May 8 2007 – #110

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"is that the felt sense?"
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Someone wrote: "I have been focusing on my
own for over 12 months. I have read the book
only. Is the felt sense the same as if I
recall a pleasant memory and feel that
'tingle' in my body? I then recall an
unpleasant memory and the sense is
uncomfortable. Is that the felt sense?"

I feel a lot of sympathy for people who try
to learn Focusing from a book, even though I
wrote one of them! It's SO much easier when
there is someone sitting with you saying,
"There... that's it..."

Yes, an uncomfortable feeling when you recall
something unpleasant is probably a felt
sense, or the start of one. What matters,
though, is what you do next. Next you keep
your awareness with it, and describe it.
Check if the word "uncomfortable" describes
it completely. Notice what kind of
uncomfortable it feels like, at this moment.
Felt senses have a quality of being hard to
describe, at first.

Another way to get a felt sense is to ask,
while your awareness is in throat chest
stomach: Does my whole life feel wonderful?
Then notice what happens. If you're like me,
you'll get a vague "ugh" feeling. Again, it's
how you treat it from now on that really matters.

One reason that Focusing can be hard to learn
is that there are so many well-traveled roads
that are not Focusing. Thinking about it.
Trying to figure it out. Guessing what it
might be. When you hear yourself saying "I
think it's...." or "It's probably..." then
you know you need to stop and come back to
just describing freshly the vague
hard-to-describe sense that's there.

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...and why it doesn't even matter.
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The search for the "real" felt sense may be
misplaced. I've come to believe that anything
we feel is either a felt sense or can lead to
one. It's probably better to accept whatever
we feel as the starting place and then go on,
rather than trying to sort and distinguish
from the start.

How you treat what you feel is far more
important than what it "is," because we're
talking about a process anyway.

It takes practice to stay with our felt
experience with curiosity, sensing what it
feels like, offering those descriptions back
to the feeling. It helps to stay as closely
as possible to the body felt experience.
"Fear," yes... but notice how "fear" feels in
your body right now. Tightness across the
chest? Ah! Now we're getting somewhere.

This curious, open, respectful mode of
sensing continues all through Focusing. You
might say it's the essence of what we do.
Letting go of assumptions and preconceived
ideas, just encountering the here-and-now
freshly. It's the point of change. It's where
everything happens.