Why It’s Important to Feel the Whole Thing
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Justin writes: "When you (and Gendlin) write about ‘feeling all that, the whole feeling sense of the situation’, I find myself confused and intimidated. For me, it feels too big to concentrate on everything about a situation. Am I just to get a general sort of aura-like feel? Is that what is meant? The words ‘all’ and ‘whole’ I think are what intimidate me. Is there some other way of explaining this?"
Dear Justin,
I can hear that the words ‘all’ and ‘whole’ make this felt-sensing seem like a mysterious process. They’re meant to! Without them, people might just think that a felt sense is any way they feel, or the usual way they feel. As in "How do you feel about losing your job?" / "Terrible!"
In fact, let’s take losing one’s job as an example. (It could be any life circumstance, of course…) Do you know how there’s a sort of automatic emotional reaction–like how anyone would feel? "It’s scary… it’s terrible… how unfair…" You tell a friend about it and you expect the same reaction that you had. And of course there is a comfort in that!
But there’s another thing that could happen when life seems to hit you with something, like losing a job. You could pause and allow a sense of "all that." What’s important here is that you’re sensing freshly how it is, not just any job-losing, but this one, yours, now, along with the rest of your life…
And if you let yourself do that, you will feel there is more to it. Like whispers from the corners… there is more that isn’t quite formed yet. If you had to talk about it, you couldn’t. But if you take some time feeling "all that," the ways of saying it begin to come.
I remember a time when I was 22, just before I learned Focusing. My boyfriend and I broke up, painfully, and I was alone in my apartment, drowning in self-pity and guilt.
Then something happened. I began to just feel myself, in the present moment. "Here I am." And realized: Oh my gosh! I’m actually glad to be alone!
It was that moment of realization that led me to seek out Focusing… to seek out something that would help me open up that window into my true self more often.
"it feels too big to concentrate on everything about a situation"
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So, Justin, we’re not saying that you need to concentrate. It’s more like a pointing-to. Use the words "all that," and imagine also a wave of your hand. "All that, there." The purpose of the word "all" is not to require you to think of details but precisely the opposite: so you don’t have to get into details.
The felt sense forms at the same time that you feel how you are more than it, more than that whole problem. You’re able to feel you have it, but it isn’t you. It’s "that."
Sure, you’ll have emotions and thoughts and memories along the way, as the felt sense forms. They’re all welcome. AND you don’t get caught in them. Saying hello to them is a great way to not get caught yet not fight them either.
Once you’ve said hello to as many aspects of the situation that feel like showing up, you’ll be well on your way to feeling the "more," the not-in-words-yet, what’s under it or behind it or whispering from the corners.