Towards a Diversity of Life-Forward Processes
Bruce Nayowith MD
Areas in RED are
optional, extra story line. Can be read or skipped over.
Areas in BLUE
are exercises designed for the workshop then
Areas in GREEN
are additional comments about TAE and NVC that can be
read or skipped
P
1-2 Introduction and Objectives
P 3-6 Story of how this spectrum unfolded for me
P 7 The Spectrum of
Life – Forward Processes summarized
P 10 Felt
Recognition
P 16 Felt
sensing
P 18 Conceptual
Models
P 19 Neurobiological and Development Theory that supports this
P 23 Diagram of factors that affect signal recognition - RELEVATION
P 26 Characteristics of
Different “realities” - from Dr LeShan’s studies of mediums and psychics
P 27 Exercises
Introduction
Welcome.
The
theme of this article is about
welcoming – welcoming
more of life-forward information and energies into our lives.
It arises
out of an engagement with questions such as:
“What is
Focusing’s place in the universe? How does it relate
to other ways of knowing that do not involve felt sensing?”
Focusing itself opens us to a richness beyond what we could connect with by just using
ideas, logic, thinking – a felt connection with Life-forward movement.
Yet there are other ways that also
connect us to what is beyond concepts, without necessarily felt sensing.
What
about information that comes in dreams, or that pops into our minds during
prayer, or “out of nowhere”?
There
are people who “channel” information? How does this fit in with what we know
about Focusing?
This
article suggests that there are different
realms of knowing and connecting with information which can support and
inter-affect each other:
-Conceptual/cognitive
-Bodily-felt knowing
-Imaginal/disembodied
knowing
And, as
we build bridges between practices and processes, how can we work with these in
a way that is compatible with Focusing AND also honor each of the others, as
well?
Objectives
1)
To honor and
welcome additional life-forward energies into the realm of experiencing and
awareness:
-
distinguishing alpha (bodily) and theta (disembodied) intuition, with
suggestions for integrating both
- to make a distinction between Focusing and Felt Recognition
-to
be more aware of some distinctive qualities of felt recognition and disembodied
intuition,
2 ) To create bridges and synergies between Focusing and
other intuitive practices - increase mutual respect between practices, and apply these understandings to various processes including:
prayer, Focusing, TAE, and community-building.
3)
To introduce some neurobiology that supports all of this.
How these distinctions arose for me
(descriptions of a few instances that led
to the insights in this paper. )
I.
Gene Gendlin at TAE
“ a spectrum of connecting with ways of
knowing”
A.
At one point during a TAE workshop,
Gene Gendlin was sharing some of his own work-in-process
to illustrate some of the steps of TAE.
His content included something like this:
“There seem to be several different ways, or levels, of connecting
with knowing.
a)
First, there is ‘I don’t know what it
might be, but there has got to be something more than this’.
b)
Then there is something else, like ‘I
don’t know what it is, but I would know it if I encountered it’.
c)
Then there is having a felt sense of something – ‘I have a
felt sense of it, and can be with it and it can unfold and tell me what it is
about’.
d)
And there is the knowing and speaking
about it - ‘I know it in my mind, and can say it.’
Ah ,yes. There is much information that comes to me that
is NOT coming from felt-sensing. Yes, these other ways of knowing have real
value.
These 4 statements of his seemed to fall into a spectrum of
knowing.
It seemed as though three of these had a different degree of
embodiment – from none at all, to a bit, to full bodied. . .
B.
That same night, I was awakened at 2 am
by a compelling feeling and insight about the second of these, and its special
importance and value. This did not come
as a felt sense – it came as a ‘zip file’ unzipping in my mind, a disembodied
intuition!
II.
Health Intuition workshop with Karen Kassy
(very quick, very
fascinating, very different from Focusing)
I was very surprised and impressed with my experiences at
Karen’s Health Intuition workshop. I expected it to be more like the felt
intuiting of Focusing. And it wasn’t.
Contrasting them, Focusing tends to go something like this:
-A centering/preparation by ‘coming into the body.’
-A mild trance/relaxed state from this attention, yet the mind is
kept present and interactive
-Staying open to ‘what comes’ in the body,
-The sense impressions are usually in a FELT form, though
there may be accompanying images and words.
-In Focusing, insight/knowing/intuition comes SLOWLY – it unfolds, often in steps or
stages. It often begins with a very fuzzy sense, a sense of something vaguely
known, almost known, on the tip of your tongue – that may slowly become clear.
