.
A common tactic of the human mind is to take something that’s made of several parts and assign one word to describe it. For example, it’s easier to say, “I want pizza” than “I want cooked dough made of flour, water, yeast, salt, oil, and sugar, covered with tomato sauce, shredded cheese, and pepperoni.” If we had to describe things that way, it would be an arduous existence.
Our minds do the same thing with emotions. When you’re anxious, for example, you might perceive something threatening in your environment (external building block). This trigger causes your mind (mental building block) and body (sensation building block) to react. As the external stimuli, thoughts, and sensations combine, the experience is labeled as “anxiety.” But where is anxiety?
I asked myself that question years ago, and it led me to an unexpected conclusion: I don’t believe emotions are real, not in the tangible or physical way. They exist in terms of subjective experience, but merely as concepts, not as something you can locate or measure. This is because our minds label things made of multiple parts. For example, a storm is made of elements like lightning, thunder, wind, and rain, each of which you can sense and measure. But where is the storm itself? If I asked you to point to “storm,” you’d quickly realize it’s just a label for the combination of those elements.
The same is true for emotions. When you’re anxious, you might perceive something threatening in your environment (external building block), and you can observe your thoughts about it (mental building block) and feel sensations in your body (sensation building block). But there is no actual “anxiety” you can point to. This is why people often struggle to work with emotions—they don’t know what they’re dealing with. That’s why CA doesn’t work directly with emotions. In this eBook, I’ll teach you how to break down and bring awareness to your thoughts, sensations, and external senses (the parts you can actually identify and connect with), allowing awareness itself to bring about change.
Example: Constructing Emotion
Imagine you’re driving to work and get cut off by another driver. The person in the other car swerves back into their lane, blows their horn, and shakes their hand out of the window in a rude gesture. Instantly, you notice several physical sensations: a racing heart, clenched hands squeezing your steering wheel, a rush of energy shooting up your neck, and tightness in your chest. Simultaneously, you have thoughts like, “Watch where you’re going!” or even fantasies of revenge.
In this example, can you identify the three building blocks?
The external building block is seeing and hearing the other car.
The sensation building block includes the sensations you feel in your body (racing heart, clenched hands, etc.).
The mental building block includes the thoughts you hear (usually the voice in your head) and see (pictures that come to mind, like visualizing you fighting with the person).
In this instance, the three building blocks come together to create the emotion we label as “anger.”
Practical Application in Therapy
CA encourages therapists to work with clients to break down their experiences into these core components. By doing so, clients can gain insight into how their emotions are constructed and begin to relate to them differently.
For example, a client may report feeling overwhelmed by sadness. Instead of focusing solely on the sadness, the therapist might ask the client to notice the individual parts of making up the experience: “What physical sensations do you notice in your body?” “What thoughts are running through your mind?” “What is happening in your external environment right now?” By helping clients deconstruct their experience into its building blocks, therapists can help them see the interconnectedness of the parts that construct their reality.
Putting The Second Principle into Personal Practice
The Emotion Tracker is a resource I developed to help in breaking down emotions into the three building blocks. The worksheet consists of four questions:
What emotion are you feeling?
What thoughts are coming to mind?
What sensations are you noticing in your body?
If you are still in the situation that is activating the emotional state, what do you see, hear, smell, taste, or feel on your skin that is influencing the emotion? If you are remembering a previous experience and your environment is not influencing your emotional state, this question may not be applicable.
In future chapters, we’ll go deeper into our understanding of how to bring awareness to thoughts, sensations, and external senses. For now, I invite you to do the best you can. Notice the notes at the bottom of the Emotion Tracker. It says thoughts are experienced as words, sounds, and pictures. I’ll explain this in more detail later in the eBook, but you can think of the mind as a TV, which only produces sound and pictures—audio and video. You primarily see and hear thoughts, so when answering the question about thoughts, ask yourself what you see and hear in your mind.
For the question about sensations, focus on what sensations you feel inside your body. Be careful not to include emotion words like “anxiety” or “sadness.” Those words belong under the first question about the emotion you are feeling. Here, we are looking for words that connote tangible qualities like “hot” or “tight.”
