What If the Felt Sense Won't Talk?
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Diane asks, "If your felt sense doesn't want to express itself, and you know it's there… and maybe you're not sure if you want to give attention to it, or maybe you don't know how to give your attention to it… but it doesn't seem to want to respond… What do you do?"
Dear Diane,
What a great question!
That happens more than we would think! Focusing is an inner relationship. It's not like a machine where you push a button and the answer pops out! And as with any relationship, we both have to be in the mood…
So you brought awareness inside… you can feel that something is there… but there's some kind of reluctance. And it sounds like you're not even sure where the reluctance is. "Do I not want to get into it? Or maybe it doesn't want to open up to me?"
Well, here's what's great: you don't even have to know where that reluctance is in order to say Hello to it. Say, "I'm noticing there's some kind of not wanting… to get into something… or not wanting to open up…" And just take a little pause to make sure those are the right words for what you're feeling.
And then see if it's OK to just acknowledge that.
It doesn't have to be different from how it is. It doesn't have to open up, or talk, or reveal itself. You can let it be just as it is.
"But what if nothing happens?"
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It might seem to the logical part of you that nothing is happening. You're spending time with a reluctant part of you, just being there… and at the same time another part of you is drumming its fingers on the desk, asking, "How long do we have to sit here like this?"
So that's the part of you that needs to be acknowledged now, because that's what's getting in the way of just being Self-in-Presence, spending time with what's here.
The inner world needs to be a safe place, and if you're identified with an impatient part of you, it's actually not so safe in there.
So that part of you that isn't wanting to open up… why might that be? It's shy, or it's not trusting, or it's not ready. It's got some good reason that it's not opening up. And if YOU trust that, you trust your process, then just being there with it is not "nothing happening." Actually, something very important is happening.
You're trusting.
