What if you lose contact with what you were Focusing on? Read on…
Sean writes:
My mind wanders as I’m trying to be patient with murky parts and I can’t tell if what I’m feeling is the part anymore (since my thoughts have wandered onto other topics).
Any thoughts about this?
Dear Sean:
Does “being patient” mean that your mind has nothing to do? If so, no wonder it wanders away to find something more interesting to chew on! I have a lot of empathy with that poor, hard-working mind!
And that’s why I want to re-frame the task and invite you to do something more active. “Trying to be patient” sounds pretty boring from anyone’s point of view.
So… your awareness is with a part of you that you can feel in your body, and it’s murky. In other words, it’s unclear, vague, and hard to describe.
But the next step isn’t “being patient.” Because actually, you can feel there is something there.
And your job now is to describe what it feels like.
I know. It’s murky. But it’s also more than that. There’s a not-in-words-yet feel to it. Our friend the eager-to-help, easily-bored mind can have the job of making guesses for what might describe it better. Then you check those with the body to see if they fit… and the body gets the last word.
As I learned from Eugene Gendlin, when you sense what descriptions don’t fit, you are already Focusing.
And it’s not a passive process of simply waiting. Even if you do want to wait sometimes, and allow time for something to happen, you’re doing so actively, not passively. It’s like watching a baby bird peck itself out of its shell. Something so interesting is happening, nothing in you will be bored!