For the last question regarding your external senses, write down what you’re noticing externally that’s contributing to the emotion in the moment. Notice that the handout states, “If you’re remembering a previous experience and your environment isn’t influencing your emotional state, this question may not be applicable.” If there’s nothing currently in the environment influencing the emotion, feel free to leave the fourth question unanswered.
One final note: Please only fill out the handout while you’re experiencing the emotion, rather than completing it after the fact. The goal is to catch your construction of the emotion in the moment.
Here’s an example of what a completed Emotion Tracker might look like:
What emotion are you feeling?
I’m feeling disappointed and frustrated.What thoughts are coming to mind?
I’m thinking, “I knew this would happen. I’m never going to pass this class,” and “Why didn’t I study more?”What sensations are you noticing in your body?
I feel a pit in my stomach, my chest is heavy, and my face feels hot.If you’re still in the situation that is activating the emotional state, what do you see, hear, smell, taste, or feel on your skin that is influencing the emotion?
I’m looking at the email from my teacher that says I got an “F.” I can see the grade on my screen and the light from my computer shining in my eyes.
Chapter 4: Nonviolence in Therapy
Constructed Awareness (CA) draws heavily on the concept of nonviolence, a principle originally introduced to psychotherapy by Ron Kurtz, the founder of the Hakomi Method. In his book Body-Centered Psychotherapy, Kurtz describes violence in therapy as “simply assuming you know what’s best for someone.”
At first, the word “violence” felt too harsh to me. I wasn’t physically harming my clients, so how could this apply? But as I continued reading, Kurtz’s message began to reshape how I interacted with clients—and even with loved ones. He wasn’t talking about physical harm, but rather a more subtle form of control. Kurtz described violence as happening when a therapist assumes they know what’s best for a client and tries to impose that idea. The most challenging and eye-opening part of his message was the realization that even the assumption that the client should feel better is a form of violence.
Many therapeutic models and interventions today still emphasize reducing negative symptoms. That’s because traditional counseling methods are derived from the medical model, which is largely focused on symptom reduction and making clients feel better. CA takes a different approach. CA’s first principle is that awareness itself is a powerful catalyst for change. In this model, interventions and resources aren’t designed to directly create change; instead, they enhance the client’s awareness. The CA therapist trusts that awareness itself will bring about change. While we certainly hope clients feel better, we don’t force it.
As a CA therapist, I never tell my clients what to think, feel, or do. If it were that simple, their friends and family could have solved their problems long ago. Often, when someone tells you how to feel, it only makes things worse. Has anyone ever told you to “calm down” when you were upset? Did it work? Our emotions aren’t chosen—emotions are involuntary responses. No one can simply decide to feel a certain way, no matter how much they might want to. When you’re told to calm down, you’re faced with the impossible task of trying to control something you don’t have direct control over, which only leads to more tension. This creates a duality: an involuntary response you wish to change, paired with a voluntary drive to force a change. The result is resistance.
CA therapists are trained to recognize moments when duality arises within a client’s experience—when two opposing forces, often a desired and an undesired state—are at odds. Kurtz wrote that if you use violence, you’ll inevitably create resistance. Resistance arises when two things push against one another, and this tension can show up in a session in subtle but impactful ways.
For example, imagine a client who, while sharing an embarrassing story, becomes frustrated and says, “I’m worthless.” A well-meaning therapist might try to reframe this by encouraging the client to say, “I’m worthy.” However, this can backfire because a part of the client strongly believes in their worthlessness. Asking them to say, “I’m worthy” can feel like a lie. The therapist, unintentionally, is pushing against the client’s current reality, creating duality and inner resistance.
We’ve all experienced moments when we’re upset and call a friend just to vent, only to have them respond with advice. “Maybe you should…” or “Did you try…?” It’s frustrating because, in those moments, we don’t want advice—we want to be heard. This happened to me recently, and I found myself growing more frustrated the more my friend tried to fix my problem. Their well-intentioned advice created resistance in me, because it pushed against my need to express and process my feelings.
