Chapter 7
Requesting Insight from the Felt Sense
HAVING BROUGHT the felt sense into focus by describing and resonating, you have established a respectful, caring relationship with a part of yourself that embodies an undifferentiated, holistic knowing about your past experience, present situation, and future direction. It contains more than what your conceptual mind already knows. Sometimes this wordless body feel is all you need in order to go forward, but often you will want to take the next step and bring forth a conceptual understanding that articulates new insights and options for action. Now that the felt sense is fully present, you are in a position to invite it to translate its body-knowing into mind-knowing. We do this through empathic inquiry, a gentle process of addressing open-ended questions to the felt sense itself.
A word about the word insight: As used here it means “freshly realized meaning.” Insight includes both the preverbal body feel of some newly emergent meaning and the articulation of that new meaning in words and ideas. In Focusing, insights can arise first as a new body feel or first as a new idea or as both simultaneously. Often they come with an “Aha!” of recognition and a palpable easing, release, or shift in the felt sense. Sometimes these “felt shifts” are accompanied by a sigh or deepened breathing, by changes in posture, or by tears. All of these are indicators that there has been real movement in how the body is holding a situation.
The next exercise, Empathic Inquiry, builds on Exercise 1.3: Noticing “Something.” The objective there was to penetrate to a felt sense by challenging our reflexive answer to the question “How are you?” We did this by reframing the question as “But how am I really?” Here you will repeat the same steps and then go deeper by asking additional questions directly to the felt sense.
Begin by simply asking yourself, “How am I?” Say whatever comes to mind: fine, OK, tired, happy, sad, excited . . .
Now ask yourself, “But how am I really?” This time ignore any words that come quickly. Instead, holding in mind the question “How am I really?” allow there to be a gap, and simply sense inside your body with an attitude of friendly attending.
If no felt sense comes, or if another verbal answer comes, repeat the question while attending to your inner body space. Keep asking, “But how am I really?” until you notice a bodily response—something that stirs or forms freshly when you pose the question, or perhaps something that has been there all along unnoticed.
Welcome and be with whatever body sense is there. After a while, see if you can come up with a simple description—adjective(s), image, metaphor, or gesture—that captures the felt sense. Check if the description resonates with the felt sense itself. If the fit doesn’t feel quite right, adjust the description until it does.
You can include an emotion word in your description if the felt sense resonates with it, but be specific. For example, if the felt sense brings the word sad, ask inside, “What kind of sad?” See if there is a modifier, an adjective or an image that tells what kind of sadness is there just now. You’ll know you’re on the right track if what comes is an unexpected or unusual combination of words like “jittery-sad,” “achy-sad,” “sad like an overstretched rubber band.”
When the description fits the felt sense clearly, move on to the empathic inquiry stage by posing a friendly question to the felt sense. You might simply ask, “What in my life is like this?” Or, more specifically, “Is there anything going on in my life that brings this kind of [jittery-sad, achy-sad, overstretched rubber band, etc.] feeling?” If you already know that the felt sense relates to a particular situation, you can frame the question as “What about this situation makes it so [achy-sad, etc.]?”
Use emotion words only if they really touch the quality of the felt sense. Otherwise, just ask directly, “What in my life feels like an overstretched rubber band?” or “What is it about this situation that makes me feel so overstretched?” Remember that often there is a period of silence before an answer bubbles up from the felt sense.
A good question to pose when you’re working with a complex, uncomfortable situation is “What is the worst part of all this?” Allow a gap after the question and see what response comes from the felt sense. Like a young child, the felt sense may not respond to the question at all. When this happens, try not to be frustrated or offended; just drop the question and go back to friendly attending. Then try a different question or a different way of asking the same question. For example, if there is no response to “What is the worst of all this?” try addressing the felt sense directly, as if it were a child: “Is there something you are fearful about?” Or “What is it that you are wanting?” Leave a gap and see if the felt sense itself responds with words, or if a fresh insight comes that you can put into words.
With this exercise, we have arrived at the heart of Mindful Focusing, actually entering into dialogue with the felt sense and, if it cooperates, getting new information from it. Because this involves first recognizing the felt sense, then using describing and resonating to bring it into focus, and then eliciting fresh insight through empathic inquiry, it is likely to take some time.
It is also a good practice to ask yourself, “But how am I really?” anytime someone asks you how you are. After giving the usual sort of reply—“I’m well, thank you,” “Doing OK,” “Good”—ask yourself inwardly how you really feel and see what shows up. You may even be comfortable sharing some of what comes with the other person, which is a powerful way to build trust and deepen relationships. In part 2, I’ll say more about how the felt sense functions in relationships; the point here is that you can use these everyday exchanges as a reminder to check in with your felt sense.
Finally, it bears repeating that sometimes the best thing to do with a felt sense is not to pose questions to it or even describe its qualities but simply to keep it company empathically for as long as feels right to you—or to it.