Living from our felt sense: ways of using Focusing and TAE to do and be
In Eugene Gendlin’s writing, he points to how we can live differently when we live in a way informed by our felt sense. He says that a “A society of pattern-makers is coming.” in his little Focusing book, to explain how people will more and more be using their felt sense to find their own way, they’re own pattern. His second practice, Thinking at the Edge or TAE is a way to find the pattern we want live, to create.
Thick vs thin
In his major work of philosophy, A Process Model, Gendlin uses the language of “thick” and “thin” to differentiate two ways of living: with and without the felt sense. He goes so far to say that “the same actions that once were “thick” are now thin.” They are lacking in what he calls “bodily doings.”
To carry forward the whole of a situation, and to be in a full-bodied process, is rarely possible within the patterns of situations.
Just how would it be to live full-bodiedly, to carry forward the whole of routine situations? It would be a new stage.
–Eugene Gendlin, A Process Model, page 209.
Here is is using the word patterns to mean “culturally patterned routines.” So we have another way of differentiating these two ways ways of living: in a “routine” way or living with “a sense of the whole […] a way of carrying forward complex contexts.”
All this points to a different way of living that is possible, both individually and in community, when we let our felt sense guide!
Our Unique Gifts
When I read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, in particular her passage on unique gifts, it made me think of how we can live with the felt sense. She shares a story of the Three Sisters, how beans, squash and corn are grown together by Indigenous peoples in a way that support each of the other plants. She says:
“It’s tempting to imagine that these three are deliberate in working together, and perhaps they are. But the beauty of this partnership is that each plant does what it does in order to increase its own growth. But as it happens, when the individuals flourish, so does the whole.
The way of the Three Sisters reminds me of one of the basic teachings of our people. The most important thing each of us can know is our unique gift and how to use it in the world. Individuality is cherished and nurtured, because, in order for the whole to flourish, each of us has to be strong in who we are and carry our gifts with conviction, so they can be shared with others. Being among the sisters provides a visible manifestation of what a community can become when its members understand and share their gifts. In reciprocity, we fill our spirits, as well as our bellies.”–Robin Wall Kimmerer
The idea that each of us has something unique to offer the world, some gift that can be shared with others really resonates with me. And I think one of the best ways to find our unique gift is to ask our felt sense. Our bodies show us what we’re good at, what lights us up. (I also agree with Elizabeth Gilbert, that everyone’s goal shouldn’t be to find a unique gift that only they can do… I think it is beautiful when you find what you like and offer it to others, even supporting another. And with the felt sense, we can notice how our way is maybe a bit different than others. But it doesn’t have to be “purpose anxiety.”)
What’s your gift? A doing? A being?
With Focusing, we can offer the body a number of questions to help form a felt sense of what is ours to share. Some questions can be more action oriented. Here are three of my favourites and maybe one will resonate with you:
What is your just right next step? (a combination of the ways Gendlin and David Rome use this question)
What is yours to do? (from Carolyn Baker’s Apocalypse Anytime, p. 8)
What is mine to do? (from Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer’s new book Presencing, p. 8)
I emphasize a lot of action and doing in my teaching sometimes, as many of us have ideas we want to create, and get stuck making them happen.
Yet, other gifts aren’t so much a doing as a being. They are so much more about how you live, such as your values. Maybe its the tone of voice that you use, your smile as you speak, or what you simply notice and respond to. All of these are a way of being. Some questions that can evoke this are:
What’s an image, metaphor, phrase or word that captures how I want to live? (this is a classic “handle” question, that can then help a felt sense form, you can notice what comes in your body when you get the right symbol)
Who inspires me? Who might I like to be like? (sometimes we recognize in others the energy we’d like to exude. Archetypes are a powerful way to get there)
In our society that overvalues doing (hello my please part, that says “I can do it!”), a nice quote that captures the importance of being vs. doing is from Thich Nhat Hanh:
"We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being. We think that when we are not doing anything, we are wasting our time. But that is not true. Our time is first of all for us to be. To be what? To be alive, to be peaceful, to be joyful, to be loving. And that is what the world needs most."–Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Living: Peace and Freedom in the Here and Now
Finding your way with TAE
Whether your working on a creative doing, or getting clarity on your way of being, we can know when something is our way because it resonates with us. Our felt sense shifts and we get that beautiful sense of “yes” or “that’s right for me.” One beautiful tool we can use to find our way is Gendlin’s Thinking At the Edge (TAE), his second process for working with the implicit. TAE is a 14 step process, where you can learn a number of new ways for working with the felt sense, and it involves three phases. For a few years now, when I teach TAE, I have used the metaphor of a spark/ember, to a flame, to a fire to describe the three phases. During the journey of our eight weeks together, that spark can turn into a nice fire of knowing what is yours to do or be.
Discovering your spark
In TAE, we stay with a spark or an ember to build our creative work. We look for that little something that we love, that brings us joy and we stay with that to see what more the felt sense has to say about it. Other times, it can be something painful that we want to create with.
I think of the spark as something that is known from a new experience, that somehow just really resonates as You. Other times, it is more like something old, an ember of a past experience, maybe something you have already lived, and your work is to bring that forward in a new way. This can include the work we’ve done with our own painful experiences, to be a support to others living in similar circumstances.
Protect the Flame
In Scharmer and Kaufer’s new book, they have a section called “Protect the Flame.” They say this is what it takes “to cultivate the connections to the sources of our own essence and potential […] to unlock our dormant superpowers” and offer three kinds:
downward connection to the land, the power of place, to feel in our embodied structures, individually and collectively
horizontal connection to the eco-system in which we co-hold and co-evolve with
upward connection to the highest future potential that can be “YOU” that is your “capacity to align attention, intention, and agency”
In TAE, we use a similar process. As in Focusing, we use the power of our grounded self, the Focusing attitutde to connect to our felt sense. We use the power of a listener in Focusing partnership, to hold space for us, allowing each of us to change. And in listening to the spark, being held in a very safe container, we’re able to listen to what is emerging. For the listening at this and the first phase, we go back to listening with mirroring only (other than a few minor prompts of the step we’re learning), taking notes of what the Focuser is sharing, so that we can say back exactly that unique thing that just popped out of their felt sense. There is such richness at these stages of allowing the spark to form and then grow into a flame.
During the process of the second phase, the steps include adding memories with specific information. So TAE is a way of using the felt sense/Focusing in a way that helps us put into words an implicit knowing… in other words something we know but cannot yet say. We find what was meaningful in those moments of joy or other experiences that our bodies bring us to illustrate our knowing of something. More about our intention is revealed. The result as we leave the second phase: our flame as grown into a small fire.
Growing your Fire
As we enter the third phase of our TAE time, we begin to actively add more oxygen to help our fire grow. This connects to the "co-evolve" and "reciprocity" ideas above. In particular, we start to do something called silent crossing, where we notice how other people's sharing about their own process resonate with our own project. We allow their felt sense to cross with ours, and get further distinctions.
This final TAE stage is also when our project really takes shape. We hear from our felt sense how different aspects relate. The process allows that something that was living in us implicitly to now become much more explicit. Something we can share with others, maybe something unique that you’d like to do, like how you might cross your previous experience with Focusing. Or, it can be getting clarity of how you want to be, for example the values you want to live. You now have more clarity on what is your way.
Want to explore TAE? You can join us for Creating your Special Project: a TAE exploration of Focusing and You (8 weeks).