This dynamic plays out in therapy as well. Therapists may feel compelled to intervene when a client expresses negative emotions, thinking they’re helping by trying to bring about a positive change. However, this can inadvertently invalidate their experience and encourage the client to repress their emotions. When this happens, duality is created: the client’s negative emotions push against the therapist’s attempt to replace them with positive ones.
Nonviolent therapy means not imposing opinions or expectations on the client’s experience. Instead, the therapist’s role is to bring awareness to the client’s experience—whether it’s desirable or not. As Kurtz said, “You don’t have to know the answers for your clients. All you have to do is turn them inside themselves because they know the answers.” The CA therapist avoids duality and violence by aligning with the client’s current reality, even if it’s uncomfortable. Instead of resisting negative experiences, the CA therapist invites the client to explore them deeply, trusting that awareness will lead to transformation.
Applying Nonviolence in Therapy
Nonviolence in therapy isn’t just a mindset; it’s a practice that can be applied in specific ways. As a CA therapist, one of the key strategies is to meet the client where they’re emotionally and experientially. This involves resisting the urge to change or fix their emotional state, even when the client is in distress.
For example, when a client expresses feelings of frustration, a nonviolent approach would avoid jumping to solutions or reframing those emotions. Instead, the therapist might say, “I can see that this feels really difficult for you right now. Can we take a moment to sit with that feeling? What tells you it’s frustration? Where’s the sensation associated with frustration located? How would you describe it? What thoughts are coming to mind?” By doing so, the therapist invites the client to deepen their awareness of their emotional state rather than pushing it away.
Another practical application is helping the client become more aware of the dualities within themselves. When a client feels torn between two opposing emotions—such as wanting to feel better while also feeling stuck in their sadness—the therapist can guide them to notice these forces without judgment. This builds the client’s capacity for awareness, which CA holds as the key to genuine change.
Putting Nonviolence into Personal Practice
Practicing nonviolence, both in and out of therapy, means allowing yourself to experience whatever is happening within you without trying to force a change. It’s common to feel pressure to “fix it” or “feel better” when discomfort arises, but this can create resistance. Instead, nonviolence encourages you to bring gentle awareness to your experience.
Rather than trying to push away negative emotions or attempt to replace them with positive ones, allow yourself to sit with your current state. Notice what you’re feeling, thinking, or sensing around you, and observe it without judgment. Trust that by bringing awareness to your experience, the awareness itself can lead to change. Whether in therapy or everyday life, the act of observing without imposing opens the door to deeper understanding and transformation, creating a space for your experience to evolve naturally.
Chapter 5: Tuning Between Building Blocks
CA operates on the principle that the human experience is composed of three primary building blocks: thoughts (mental), bodily sensations (sensation), and external sensory input (external). These building blocks represent how we engage with and interpret the world around us. Most individuals naturally orient more strongly toward one of these building blocks—some are more mentally oriented, others more sensation oriented, while others are more externally oriented. However, to experience a fuller, more integrated sense of self, CA encourages a process called tuning, where a person can learn to bring balance and awareness to all three building blocks.
Tuning refers to the CA practice of shifting attention between these three building blocks. It’s about becoming aware of which building block you naturally favor in different situations and learning how to engage the others. When all three building blocks are balanced, we experience greater flexibility and an enhanced ability to self-regulate. This tuning process allows us to access a richer, more comprehensive understanding of ourselves and the world, rather than being stuck in one particular mode of experience.
Why Tuning Matters
Tuning between building blocks is crucial for emotional regulation and overall well-being. When we’re overly reliant on one building block, we may miss out on valuable information from the others. For example, a mentally oriented person might overanalyze a situation and be disconnected from their body’s signals of stress. Similarly, an externally-oriented person might overlook internal cues (thoughts and sensations) about what they want in a situation.
Tuning helps individuals access the building blocks they may have unconsciously overlooked or neglected. By practicing this shift in focus, people can develop a greater sense of control and understanding over their responses to life’s challenges. This flexibility allows for a more balanced way of processing experiences, making it easier to cope with stress, emotional difficulties, and the complexities of relationships.
Applying Tuning in Therapy
In a CA therapeutic setting, tuning becomes an essential practice for both the therapist and the client. CA therapists are trained to recognize which building block a client is primarily using and to guide them toward awareness of the others. For instance, if a client is stuck in mental rumination, the therapist might gently invite them to notice what sensations they’re feeling in their body or draw attention to the sensory environment around them.