-Accompanying this unfolding knowing is a PHYSICAL feeling of release, and a
sense of a grounded knowing, a sense that “This is REALLY true.” Whether
or not it IS accurate, it FEELS very accurate.
-This process of the unfolding and shifting and receiving the bodily
felt knowing itself is associated with physical change,
and possible healing. Even if no further action is taken, one feels differently
and carries the problem or issue differently in the body after the encounter and
the ‘being with’ the unfolding energetic felt sense in the body.
. . . . . …..
The Health Intuition process (www.karengracekassy.com ) went more like this
-Giving PERMISSION, that, yes, it is possible to connect intuitively
and receive information
-An invocation/preparation/centering
-Mild ‘trance’
-Being open to something
Those WERE similar to Focusing, but then, everything was SO different:
- Information came QUICKLY
– all at once!
- It could come in any modality - in a visual form, verbal, felt, just
knowing.
- The linear mind was encouraged to act as an ‘energy
journalist’ during the process, taking notes as an observer, not interacting
nor resonating back and forth with the intuitively received information.
Participants received specific details about things that
there was no way to ‘sense into’
from the ‘bodily felt’ intuition style that I have been accustomed to.
The information seemed to come from ‘outside of’ the body and mind.
“Out of somewhere
else”, rather than feeling as it was coming from inside of the body.
This information often would come without any accompanying body sense of rightness. (Karen said that she
often would have a feeling of “I make this stuff up real good, don’t I?!” upon
receiving information in this way. But then, when she would check it out, it
was often quite accurate. She has been verified at about 85% accurate for doing
two page phone readings of people’s health, given only name and birthdate.)
- The ‘receiving’ of the
intuitive insight itself was not usually accompanied by any physical changes or
release in the body. ACTING on the intuitive insights was needed for growth
to occur.
[I personally had some mild success with this process, and it IS
very different from Focusing.]
Trying to make sense out of this, I remembered Gene’s four ways of
knowing, and began to consider that Karen was working on perhaps a completely
different “frequency” than the felt-sensing of Focusing?
III. Suzanne Noel’s writings on Recovery
Focusing
Many times, in describing her work in Recovery Focusing on the
Focusing-discuss list, Suzanne would describe how participants might
not have felt senses, but might have images, and more. Suzanne found that, when she
would welcome these, that these helped carry the participants life-forward into
healing and orient them towards recovery.
I felt that she was on to something, and that her opening the
process to more than felt sensing was of added value. Maybe, when we open and pause, we open to
more frequencies than just what we thought we were going to receive . . .
IV. Focusing Certification Weeklong at Stony
Point
One participant shared a profound precognitive dream during a dream
workshop.
Another described Remote Viewing skills to me that existed before
they learned Focusing.
From all of these, I began to realize HOW MUCH non-felt
guidance is sometimes accessed. And, how there are no real maps for this in
Focusing, so these ways of information remain very underappreciated and
underutilized as sources of guidance in the Focusing community.
Awareness
and Appreciation Practice With Respect To Conceptual Maps
This article presents a “map” of different bands of knowing, of connecting with life-forward information.
Let’s remember that all maps are arbitrary. Reality is MUCH bigger than any model or map or idea.
Still, some maps are more HELPFUL than others. They can help us relate
to, and connect to, reality in helpful ways.
They are a two-edged sword. Even good maps can keep people in their
heads and away from direct contact with something very alive and powerful
On the
other hand, Stan Grof teaches that intellectual
resistance can be just as limiting to being open and growing as is emotional
resistance.
Support
helps us navigate in the face of emotional resistance.
Good conceptual
maps help address the mental resistance to connecting with these realms, by
showing a way that they make sense, that they have a kind of reality.
“We
often feel vulnerable when we lack the strength to back up our intuitive
judgments about situations, people, actions…” Rabbi Min Kantrowicz
“Counting the Omer”
Please
take anything (everything!) here, and check it out inside for yourselves .
-Resonate
with it
-See
what fits for you
-See
what comes
-And see
where it takes you.
[This
page offers an Instance of Itself. - one way to integrate new material for
yourself is to remember to check in with your felt sense of what is right
for you when you are about to be exposed to something new.]--------------------------
A SPECTRUM OF LIFE-FORWARD PROCESSES
Often the “intuition” is used as if all non-linear knowing is the same
thing, akin to how “rheumatism” used to mean achey
joints, treated as if it were all one thing.
