Ways to Access the Unconscious Through the Body Pt. 3: Focusing
By: Dr. Denise Renye
In part 1 of the blog “Ways to Access the Unconscious Through the Body,” I discussed my research on Spontaneous Embodied Spiritual Experiences (SESE), which are ways of accessing the unconscious through free-form body movement held in a larger container (a therapy session, the dance floor, the triad, etc.). Examples I spoke about in part one were Authentic Movement and 5Rhythms. In part 2 of the blog, I introduced other examples of SESE, ecstatic and enstatic dance.
In this blog, I want to introduce you to Focusing and Felt Sensing, a therapy modality and technique to identify and become more familiar with somatic sensations. Developed by philosopher and psychologist Dr. Eugene Gendlin, it can be understood as a form of bodily intelligence, a bodily experience, a knowing. Gendlin was a student of humanistic psychologist Dr. Carl Rogers who developed “unconditional positive regard,” a psychotherapeutic technique showing complete acceptance and support regardless of what a person does or says. Focusing can be understood as a way to have unconditional positive regard beginning within, for oneself.
Focusing is subtle and intricate. It has been applied widely in the fields of psychology, medicine, education, conflict resolution, parenting, and decision-making. Perhaps if Focusing was applied to politics, we would see some much-needed improvements in the U.S. in particular. As you can already guess based on the application of Focusing, this method of inner awareness and growth can be helpful at the personal level, interpersonal level, relationship level, and societal level. I also believe that pausing, with the help of a technique such as this, is a step in the right direction to seeing and being seen. It could be a great adjunct to empathy training.
“A felt sense is not a mental experience but a physical one. Physical. A bodily awareness of a situation or person or event. An internal aura that encompasses everything you feel and know about the given subject at a given time – encompasses it and communicates it to you all at once rather than detail by detail. Think of it as a taste, if you like, or a great musical chord that makes you feel a powerful impact, a big round unclear feeling.
“A felt sense doesn’t come to you in the form of thoughts or words or other separate units, but as a single (though often puzzling and very complex) bodily feeling.”
In research for my dissertation, I found the same thing to be true with six out of my 10 research participants who described a felt sense when asked about their Spontaneous Embodied Spiritual Experience (SESE). One participant, Bell indicated a “swirling” in her head and a “kind of foggy” experience like “thick air” just before she started to move. Another participant, Walker indicated a “shift inside” that she sensed on a “deep level energetically” and specifically noted it wasn’t verbal. This felt sense experience is one that other researchers have also noticed. Claire Petitimengin-Peugeot noted in her book chapter “The Intuitive Experience,” that “the intuition does not always emerge in a precise, complete, immediately understandable form. Most often it first caresses the consciousness as a hazy image, a vague sensation.”
Gendlin also says felt sense isn’t just sitting in the body waiting for us to find it, but rather it comes to us the way other processes come – for instance, sleep or tears. We make room for the body to express itself.
English Professor Sondra Perl puts it like this:
“But if we relax and allow it to form by attending to ourselves in a particular way, a felt sense can make its presence felt. Once it does, we can pay attention and allow it to speak, to suggest images or ideas, to point us to what is going on within us or to what lies beneath the words or to what lies at the edge of our thoughts. And once this happens, we can discover an endlessly rich, intricate, and open realm that leads to insight and understanding.”
Perl gives an example of felt sense when writing. When the words you choose feel right, there’s a sense of excitement, pleasure, and flow. There’s alignment physically and mentally. However, when the words you choose feel wrong, there’s discomfort, frustration, and feeling blocked.
“Felt sense, then, is the physical place where we locate what the body knows,” Perl writes. “This knowing becomes clearer as words come. But more often than not, this knowing is present even before we have the words, before what we sense is expressed in language. The point here is that once we realize that we have access to this knowing in our bodies, we can learn to cultivate it. We can practice directing our attention to it. We can develop a way of attending to ourselves that can guide us during acts of creativity.”
How do you cultivate felt sense? How do you practice Focusing? What follows is a simple step-by-step guide that you can also read in other languages on the Focusing Institute website. Keep in mind there is no one “right” way to do Focusing and the steps below merely offer a starting point.