This process is subtle and non-imposing. It’s not about forcing the client to change their focus but about offering them an opportunity to explore all aspects of their experience. A therapist might say, “I notice you’ve been thinking a lot about this situation. Can we take a moment to check in with how your body feels right now?” Or, if a client is overwhelmed by sensations, the therapist might suggest tuning into the external environment by saying, “Would you mind if we just pause and notice the sounds in the room for a moment?”
The goal in CA therapy is to help clients become aware of how they’re naturally orienting and offer them tools to access the other building blocks. Over time, clients develop the ability to tune between building blocks on their own, fostering greater emotional regulation and adaptability.
Putting Tuning into Personal Practice
Outside of therapy, tuning can be practiced in everyday situations. Here are a few ways to put tuning into practice:
Check in with all three building blocks: Throughout your day, take a moment to pause and ask yourself, “What am I thinking? What sensations am I feeling in my body? What’s happening in my external environment?” This simple practice of checking in with all three building blocks increases awareness and helps you stay balanced.
Shift focus when stuck: If you notice that you’re stuck in a particular building block—overthinking a problem, feeling overwhelmed by sensations, or overly focused on the external environment—try shifting your attention. If you’re caught in mental rumination, tune into your bodily sensations or the sights around you. If you’re overwhelmed by bodily sensations, try engaging your thoughts or noticing what’s happening outside of you.
Use tuning as a grounding tool: In moments of stress or overwhelm, tuning can be used as a grounding tool to bring yourself back into balance. For example, if you’re feeling anxious, instead of trying to suppress the anxiety, you can bring awareness to what you’re thinking, how your body feels, and what’s happening around you. This full-spectrum awareness helps reduce reactivity and provides a greater sense of control over your experience.
Tuning between building blocks is not about escaping discomfort or forcing yourself into a different state of mind. It’s about bringing awareness to all parts of your experience and trusting that this awareness can lead to natural change. The more you practice tuning, the more you’ll find that you can navigate life’s ups and downs with a greater sense of balance and resilience. The next chapter will provide a guided tuning exercise.
Chapter 6: Guided Resources and Practical Tools
To support you in applying the CA principles, this chapter provides practical guided resources. Therapists can introduce these tools in their practice, while non-therapists can use them to deepen their awareness of each of the three building blocks.
External Awareness
I once heard a phrase that fear and curiosity cannot coexist. Essentially, animals are only curious when they feel safe. Imagine a zebra sees a lion running toward it—will the zebra choose that moment to become curious about its surroundings? Absolutely not. If it does, it’ll likely become the lion’s lunch. When an animal senses danger, it fixates on the threat—in this case, the zebra fixates on the lion.
Humans are rarely chased by predators anymore, but we still fixate on perceived threats. In our case, these threats often come from our own undesirable thoughts and sensations. How often have you been in a perfectly safe and stable environment but still felt like a nervous wreck? In those moments, the mind and body react as if you’re in danger, even though there’s no physical threat.
Consider this: when you have a thought about something potentially threatening, your body reacts. The body’s job is to respond to what you experience through your senses. However, as intelligent as the body is, it often struggles to differentiate between what you’re sensing in your environment and what you’re imagining in your mind. As a result, when you think about something threatening, your body might react as though it’s actually happening. This reaction leads to discomfort, which is designed to motivate you to take action.
If your fight response kicks in, your body creates discomfort to push you toward addressing the threat.
If your flight response is activated, the discomfort motivates you to move away from the threat.
If the freeze response takes over, your body creates discomfort to keep you still.
A problem arises when the threat exists only in your thoughts because there’s no real danger to confront or escape from. Yet, your mind continues to react to the discomfort, spiraling into thoughts like, “This feels bad, so it must be really bad.” In response, your body creates even more discomfort to protect you from what it now perceives as “really bad,” leading to further negative thoughts. This forms an emotional feedback loop, much like how a microphone feeds back into itself.
