I’m Being With It… Now What?
I wrote last week about the situation in Focusing where “nothing” is happening: You found a felt sense, you described it, and now you’re sitting with it. Is something else supposed to happen? Last week I spoke about the possibility that “nothing” is happening because “it” doesn’t feel safe.
But as I teach Focusing I’ve seen another kind of “nothing.” That’s when the Focuser doesn’t understand what kind of process this “being with” is. It’s not just passive waiting, like sitting with a person in a coma hoping they’ll wake up.
“Being with” includes sensing it, and even more, sensing into it. With your awareness you are doing something analogous to tasting, as a connoisseur would taste, or a wine taster. Like “Hmmm… what’s this like? Let me sense it…”
So it’s hardly true that nothing could happen, because there is something there, and you are sensing into it, and there is always more to sense…
What Is This “Sensing Into”?
What is “sensing into” and how is it different from just sensing?
The difference has to do with the whole way we understand and hold the felt sense itself. Ideally we want to encounter this inner sense freshly, as something more than the names and descriptions we have given to it. We are sensing it, and even though we have already described it, we can feel that “tight” or “sad” or whatever doesn’t end the matter; it is more than that.
And how do we find the “more”? Well, not by ASKING, at least not usually! Sitting with this felt something and asking it what more is in it usually goes nowhere.
Instead we need to stay with it, feel it, sensing its qualities, sensing what it’s like. And this is true whether IT is a body sense or an image or a posture… If we feel into what it’s like, we can feel more and more of how it is.
That includes sensing ITS emotion, ITS mood, ITS point of view. As you sense all this, it’s as if IT comes more and more alive. And that indeed is not nothing!