We now distinguish many forms of arthritis – each with different
treatments
Perhaps this way of differentiating somewhat distinct bands of
life-forward energy and information within the larger term “intuition” will
offer something of value, as well:
I.
Disembodied Intuition
(Pausing and Opening to “something”, with no sense of what that may be)
(opening to something, with no sense of what)
-opening prayer -vision quests
-psychic information -various intuitives
- creative insights that emerge into awareness -insights during meditation
III.
Felt Recognition
(sense
of warmer, cooler)
“I don’t know what it is, but I would know it if I encountered it”
IV.
Full Felt
Sense “I have a felt sense of
something that is more than I know in my head.”
V.
Conceptual Knowing
( working
with ideas and linear information)
-Working with facts and others’ feedback
-
Conscious application of a cognitive model or process (Using theories and operating systems about
reality to direct one’s attention and actions.)
[[There are other colors on the spectrum that don’t fit so neatly here, and which I do not address here:
-Conscious application of a non-cognitive model or
process Application of something to
shift out of ordinary awareness and habits of attending (trance dance, drugs,
drumming)..
-Shamanic
work
-Dreams ]]
(PAUSING
AND OPENING TO “SOMETHING” without having ANY sense of what that might be)
This is often done in faith “I don’t
know in me, but I believe that there is an answer in the Universe”
Sometimes it is with more exasperation
than faith: “There has GOT TO be a better way than
THIS!’)
Often this takes the form of a prayer of
desperation, of turning it over and surrendering “I give up, I can’t do this!”
“ I don’t know what to do or see any way out of this…”
In each of these, there are some
movements in common:
-We Pause,
- We Cease (at least for a bit) Habitual
Patterns of thinking and acting
-We Open to possibilities unknown, unfelt… something more to happen.
This process is common to many forms
of meditation – being open,
“beginner’s mind”, “not-knowing”
It is also the core movement in many
forms of Jewish and Christian prayer
– opening to God/Spirit:
The first two steps of 12-step programs are based on this
The Qu’ran was received by the Prophet Mohammed in this way while meditating
in a cave – as a voice calling to him and speaking to him, telling him to
recite. Qu’ran means “recitation”.
A Course in Miracles was received by Helen Schucman, as a voice
saying “This is a course in miracles. Please take dictation.”
The core practice in A Course In
Miracles involves recognizing that
something is not working (“I could see Peace, instead of this”, or “There is
another way to look at this”) then pausing, accepting that one does
not know, and opening to receive the ‘miracle’ of true perception,
another way of relating to the situation
This process can be more intentionally directed, as well:
-Many creative processes in art, music, writing, etc involve pausing the habitual patterns of
working or thinking or feeling (taking a break, doing something different, etc) , and opening and allowing something new to come.
-Psychic and intuitives
often seem to be operating on this level. Edgar Cayce and Karen Kassy’s work of setting
an intention, and then opening to
something in order to get valuable information
Exercises 1 and 2 Please
see appendix
Band #2 FELT RECOGNITION
“I am in
touch with what has it, even though I may not be able to get a felt sense
of it directly. And, I WILL KNOW IT WHEN I ENCOUNTER IT.”
Because this distinction is perhaps
the newest for most of us, I wish to spend more time on this one than on any of
the others:
In felt recognition, unlike
disembodied intuition, there is some body referent. There is SOME sense of what
this might be, or what resonates with it.
Here, rather than it unfolding into
some understanding if it is listened to, as a felt sense often does, this functions more as a warmer-cooler type of signal, as an
orienting process. It helps point one towards or away from something.
It doesn’t tell you WHAT the something is that you seek,
but does lets you know THAT there is a
something that is to be sought for.
A favorite illustration of this in verse is Tony’s song
before the dance. I encourage you to
take a break and listen to it, and get a sense of its vibrancy and beauty – and
importance in our lives:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAd1Dk6WFmw&feature=related
(there
are MP3 links, but I can’t assure their safety from viruses, so this one is on You
Tube)
“Something’s Coming”
from West
Side Story by Sondheim and Bernstein
Could be!
Who knows?
There's something due any day;
I will know right away, Soon as it shows.
It may come cannonballing down through the sky,
Gleam in its eye, Bright as a rose!
Who knows?
It's only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Under a tree.
I got a feeling there's a miracle due,
Gonna come true, Coming to me!
Could it be? Yes, it could.
Something's coming, something good,
If I can wait!
