Focusing Tip #756 – “I don’t know if this physical sensation is a felt sense.”
Do you get confused by not knowing where your body sensations come from? Read on…
Margriet writes:
Sometimes I get a bit confused: I don’t know whether a physical sensation is caused by just having done too much with my body, or whether it’s a felt sense. Today I felt an aching in my chest, but maybe it was just because I’d been lifting boxes. Any ideas on how I can get a grip on this?
Dear Margriet:
So it’s a good moment to do some Focusing. You pause and sense… and you feel an aching in your chest. Great!
What’s next? You stay with the feeling. You sense if the word “aching” is a good description for it. You don’t judge it or analyze it, you just feel it as it is. There is more.
And then “something in you” comes in and wonders, “Is this a felt sense?” And the process stops!
It’s very common to have an “Am I doing this right?” moment as we start to do Focusing.But that’s OK. All you need to do is acknowledge this worried part of you.
“I am sensing something in me that is worried whether this is a felt sense or not. And I am saying Hello to that.”
You see… whether it is a felt sense or not cannot be known yet. First we need to be with the sensation. We need to allow it to be as it is, and feel how to describe it. We need to check the description and sense if that says it all, or if there is more.
From that process it may emerge that this is a purely physical muscle ache. I can’t know that before the process. The knowing emerges from the process.
How lovely to know that all we need to do is be present with this feeling, and everything else will come from that!