When both your mental and sensation building blocks are in chaos, there’s only one other place for your awareness to go—your external building block. This’s where curiosity comes in. If you can shift your awareness outside of your thoughts and sensations and connect with the safety of the external environment (assuming it’s safe), you can become curious about the sights, sounds, smells, and tactile sensations around you. This disrupts the thought/sensation spiral. Remember, animals are only curious when they feel safe. So, by bringing curiosity to your environment, you’re signaling to your nervous system that you’re safe, since you would only be curious if safety were present.
People often ask me what the simplest way to practice mindfulness is. My answer is to connect with your external senses because they only perceive the present moment. You can’t taste something in the past or smell something in the future. You can remember how something tasted in the past, but that’s not the same thing as tasting it in the present. Your senses only exist in the now. Unlike the mind, which can wander into the past or future, your senses are always grounded in the present. As a result, many clients find that focusing on the external environment is a naturally regulating practice.
Below are three guided audio tracks that walk you through awareness of sights, sounds, and physical touch. In the next section, we’ll explore how to mindfully connect with physical sensations.
Sensation Awareness
As a predominantly mentally-oriented person, I have spent most of my life stuck in my head, disconnected from my physical sensations. As I mentioned in the introduction, my first experiences in therapy as a client were with CBT and narrative therapy, both of which were mentally oriented. These approaches were helpful, but they didn’t teach me much about myself that I didn’t already know, since they reinforced the part of me I was most familiar with—my mental building block. It wasn’t until I encountered somatic therapy as a young therapist that I began learning to connect with my body.
The word “somatic” comes from the Greek word “soma,” meaning “body,” and refers to anything related to the physical body. In therapy, somatic approaches focus on bodily experiences and sensations rather than purely cognitive processes. Once this concept came onto my radar, I became very interested in it. But as I began reading about somatic therapy, I realized how foreign the concepts were to me. Authors often talked about feeling the body and being “embodied”—things I didn’t fully understand. I was intrigued, though, and kept learning.
Over the next few years, I explored various ways to connect with and understand sensations. I attended retreats and trainings, meditated, read books, practiced guided exercises, and listened to podcasts. You name it, I tried it. However, I kept running into the same issue: much of what I learned about somatic awareness was rooted in Eastern philosophy or mystical traditions, which made it feel abstract to me. As a more pragmatic person by nature, the teachings felt too vague and intangible, and I craved a simpler, more concrete way to conceptualize and practice somatic awareness.
Then one day, I had a realization: what if internal sensations are just my sense of touch on the inside of my skin? I recognized that if someone handed me an object with my eyes closed, I could describe its temperature, shape, weight, size, and boundary in great detail. But when it came to feeling sensations inside my body, I struggled to describe them. This realization helped me understand that I could approach my internal sensations the same way I approach my sense of touch. I began exploring internal sensations by describing them using the same language I would use to describe something I was touching with my hands. For example, if I felt a sensation in my chest, I’d become curious about its temperature, shape, weight, size, and boundary.
I found that I already had a vocabulary to describe internal sensations because I knew how to describe my external sense of touch—and the same words applied. In fact, I realized that if a word didn’t work for external touch, it probably didn’t work for internal sensations either. For example, clients often describe their body sensations using emotion words like “sad.” But if you went to a doctor with a sprained ankle and were asked to describe the sensation, saying “It feels sad” wouldn’t make sense. “Sad” is not a sensation; it’s an emotional term that refers to a collection of experiences across the three building blocks (thoughts, sensations, external).
To support you in developing a deeper connection with sensation and improving your ability to communicate about what you notice on the inside, I’ve included a guided audio track that walks you through Talking With Your Hands.
P.S.: Feel free to use the Talking With Your Hands prompts alongside the third question on the Emotion Tracker Handout (“What sensations are you noticing in your body?”) to help you explore and describe your sensation building block in greater detail as you deconstruct emotions.
Mental Awareness
Have you ever wondered, “What is a thought?” Or pondered where thoughts come from, or where they go when you move on to the next one? Have you ever questioned what thoughts are made of or how they’re experienced in the first place? Thoughts are mental images that reflect your senses—primarily sight and sound. Your thoughts are either visual or auditory.