Something's coming, I don't know what it
is,
But it is Gonna
be great!
With a click, with a shock,
Phone'll jingle, door'll
knock,
Open the latch!
Something's coming, don't know when, but it's soon;
Catch the moon, One-handed catch!
Around the corner,
Or whistling down the river,
Come on, deliver To me!
Will it be? Yes, it will.
Maybe just by holding still,
It'll be there!
Come on, something, come on in, don't be shy,
Meet a guy, Pull up a chair!
The air is humming,
And something great is coming!
Who knows?
It's only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Maybe tonight . .
----------------- ---------------------------------------
Other examples of this include:
A building
inspector, who goes around looking for “something”.. He
may simply feel that something is off, and then goes checking until finds
something, what that is.
There are movies where protagonists
travel on a journey, searching for
‘something’. The “something” guides the
journey, and there is a recognition of steps along the
way, or of the journey’s end. The feeling of drawing towards something acts as
a guidance. It operates as a compass, not as a felt sense with meaning in
itself that unfolds.
Another media example is “Close Encounters
of the Third Kind”.
In it, several characters that hear a
series of tones, a song, which then draws or guides them towards something. The
music sets up a felt recognition. The music pulls them towards something, but
it does NOT contain the information of what they seek within the tone itself,
nor within their own internal felt calling to follow it.
Appreciating Felt Recognition;
While I have not studied this extensively,
what follows are a few ideas and intuits which I will share in the hope that
they will stimulate further and more accurate articulation
A)
For
those not aware of felt recognition, it is helpful to name it. This is part of
the helpful function of maps and concepts.
B)
For
those aware of Focusing and felt sensing, it is helpful to distinguish it as a
distinct band on the spectrum of life-forward energy and information, rather
than minimizing it or expecting it to unfold like a full felt sense. Just this
already allows us to pause the habitual, and open in
ways that may more fully optimize its unfolding into guidance and embodiment.
C) Felt recognition may be related to a
very early stage of embodiment – carrying more inertial momentum than a purely
disembodied insight or message. Perhaps some
energy and information from another level of being is starting to touch or
guide the movement of embodiment IN THE BODY (not just “popping into one’s
head” as in disembodied intuition). At this point, it lacks sufficient
amplitude or momentum to allow a full felt sense to occur, but it does have enough
to allow some stirring and physically felt guidance.
Wondering where these “less embodied senses” might
be most active in our lives:
a) Perhaps with things that we have less direct experience with in the world.
b) Perhaps with things farther away from us in time and space
c) Most importantly, I believe that felt recognition often is the mode
of communication around very tender
and/or barely embodied longings and
callings, such as our life/soul purpose and sublime visions of what/how we wish
to manifest in the world (for the many of us not who do not yet have
that fully clear within us).
IF this is the case, that “callings”
often relate within us on the frequency of felt-recognition, then the more
fully and powerfully we can operate at this level, the more helpful this could
be for helping people manifest and embody what they feel that they are born to
do, what their most precious, barely whispered, dreams might be.
It seems fair to say, then, that this
capacity would be quite important and valuable for those wanting to do, and
those wanting to help others do, “soul work”, offer spiritual direction, and
more . . .
Working with Felt Recognition:
As you read, you will notice that we
already do this, intuitively and naturally. Still, it may be of some value to
be aware of this intentionally and more fully, as well:
Since felt resonance is a towards/away-from
type of orienting, it may be more effective to
- find
ways to seek what it references.
- then to bring those things into relationship
with the felt recognition,
rather than asking IT to allow a handle to
form (as one would ask a felt sense in Focusing), or trying to logically figure
it out.
- To help it amplify its signal and energies, and allow it to take more form in
this world , we can use the Focusing move of resonation, in at least two directions:
1)
Seek outside of the felt recognition
for things that resonate to it, towards EXPERIENCES or IDEAS which are then allowed to operate as reflections.
Examples include:
-theories and concepts
-movies, poetry, books
-exposure to things
and people in the environment. Road trip – the journey. . .
-guesses and experiments
-ORACLES such as Tarot, I Ching or from intutives, can
provide information that offers support for one’s own felt recognition
All of the time, it is helpful to
remain aware of the cooler-warmer quality of the felt recognition signal, using it for
GUIDANCE and CHECKING.
Here is where our Focusing
sensibilities are so valuable. For in working with felt recognition, as in
Focusing, we do NOT tell the felt recognition what it is or supposed to do.
