Your Body Knows the Answer

FELT SENSES START OUT vague, fuzzy, murky, subtle, unclear. This is like the experience of looking through a pair of binoculars that is out of focus. You see vague shapes and colors but can’t recognize what you’re looking at. What do you do? You continue looking through the eyepieces and at the same time rotate the focus wheel until things become clear. In working with felt senses, we follow a similar process, adjusting our awareness until the felt sense comes into focus. ^a

However, there is a difference. When the view through the binoculars comes into focus, we recognize familiar objects that we can name: a tree, a house, an osprey. When a felt sense comes into focus, it is a special kind of object that by its very nature can’t be named with a noun like tree or bird. The felt sense always is and has more than can be categorized. This is another way of saying that the felt sense is fundamentally nonconceptual. It also explains why felt senses are different from the common emotions that do have names like anger, fear, happiness, and sadness. Nonetheless, felt senses can be described with words, if instead of using nouns we use adjectives.

Each felt sense has its own unique, specific qualities. Imagine meeting a new person: At first you don’t know the person’s name, you don’t know “who they are,” but you are perfectly able to observe and describe their qualities. They are tall, short, or of average height; their hair is dark or light, long or short, curly or straight; they are slender or heavyset; they are young or old, happy or sad, outgoing or shy, and so on.

Now imagine that you are describing this new person to a friend. As you name each of the person’s qualities, your friend builds up a clearer picture of what this person is like. The still-nameless person begins to come into focus for your friend. Perhaps at a certain point your friend realizes you are describing somebody whom they know. Now all at once your friend can tell you the person’s name and a great deal more about them that you weren’t able to discover just by observation.

Similarly, when a felt sense is present in an unclear way, we can help it come into focus by naming its qualities. Because it is something that is bodily felt, the words we use to describe it will evoke tangible, physical sensations: tight, hard, fluttery, warm, round, dark, hollow, sinking, flowing, and so on. Sometimes an image or metaphor will capture the feeling inside: a hard ball, like a shield, like flames. Sometimes it will take a combination of quality words and images to describe the felt sense: prickly like a cactus, like a dark heavy stone, expanding like a balloon. At other times a hand gesture, movement, or change in body posture works best.

In the following exercise you can experiment with using descriptive adjectives, images, and gestures to bring your felt sense into clearer focus.

Go through the preparatory steps of bringing awareness to the body and becoming present in yourself, taking as much time as feels right. When you feel ready, find or invite a felt sense that you want to spend time with. You can do this by bringing awareness directly to your felt-sense zone, by starting with a known situation, or by asking gently inside, “What wants my attention just now?” If you start with a situation, such as a relationship problem or work challenge, recollect enough of its specifics—the story line—to make it present in your experience right now. Then drop the story line, bring awareness inside, and attend to whatever felt sense your body is holding.

Be present with the felt sense and welcome it to be present with you. Be gentle, don’t rush, don’t react judgmentally, and don’t get preoccupied with a train of thought. Just be there—friendly attending—with whatever unclear “something” you can sense right now. After a while, try out a word, phrase, image, or gesture to capture how the felt sense appears or feels. It is essential to keep the felt sense present as you check to see whether the word, image, or gesture really fits. If it isn’t quite right, keep adjusting the description until the felt sense lets you know, “Yes, that says it, that’s just how it feels!”

Have you had the experience of choosing a picture frame? Your eye may be attracted to a certain shape, color, or texture, but in order to know if it’s right, you have to hold a sample of the frame up to the picture itself. Often you have to try several different frames before settling on the one that best fits the picture because it complements the visual image and makes it “pop.” The felt sense is like the picture, and the description of the felt sense is like the frame. Holding them together in your awareness, check whether the word, image, phrase, or gesture you’ve come up with is the best possible fit for this particular felt sense. As with the picture, a good fit will make the felt sense stand out more clearly. Remember, you can always change the frame if it doesn’t fit right—but don’t change the felt sense to fit the frame!

The process of comparing descriptive words, images, or gestures to the felt sense is called resonating. It is like tuning an instrument. If your first attempt at description doesn’t attune perfectly with the felt sense, keep adjusting it until it does. You will know you have a good fit when the felt sense itself feels properly recognized.

For this exercise and others in this book, you may find it helpful to have a journal in which you can record key words, images, and insights, either as they arise or at the end of your session.

a. This is why Eugene Gendlin gave the felt-sensing process the name Focusing. Because the word focusing suggests the conventional idea of concentrating one’s attention—“Focus!”—which is virtually the opposite of friendly attending, I prefer finding the felt sense or just felt-sensing.