Focusing Tip #613 – “If I keep thinking about negative outcomes and expectations, I feel bad in my body…”
How can you trust your inner feeling that something is right, even if it’s not logical? Read on…
Bhavani writes:
Can a felt sense give me a knowing/feeling of what’s right in any situation? I have been noticing that if I keep thinking about negative outcomes and negative expectations I feel bad in my body and if I think positive, hopeful things I feel a lighter, open, flowing sense in my body.
So having said that, how do I find the place where I know what is right? Just sensing my body doesn’t seem to be enough as it might just be a reaction to my thoughts. And even if I have good feelings, how do I know they are not from a part of me?
Dear Bhavani:
Yes, a felt sense can give you a knowing of a situation, including what is needed. But it takes practice to discern the difference between a felt sense of a situation, and the body’s reaction to thoughts and to parts.
So you are asking just the right questions! But it might be that the place to ask these questions is not of me, but rather inside yourself.
Let me give you an example of what I mean.
A few months ago I began to get a feeling that a tentative plan to teach in a certain country was not going to be right this year. How did I decide that this was a feeling to trust?
I love that country, and I always have fun with the person I stay with there. On the face of it, logically, it all seemed like a good idea. But I still had this sense that something wasn’t right about the plan.
It wasn’t an emotional feeling. I wasn’t in distress. It was like something underneath all the thoughts and the logic. And it persisted. Every time I thought about the plan, I got the feeling.
So I acted on it. Did I cancel the trip? Yes… but first I wrote to the person planning the event with me (also a Focuser) to check if she had a similar feeling. And she did! We agreed to postpone.
Now I feel very grateful because other events that I wasn’t even aware of have happened since to confirm my decision. Our decision.
So, if you want to trust a felt sense that is telling you something about your life, here are my two suggestions:
- Keep checking, on several different days and perhaps over weeks. If it’s right, it will persist. It’s a small voice, not an emotionally loaded one… but it is persistent.
- Take a small step, like talking to another person about it, or doing more research, and then check the feeling again.
And do let me know how that goes!