Instead, we bring something to it, without getting too close or too overpowering,
and see how it responds, what happens to it as it comes close to the energies
of the reflection within a safe container.
I want to connect this idea
of felt recognition to the value of guessing feelings and needs in NVC.
While guessing feelings
and needs can be annoying to those experienced in Focusing (“why ask questions,
why not just give me space and reflect?”), I am seeing how this – IF lightly
held, is a way of activating felt recognition.
A person may feel
something, and not be able to articulate it well on their own.
Or they may be in a situation where they cannot felt sense well. But, once they
hear something, then they might recognize more fully what they were wanting!
From this perspective,
Marshall Rosenberg was wise in suggesting guessing of feelings and needs of
people in certain situations – this kind of “external reflecting” may help them find
what is true for themselves via felt recognition.]
2)
One
can also amplify and expand felt recognition by seeking backwards and inwardly, through one’s experience, for what
resonates with the felt recognition.
One can reflect back into their
experience, and COLLECT INSTANCES of
things that seemed to have something to do with that feeling or theme.
Seeking instances is a way of tracking the movement of the process
in one’s life over time, as it has already shown up in one’s experience. Each of the instances connects with
SOME aspect of what it trying to unfold, and putting several together may help
create a more full view.
This process can be seen as taking
something relevant that you once found (a tusk), something that seemed
important. And then there was something different (a tail) that you encountered
a year later, and then a leg two years after that. . . By bringing these pieces together that all
pointed to something, an elephant begins to take shape more and more clearly….
Thinking At
the Edge, Steps 6-9 do exactly this – seeking instances that somehow relate to the
larger, not yet known thing, that you are trying to think into. The inspiration
for this came FROM TAE steps 6-9, and occurred DURING a TAE workshop – as an
intuit at 2 am in the chapel at Stony Point!
For a bit more about
how this connects with TAE:
TAE starts with Steps
1-5, getting a felt sense of something that you are trying to create. But, what
if what if you want to create is not so clear that it forms a felt sense? What
if it is something that you want to create in the world but can’t quite get
something to gel?
It seemed to me that, instead, one can start
with Steps 6-9, collecting instances that relate to the theme..
When I presented that
insight to Nada Lou, she told me that, when she went to write the TAE manual,
SHE began with collecting instances,
by doing what would now be considered Steps
6-9 when she designed the manual. She later went to lay out the steps in
the current order as her understanding clarified. This was a new undertaking, and she didn’t
yet have enough direct bodily felt knowing to felt sense her way through it. So
she laid out facets that pointed to it, this amplified her understanding over
the years of instances, and her understanding gelled into the TAE manual!
The way I see it has
been briefly (and rather poorly- sorry) described at http://www.serviceoflife.info/focusing/taedreams.html
A)
One identifies several things in one’s life
that feels like it connects to the feeling/calling/felt recognition, that seem
as if they, somehow, might have a piece of the puzzle in them.
B)
Then,
spend time laying out and being with each instance, each facet. This does not have to be done all at
once. Akin to Gendlin’s
dreamwork, one can sense into “What comes to me about this? What about
this spoke to me? What seems important
here? What does it seem to speak towards?”
It
helps to take notes – be they verbal, or visual, some way to have a handle on
what the instance, the experience, resonated with for you
C)
Then,
one can take the threads of insights and felt connections of what came from
doing this process, and allow them to be arranged in some geometric form,
perhaps a real or metaphorical circle, pointing inward towards the center.
D)
Then,
allow yourself to be with all of this in some way, letting the threads cross
through the middle. “If I hold A and B and C and the unfolded threads of them,
and let this all be here now, what comes for me?”
[More on this in Steps 6-9 of the Thinking at the Edge Manual]
A way to look at this structurally, is that this process is laying out facets like
the pillars in Stonehenge. One uses the instances to form a sort of an altar, a
linking and amplifying structure that honors and invokes something in the
center. There are various sacred rituals that have some similar processes to
this. . .
This is the bandwidth that Focusing
speaks about and intentionally operates in.
A)
It
is important to acknowledge that felt-sensing and felt-recognition overlap much
more than might be realized from giving each a separate name. At the same time,
some people who
check in with their bodies may be doing more felt RECOGNITION than felt SENSING. Each is valuable; perhaps being aware of each
could be even richer.
B) It is
NOT a failure of your Focusing if a felt recognition place does not unfold by
itself. I would suggest that the feeling tone associated with felt
recognition may need a lot more external supportive interaction than a full
felt sense does. This is where this distinction between the two may be helpful
in terms of supporting their process.