A useful way to think of this is to imagine watching a television. On the screen, you see pictures and hear sounds. This is how thoughts work, except instead of images and sounds on a screen, they arise in your mind. All thoughts are made of words, sounds, or pictures. Just as you can describe what you see or hear with your external senses, you can describe your thoughts using the same language.
Thoughts may feel abstract, but when we break them down into their sensory components, they become easier to understand. This sensory framework allows us to describe and even interact with our thoughts in a more concrete way. For example, if you’re recalling a memory, you might see a visual image of a past event in your mind’s eye, much like watching a mental movie. Or perhaps, you “hear” the memory of someone’s voice, their words echoing in your mind. These visual and auditory components make up the fabric of your thoughts.
Understanding that thoughts are made of sensory elements helps us realize that we can observe them just as we observe the external world. By paying attention to our thoughts as if we were watching a movie or listening to a sound, we become more aware of the images and words that fill our minds. This awareness creates a sense of distance, allowing us to recognize that thoughts are not facts—they’re mental constructs that reflect how we process the world around us.
When we understand the sensory nature of thoughts, we can better relate to them. Instead of getting caught up in our thoughts or treating them as absolute truths, we can observe them from a place of curiosity. What does this thought look like? What does it sound like? Is it loud or soft? Is it blurry or clear? By asking these questions, we begin to shift from reacting to our thoughts to observing them, which gives us the ability to step back and engage with them in a healthier way.
This sensory perspective also helps in therapy, where clients can be guided to explore their thoughts with curiosity. Encouraging clients to describe their thoughts visually and auditorily can open up new insights, helping them see patterns in how they think. For example, if someone frequently hears an internal voice telling them, “You’re not good enough,” they might start to notice how this persistent, critical voice is just a thought—just words that come to mind, a projection of the mind formed earlier in life that no longer applies to them in their current life, and not a true reflection of who they’re as a person. By embracing the sensory aspects of our thoughts, we can foster greater self-awareness and develop tools to interact with our inner experiences more effectively.
Below is a guided audio resource to help you connect with the sensory elements of thoughts.
Tuning
Now that you’ve practiced awareness of the three building blocks, it’s time to put them all together using tuning. Tuning is the practice that allows us to harmonize the three building blocks—mental, sensation, and external—so that they can work together in a balanced way. By learning to move fluidly between these three aspects of experience, you create a fuller, more connected sense of self. This practice allows you to better manage difficult emotions and stay grounded in the present moment, whether you’re in a therapy session or navigating everyday stress.
Each of the three building blocks provides us with unique information, but when we become too focused on one, it can lead to imbalances, such as being stuck in mental loops, overwhelmed by sensations, or disconnected from our environment. Tuning helps us consciously shift our awareness between the three, allowing us to experience a fuller picture of reality and promote greater emotional regulation.
For example, if someone is experiencing anxiety, they might be overly focused on their mental building block, lost in spiraling thoughts. By using tuning, they can shift their awareness first to the physical sensations of that anxiety—perhaps a tightness in the chest or a knot in the stomach—and then to their external environment, noticing the sights and sounds around them. This shift helps them break the mental fixation and bring their awareness back to the present moment.
The key to tuning is learning to move fluidly between all three building blocks without getting stuck in any one. This allows for a more integrated experience, where the mind, body, and external environment are all in tune with one another. It’s especially useful in trauma processing, where clients may need to shift between their sensations, thoughts, and surroundings to process difficult emotions more effectively.
To support you in practicing tuning, I’ve included a guided tuning audio exercise that walks you through shifting awareness between the three building blocks. By using this resource, you can practice moving between the three building blocks in a way that promotes balance and presence.
Chapter 7: Further Resources for Therapists
Constructed Awareness is a continually evolving model, and there are many opportunities for therapists and clients to deepen their understanding of its principles and applications. This chapter provides links to further resources, training opportunities, and community involvement for those who wish to continue their journey with CA.
