Confused about somatic tracking

I’m confused about somatic tracking. Somatic tracking is attending to your internal/body sensations. But then we are told in order to deactivate our danger/pain signals, we need to stop checking in with our pain and stop focusing on it. Isn’t that a direct contradiction? How do you pay attention to your body/pain and NOT pay attention to it at the same time?

 

Elsewhere on the Wiki, Alan Gordon wrote the following in reply to a similar question from someone else:

"If you focus on the pain with feelings of fear/frustration/despair, etc., it reinforces to your brain that that sensation is dangerous. If you focus on it while simultaneously in a positive emotional state, it can reinforce that that sensation is safe. And pain is nothing more than sensation + danger, so by taking the fear out of the equation, you neutralize the pain."

When you focus on your internal/body sensations and amongst your internal body sensations there is pain...a way of not focusing on the pain with fear/frustration/despair, etc is to observe it matter of factly and with neutrality...What is the pain like, is it sharp, dull, throbbing? What area of your body does it cover? If you were to draw it, what shape and colour would it be?...Notice that it probably alters in intensity from moment to moment..and then move on to noticing other sensations that are going on in your body. This can be done as a meditation too.

Remember: your TMS mind wants you to be totally preoccupied with the 'horror' of the pain and/or other symptoms it gives you. It confounds your TMS mind when you don't treat the pain and/or other symptoms as a 'horror'.

 

Somatic tracking is about observing your symptoms with curiosity, rather than reacting to them with fear, anger, or frustration. It is a subtle but profound distinction.