A suggestion - don’t stay stuck by
limiting yourself to only asking IT what it is and what it needs. Try some felt resonation – check some
things outside of it, or check back through your experience for luminous or
significant events in the past that seem to connect with it, and see what
happens.
C) Bruce Gibbs offered some helpful distinctions
and definitions around felt sensing:
1) Felt Sensing – being aware of
felt sensations that may have some meaning in them
2) Mindful Awareness - offering caring open attention to felt sensations that may have meaning in them
3) Focusing – zigzagging
BETWEEN felt sensing and thoughts and ideas, checking and resonating back and
forth. [And the techniques to assist felt sensing to unfold – the little tricks
of Focusing.]
These distinctions may help in conversations with people who use other processes that involve some felt sensing, but may not use the resonation, or the zigzagging between felt and conceptual, between felt and symbolization, that Focusing does.
Focusing is
a very powerful process, and very integrating, as it operates across many aspects of our living:
-Body and mind
-Right and left brain (rational and
linear)
-Known and not-yet-known
-Embodied and about-to-embody
-Linear beta awareness, the body, and
theta awareness
So, staying connected with a felt sense of
rightness can help one relate to and assimilate other energies at a
speed that honors multiple dimensions of our being, including physical and
mental dimensions
A brief listing of several of the gifts
of Focusing
(see the “Focusing as a Flavor Enhancer” post on Focusing
Discussion list from 2002 if interested in more on this)
I) Intimate
and in-the-moment connection with “Life forward movement” in oneself and others
II) Grounding
in the body/ in the present
III) Helping
synchronize and integrate cognitive and felt/ right and left brain/ mind and
body/ inner and outer ways of knowing and processing.
IV)
Expressing uniqueness, finding one’s own rhythms and ‘intrinsic rightness’.
V)
Cultivating and embodying spiritual/life-affirming qualities. Learning and
experiencing the nurturing and growth of Life forms. Qualities of attention
that promote peace and growth and respect and compassion are cultivated
consciously in focusing.
VI)
Increased sensitivity to manipulation and “you shoulds”.
Improved inner and outer harmony.
VII) Experiencing
the ‘life positive intention’ in things
VIII) Respectful ways of honoring contradictory
aspects inside
IX)
Cultivating ‘just being’ without getting ‘lost’ from our bodily felt experience
X) Higher
sensitivity to ‘life currents’, felt flow of energies
XI)
Cultivating of faith, and in opening to the ‘More’,
the ‘Mystery’
This is a vast
area. In this presentation, due to time constraints, I will briefly discuss Mental Models, which can help guide our thinking and sensing.
Mental models can help us discover
blind spots and areas of felt dissociation
Sometimes, when we are stuck in
thinking, connecting with is alive in our bodies, with the truth of our felt
experiencing, leads to life forward movement.
Sometimes, when we are stuck in
feeling (identified very closely with something), we can create more space by
offering Presence.
What is equally true, though less
often stated, is that another way to create more space involves holding a
mental model. For example:
“I can’t feel the peace or the
resolution, but I KNOW it is in there somewhere.” This holds some space into
which something can emerge. It opens and pauses and waits for something to
come. (note that this can be a Band One – Disembodied
Intuition process, and, it can invite a felt sense to form, as well)
Holding a mental model also opens the
possibility for holding a doubled awareness – holding both the truth of present
aware experience, and also the truth
of presently-unsensed-but-existing-experience.
As a brief illustration, here are a few
useful beliefs/mental models within several practices. Each of these processes contains
much more than this; I
listed one for each just to illustrate some of the diversity of helpful belief
systems:
NVC – all judgments are tragic expressions of unmet needs. (If
you hear a judgment, you can choose to sense into the need underneath it,
rather than arguing with or reacting to it.)
Focusing (all types) - just being with
something allows it to shift
Internal Family Systems – Self is curious, compassionate, open.
If one is not experiencing those feelings in the moment, then one is “in” a
part. Being aware of this creates some spaciousness and re-orientation
Treasure Maps of the Soul (Focusing) – If you are stuck, there is probably something out
of your awareness, that doesn’t want to do something. It is in conflict with
the part of you that you are aware of (that does want to do it)…. Being aware
of this helps one sense into it and connect with it to
work with it.
