What if being in pain is preventing you from Focusing? Read on…
A Reader writes:
I’m trying to do Focusing in the way you teach, but I have a lot of physical pain, especially in my neck and shoulders. Every time I try to bring awareness to my body and locate subtle feelings I get stopped by the physical pain. It isn’t subtle at all! And I can’t seem to get past it.
Dear Reader:
So what if we don’t try to get past it. What if we assume that the physical pain is what needs your attention first?
When I first learned Focusing from Eugene Gendlin, he told us that physical pain is not a felt sense, and Focusing is about finding felt senses. But he didn’t explain what to do with physical pain.
As I began working with people myself, I discovered something. Pain may not be a felt sense, but it does respond well to receiving a Focusing quality of attention.
What is a “Focusing quality of attention”? That means sensing without judging or labeling. Sensing freshly, as if for the first time.
The trouble with pain is, it can be hard to sense it without judging or labeling. Naturally we don’t like it and we wish it would stop! What I discovered is, the word “pain” itself is a label, and can get in the way of sensing freshly.
So I say to a person like you: “Let’s let the word ‘pain’ float away for a while, and just call this ‘a sensation’. And maybe you can be with this sensation and describe it as if you had never felt it before.”
By letting go of all labels, and sensing with curiosity, you are already in a different relationship with the sensation. Sometimes it actually releases and changes. But even if not, it usually settles down enough that you can sense other, more subtle feelings. And you can do Focusing.
