How we "know" what we don’t know
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I have a couple of great instances to help people get how Focusing lets you "know" what you don’t know yet. These are both from the writings of Eugene Gendlin. You may have heard these before but I invite you to hear them again, freshly. There is something mysterious going on here.
Here’s the first one. Imagine that you’re packing for a trip. You have an uneasy feeling that you’re forgetting something specific, but you can’t think what it is. You go over your packing list, and perhaps you even remember one or two items, but the uneasy feeling persists. You "know" there’s something else, but you don’t know what it is. Departure time comes, and you have to get going. Let’s say you are on the plane, still with that uneasy feeling of having forgotten something. Then it comes: "Ah! That’s it! I wanted to bring the other DVD." (Or whatever.) Immediately your body changes. That uneasy feeling is gone. Unlike all the other things you remembered earlier, this one brings a change, because this one is the one that the uneasy feeling was about
So there was a knowing– that something was being forgotten, or missed– but it wasn’t the usual kind of conscious knowing where we could answer the question, "What am I forgetting?" That question would result in: "I don’t know." I don’t know what I forgot. What do I know? That I forgot something.
When describing this kind of situation, we often say: My body knew, but I didn’t know. And that’s exactly the "Focusing body." It’s not the physiological body, a collection of bones, muscles, and organs. How could THAT know what I forgot? It’s the Focusing body, the experienced body, the body that reacts when someone walks into the room.
We could also call this implicit knowing. We know more implicitly than we know consciously. This is not the same as the "unconscious," because what is unconscious is not available at all. Instead, this implicit knowing is available first as a bodily felt sense, and then later as something we can articulate. Sometimes Gendlin calls this knowing "….." — which I pronounce as "u-u-u-h-h."
One of Gendlin’s greatest contributions has been to point out this dimension of implicit knowing. Everyone has had experiences like the one about packing for a trip, yet we tend to assume that something is either known or unknown, with no gray area in between.
Another example that Gendlin gives is about spotting someone familiar when you’re out shopping. You see the person over there, you know that the person is someone you know, but for the moment you can’t recall how you know them. In the meantime, your body is already reacting to the person, tightening up and pulling away from them, or open and expansive toward them. You don’t remember consciously who the person is, but your body does remember. In other words, you know implicitly who the person is, and that implicit knowing is available to you, not unconscious. If you want to, you can stop and sense how your body is reacting. You can stop and feel your felt sense of that person.
This much I know
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In addition to having big implications for how we talk about and understand this revolutionary skill of Focusing, there are also some neat little implications for practicing Focusing itself.
Let’s say I am sitting with a felt sense that has a quality of "angry." I have acknowledged it… I am sitting with it… and I am sensing there is something more there.
In the old days I might have asked it, "What’s getting you so angry?" But that often didn’t work. I would get no answer, or worse: under such direct questioning, it would fade away unresolved.
I’ve already said to it, "I’m sensing you’re angry," and I’ve felt an inner yes.
Now I say to it: "I’m sensing you’re angry about something." (Can you hear how I’m pronouncing that? It’s important to put a slight emphasis on the word "something.")
I call this "inviting a half step." What usually happens is that when I can sense a yes inside, it is angry about something, it’s as if a door opens and more knowing begins to come.
What I’m really doing is acknowledging the implicit knowing that is already here. Just as when I’m packing for a trip, and I have an uneasy feeling, I could obsess about what a dummy I am, or I could say, "There is a knowing that something is missing…"