Integral Theory
(Ken Wilber’s work) – There are four axes of experiencing that are true for ALL
things – along personal, collective, subjective, and objective lines . Being aware
of each of them allows for a more integrated approach and understanding.
---------------- ----------------------- -----------------------
If disembodied intuition and felt sensing are somewhat distinct
channels, and if they both involve pausing and opening, what does neurobiology
offer to our understanding?
A)
Brain
wave patterns:
Beta rhythm – (over 12 cycles per
second) – associated with linear and rational thinking
Alpha rhythm (7-11 cycles per second) This is associated with REM sleep, daydreaming, visualizations.
This is the frequency at which the conscious and unconscious
communicate, at which the mind and
body communicate. Yogis who do physical feats (stopping heart, etc) are operating at this frequency. Visualizations for
health and healing seem to operate at this level. It is likely that this
frequency is highly correlated with Focusing and embodied/felt intution.
Theta rhythm ( 4-7
cycles per second) often associated with experiences of the transpersonal
dimensions. Precognition, prescience, along with ‘enlightenment experiences’
all seem to correspond to this frequency. On this frequency, space and time may
have little meaning or effect. It is likely that this frequency is highly
correlated with disembodied intuition.
Menninger Institute (Topeka, Kansas) experimented with offering theta
brainwave biofeedback training for drug abusing teenagers. When several of the
teens were able to access theta, they also began
having precognitive experiences that proved accurate. This was distressing
to them, so they stopped the biofeedback work and these experiences stopped
occurring to them.
Numerous meditative traditions describe psychic phenomena that can
occur while doing spiritual practices.
B) Neurobiology
of the cerebral cortex
(from Dr Daniel
Siegel – “The Neurobiology of We”)
Starting with perceptual data – it needs to be filtered and
organized into meaning in our brains.
This becomes organized into patterns of perceiving and understanding, such
as what to pay attention to, what matters and what doesn’t, what things mean….
Some patterns are developed by
habit, some for our survival.
The cerebral cortex is only 6 layers thick. Information flows bottom-up,
from perceptual systems, and also top-down, as well.
Even below our cortex (below awareness), the brainstem and the limbic
system appraise the meaning of events, and shade the here-and-now with their
influences.
Bottom-up data come up from the earlier brain, and through
layers 6 and 5, then go to layers 4 and 3, where we become consciously aware of
them.
Prior
learning shapes the way we filter bottom-up data. Top down data (thinking, ideas,
beliefs) flow from
layers 1 and 2, and then to layers 3 and 4.
These two movements of firing patterns crash into each other like two
waves, one upon the other.
Depending on the relative strength of these two waves, one or the
other may predominate. The net influence of this interaction is what we
experience in consciousness.
Over
time, the top layers of cortex tend to suppress
input seen as irrelevant. So one does not even notice it after
a while. This not-noticing tends
to continue, unless something changes it:
Over
time and accumulation of more and more experiences, layers 1 and 2 can become
stronger, and virtually suffocate our lives, making things seem dull
and familiar.
Without mindful awareness, layers 3 and 4 of
the cortex are constrained, and WE DON’T EVEN KNOW THAT IT IS HAPPENING. So we
can be trapped in that habitual way of not-attending to input.
Creating
states of mindful awareness disengages the top-down
flow, which allows the bottom-up flow can be more appreciated. When using mindful awareness practices, when we notice our experiencing,
we are intentionally dis-engaging the input from layers 1 and 2. (in a way, suspending
it)
C) Registration of
Futility as a core aspect of learning and change
Developmental research suggests that the main thing that
allows an adaptive response, a capacity to change, is the registration of futility (often associated with tears of
sadness or loss).
If this is registered, then the habitual patterns that were
trying to achieve something that seemed futile can stop.
This frees up attention and energy for the mind/body to open
to new possibilities of attending and behaving.
One can open intentionally.
And, another pathway is that one can feel the futility of
what doesn’t work, ‘give up’ continuing in that way, and have some kind of
opening experience.
One can see the connections
between this, and the practices of “Letting go”, “I surrender”,
…
D) What allows something to
enter into our awareness?
What does the mind-body consider to be of possible importance (a signal of something) and what does it
considers to be irrelevant or distracting (noise)?
Pattern recognition – something becomes recognized as important, and
as having certain meaning. Neurons that fire together, wire together.