Training Opportunities
If you find the resources in this eBook useful in your therapeutic work and want to learn more, the Constructed Awareness Levels One, Two, and Three trainings, along with the certification program, offer in-depth instruction on applying CA principles in clinical practice. These trainings go far beyond the foundational information in this eBook, offering more comprehensive resources, methods, and hands-on techniques to enhance your practice. Here’s what’s included:
Level One: Resourcing Trauma Through Deeper Awareness – This foundational training equips therapists with a strong understanding of CA principles and resourcing techniques. Participants receive a 65-page handbook, 22 handouts and scripts, 12 guided audio files that can be shared with clients, 20 demonstration videos, and 30 hours of continuing education. The training also includes practicum time to practice the skills and an opportunity to train directly with the creator of the CA model. [Here’s the link for more information.]
Level Two: Reconstructing Traumatic Memories – This intermediate training focuses on using CA to process and reconstruct traumatic memories. Participants receive a 52-page handbook, 7 additional handouts and scripts, and 14 demonstration videos to enhance learning. Like Level One, it includes practicum time and offers 30 continuing education hours. Additionally, trainees have the opportunity to work directly with the creator of CA, enriching the training experience. [Here’s the link for more information.]
Level Three: Advanced Trauma Processing in Practice – This advanced training guides therapists in integrating CA resources and interventions into a cohesive therapy style where trauma processing arises naturally. Designed for experienced professionals, this course deepens trauma therapy skills, applies CA principles in complex cases, and teaches approaches for integrating trauma processing into practice. Participants receive a 55-page handbook and 10 demonstration videos to enhance learning. Like Levels One and Two, Level Three includes practicum time and offers 30 continuing education hours. [Here’s the link for more information.]
Certification Program – For those seeking certification in the CA model, this program provides a structured path to build expertise and proficiency. It includes 20 hours of consultation, featuring group discussions and focused practicum time to deepen skills. [Here’s the link for more information.]
Each level provides unique tools, resources, and practicum experiences that build on the eBook's foundation, ensuring that trainees are fully prepared to implement CA effectively in clinical settings.
Free Monthly Events
To help practitioners continue learning and refining their skills, the Constructed Awareness Institute offers free monthly events, including consultation, webinars, and practice groups. These sessions provide ongoing support, offer a space for questions, and give participants the chance to engage in community discussions and practicum.
Click here for more information about free monthly consultation.
Click here for more information about the free monthly webinar.
Click here for more information about the free monthly practice group.
CA Podcast
The Constructed Awareness Podcast is now live! This podcast explores a wide range of topics related to CA, trauma processing, mindfulness, and the integration of the three building blocks. Join us for in-depth conversations with experts in the field and discover practical ways to incorporate CA principles into your practice. Episodes are available now on all major platforms. (Placeholder link)
Newsletter
As a subscriber, you’re part of a growing community of therapists and individuals interested in CA’s unique approach to trauma therapy. Keep an eye out for more updates, articles, and resources delivered straight to your inbox.
Community Involvement
CA practitioners are invited to join the growing CA community, where they can connect with other therapists, share insights, and participate in online discussions, webinars, and community events. For more information and to explore CA’s offerings, visit constructedawareness.com.
Getting in on the Ground Floor
Being part of Constructed Awareness at this early stage means you have a unique opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new approach. There’s something exciting about being able to train with the creator of the model and contribute to its evolution. I’m happy to have you as part of this journey.
Conclusion
Whether you’re a therapist looking to integrate CA into your practice or a non-therapist seeking personal growth, the principles and resources in this eBook are designed to support you on your journey. Non-therapists are welcome to use the CA theory and its resources for personal development, while therapists are encouraged to explore these tools for professional and personal growth. Personal practice deepens your understanding of the model and increases your ability to apply it effectively with others.
This eBook provides a basic overview of CA, but CA goes much deeper, offering many more resources, methods, and practices for creating meaningful change. Therapists can use the resources from this eBook to start incorporating CA elements into their work. However, if you wish to use CA more in-depth or advertise yourself as a CA therapist, it’s essential to complete CA training to practice CA ethically and within the scope of your practice.
If you find the resources in this eBook useful, I hope you consider joining the growing CA community by training further in the model. Learning to master CA’s principles and techniques will enhance your ability to support clients in meaningful and transformative ways.
Thank you for being part of this journey. I look forward to witnessing how you integrate CA into your life and practice, creating meaningful change for both yourself and your clients.