“When I’m not ready to say ‘hello’ to a felt sense, I say ‘I hate you.'”
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Rachel writes: “When I’m not ready to say ‘hello’ to a felt sense, I just say ‘I hate you, you’re so horrid’ or whatever I’m feeling at the moment (which is not always gentle sounding, but it is accepting and loving) and that works pretty well too! Like I’ll say to a felt sense in my middle ‘Why are you doing this to me, I hate you’ or ‘You’re hurting me, you’re punishing me’. It’s not a conversation opener, it’s just a form of hello and I want to connect – but I don’t want to fake a welcoming sound that I don’t mean. Yet the felt sense usually seems to accept that readily and moves or eases. I guess I’m allowing the part that rejects the discomfort of the felt sense to express itself through me.
“I give my attention to a subject that bothers me, I pay attention to a felt sense that emerges and give it gentle and loving
awareness, but I say what comes naturally to me – annoyance, for example, if it moves to my head, I say ‘What are you doing up there, I don’t accept you’. I’m not asking for an answer, it’s just a way of making contact that expresses my current frustration, my current awareness of the relationship. It seems to speed up the process a lot. I wonder if this is still IR Focusing.”
Dear Rachel,
Wow, I live and learn all the time! I would never have thought that saying “I hate you” to something you’re feeling would bring movement or easing, or speed up the process. But I believe what you’re telling me… and that makes me think that what we have here is an validation of the principle that it’s not the words, but the intention behind the words, that makes the difference.
Despite how your words sound, you’re feeling accepting and loving toward your own experience. And your body reads your attitude more than the words that you say. We can tell this because you feel an easing in the place you are speaking to.
However, I think you are on to something when you say, “I guess I’m allowing the part that rejects the discomfort of the felt sense to express itself through me.” I too suspect that’s happening, and that that expression is what brings relief.
So I do have a perspective to offer.
When you say to a painful body feeling, “Why are you doing this to me?”, it sounds like something in you is making a fundamental mistake about the nature of what is happening. It isn’t doing something to you. On the contrary, it is helping you.
To see what I mean, imagine that you bang your head on an open cabinet door (I do this at least once a year!). Ouch, that hurts! You might rub your head, or pause and just feel the pain for a while. You might call yourself a bad name for not
watching what you were doing — or you might be gentle with yourself. But would you blame the feeling of pain in your head? Would you say to the painful spot in your head, “Why are you doing this to me?”
Painful or uncomfortable body feelings are signals. They are here to tell you something. Don’t blame the messenger!
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Your felt senses are here for a good reason, and there is something in them that is more than you already know.
In IR Focusing, you make a compassionate contact with the feeling place so that it starts to trust you, so that you can sense the “more” that is there, more than has been articulated yet.
Sensing and describing the “edge” of awareness, where something is more than can be easily said, allows real transformation. Like a miracle, people often say.
Once you have had this experience a few times, that being with how you feel without judgment allows it to change… AND there is something more to know about yourself and your life… AND there is life-energy there… once you have experienced all that a few times, it’s hard to dislike even painful feelings any more!