Step 1.) Once in a comfortable position, relax and close your eyes while taking a few deep breaths. Ask yourself, “How am I inside right now?” Instead of jumping to answer with your mind, give your body time and space to reveal what’s happening internally without judgment. Don’t get sucked into the story – have some space between you and whatever arises.
Step 2.) When you notice what’s occurring internally, also bring awareness to where the sensation is in your body. Does it feel OK to describe what you’re feeling? The words could be tight, sticky, scary, stuck, heavy, or jumpy. Or maybe it feels better to use images, gestures, metaphors, or sounds. If you do describe what’s happening, notice how your body responds. Does your body agree with the descriptions you chose?
Step 3.) Now pick a situation/issue you’d like to work with. What needs your attention? It could be something stressful but it could also be something joyful! What do you feel like is “snagging” your body right now?
Step 4.) What does the whole situation/issue feel like in your body? Sense the topic from the perspective of your body rather than your mind. Let your body have time to respond. Once it has, find a word, phrase, image, sound, or gesture that can act as the encapsulation of the felt sense.
Step 5.) When you conjure up the word, phrase, image, sound, or gesture, is there a “rightness” in your body? An inner “yes” that you’ve chosen something that resonates? If not, let a new word, phrase, image, sound, or gesture arise and repeat the process until you find resonance.
Step 6.) Now you may ask the felt sense questions, some of which will be answered and some of which won’t. That’s OK. It’s about asking the questions, not answering them. Receive whatever answers arise and breathe with them. Ideas for questions include the following:
· “What’s the main thing about this feeling?”
· “What does this feeling need?”
· “What is a small step in the right direction?”
· “What would my body feel like if this situation/topic were resolved?” When that answer arises, move your body into the position or posture it would be in if everything was OK. This is you reverse engineering because then you ask, “What’s between me and this resolved place? What’s in the way?”
· Lastly, ask your felt sense to send you the right question you need to ask. Then ask that question! Let your body form the response and again, breathe out the answer.
Step 7.) Is it OK to end in a few minutes or does your felt sense have something else that needs acknowledging first? If you need more time, take it.
Step 8.) As you’re closing out this process, notice any changes in your body, any openings or releases. Have you experienced a shift, no matter how slight (or significant)?
Step 9.) Let your body know you’re willing to come back to the Focusing process. Along those lines, thank your body for what was transpired, express gratitude for the answers given to you. Let your body know this is a relationship, and one that you value.
Step 10.) Lastly, bring your awareness to your external body – your hands and feet. Perhaps give them a wiggle. Slowly, draw your attention back to the room you’re in, or the outdoor space you’re occupying. When you’re ready, open your eyes.
The process of beginning to turn the attention to the body, experiencing the ‘taking of space for the rising up from within’ is similar to some meditation practices, restorative yoga practices, and somatic psychology interventions. The gentle return to an integrated internal landscape together with the external is also similar to coming out of savasana by wiggling your beautiful toes and fingers. As there are many different religious paths to Godx, there are many mind-body integration techniques to depth of understanding the self.
I invite you to try this exercise and see what the buzz is all about! You may just discover a bit more about your own internal buzz, landscape and somatic sensations. Creating space and engaging in a practice such as Focusing can lead to a deeper sense of embodiment. Doing so could lead to greater satisfaction with intimacy, Also embodiment can change your relationship with eating. If you give Focusing a try, let me know how it goes either in the comments below on my Facebook page.
For ideas and ways to stay connected to and learn more about the unconscious through the body, feel free to stay connected.
References
Gendlin, Eugene T. 1981. Focusing. New York: Bantam. [originally published 1978]
“How to Focus and Get a Felt Sense.” wikiHow.com. https://www.wikihow.com/Focus-and-Get-a-Felt-Sense. May 7, 2018.
“Learning Focusing: The Classic Six Steps.” The International Focusing Institute. https://focusing.org/sixsteps. Accessed August 13, 2020.
Perl, Sondra. “Part One: What Is Felt Sense.” CUNY Composition Community. https://compcomm.commons.gc.cuny.edu/feltsense/part-one-what-is-felt-sense/. Accessed August 11, 2020.
Petitmengin-Peugeot, Claire. (1999). “The Intuitive Experience.” In F. J. Varela & J. Shear (Eds.), The view from within: First-person approaches to the study of consciousness (pp. 43–77). London, England: Imprint Academic.