Reorienting Through the Body: The Correlation Among Self-Transcendent Emotion Experiences and Interoceptive Awareness

Abstract

The primary research question guiding this study was: In what ways do self-transcendent emotion-experiences (awe, gratitude, compassion, and forgiveness) correlate with interoceptive awareness? Two studies were implemented in 2024 to conduct the inquiry. The first was a correlational study involving a measure of interoceptive awareness and assessments of awe, gratitude, compassion, and forgiveness. We recruited two diverse demographic samples of survey respondents (n = 441 and n = 443) to determine what correlations might generalize to a broad population. Bivariate correlational analysis revealed strong correlations among total scores and specific subscales of interoception and self-transcendent emotion-experience. In a second study, an informed grounded theory approach explored what theories might explain the correlation. We conducted 45 interviews, each exploring the somatic felt sense of a profound experience of awe, compassion, gratitude, or forgiveness. The resulting analysis elicited themes of attuning, witnessing, and reorientation associated with a greatly expanded sense of self. Results revealed transcendent emotions to be a profoundly embodied experience correlating with high levels of interoceptive awareness.