Some factors that influence our connecting with this flow of energy
and information through our bodies and through the universe:
-Amplitude of the signal (the stronger it is, the easier to get
the message)
-Sensitivity (the more sensitive one is to subtle clues, the
more easily one can find and relate to them. Akin to a
wildlife tracker. Or someone expert in their field, pattern recognition)
- Pausing the habitual, ongoing processes – lessen the habitual top-down patterns
of interpreting and interacting with reality (business as usual) filtering our
input and life energies.
……………….. intentionally or accidentally stopping (vacation, take a break, just
breathing…)
…….. experiencing futility. Developmental research suggests that the registering of
futility by the brain allows an adaptive response, and a change from habitual
operating patterns that are now registered as not working. Experiencing
futility allows a letting go and opening to the new.
-Directing attention to somewhere new. We can learn to “point” the sensing into
certain directions, or domains, or along certain pathways, by offering a
suggestion or concept. This offers a welcome to certain energetic aspects of
life, and, a tuning in to that frequency.
This can be done by a teacher, or offering a model. (feeling and needs in NVC, felt
meaning in Focusing, etc)
-Freeing up limiting beliefs. Give permission for something new
(such as in intuition training, mentioned earlier)
-[I am sure that there are more…]
The more we do this, the more we grow in our capacity for mindful loving awareness, and we also grow in sensitivity
and connection with these realms.
Venn Diagram of RELEVATION (priority by relevance to needs)
(Much gratitude to Tom Atlee http://co-intelligence.org/ for presenting this term to me)
RELEVATION – the elevation from the implicit to explicit
manifestation depending on relevance to the needs or the calling forth
of the explicate order.
------------------
-------------------------------------------
A Community
Example
At this point, I wish to offer a
story of an African village healing practice that Gena
Corea once shared with me.
It is a community practice
, which seems to incorporate intuiting,
felt sensing, felt recognition, and reflection.
It inspires me to consider what is
possible when these practices are combined and engaged in community settings.
In this
village, the people cannot even imagine that anyone can be a healer without
being a musician as well. The two are inseparably linked in the culture, in
their worldview.
And, within
the belief system of this village, when someone is ill or troubled, the general
diagnosis is that this person has “lost their rhythm”, or lost their song.
In the
healing ceremony, the village gathers around that person, and they all begin to sense into the situation.
Together, the community and the person suffering all seek the rhythm of the
one who is out of sync. Perhaps they form a circle, or a half circle.. .
Someone may have
an inspiration. They offer a rhythm, and then ask the “patient” - “Is this it?”
The patient checks
it for fit ( resonation/felt
recognition), trying it on, seeing how it works, how close it is.
This rhythm
might not fit at all and is rejected. Or, it may act as a bad reflection in
Focusing and lead to something a bit closer….
Either way,
on they go, this group of people caring, co-sensing, sharing
a healing space. All are welcome to enter into it, all are welcome to
contribute, each one sensing into something for the good of one of its members.
This can
last for hours or even days
One can
imagine the beautiful celebration, joy, and sense of community that occurs once
the when the person is reconnected with “his song”. . . .
Putting this all
together
“When the flower blossoms, the bees
come uninvited..”
Speaking to
those who know Focusing, you are familiar with the warm and inviting space that
we offer while Focusing, inviting a felt sense to form. You are accustomed to opening
and pausing the habitual to sense more deeply..
Speaking to
those who do not know Focusing, you may also be accustomed to opening, pausing the habitual, welcoming and inviting Something More
to enter.
From an
attachment perspective, inviting one to
exist in one’s presence, and delighting
in another’s presence, are the most powerful supporters of life and growth.
When open,
welcoming, inviting spaces are offered to experiencing, MANY forms of
life-forward energy and information - disembodied intuition, the felt sense level
of intuition, and more , can also enter into awareness.
It is the
hope of this article that we may be more able to fully welcome and appreciate
these diverse “guests”
when they come to bless us with their gifts.
Ways
to integrate Focusing, Disembodied Intuition, and Conceptual thinking will be
the topic of a further article to be posted later “Upgrading to 3-channel Processing”
Keeping Balanced and Centered as We Explore
Open gently. . . .
A bit at a time . . .
The universe is vast, and CAN pour through us with a great richness
And, as wonderful as that can be, we also want to maintain the integrity
of this physical incarnation…
Sometimes there are surprises along the “information superhighway” - as you enter into
the process of integrating diverse forms of energy and knowing, remember to continually check with yourself for felt
rightness of depth and speed as you proceed along this adventure, honoring
the multiple layers of our being and growing and moving in the world. Exercise 3
From “The Medium, the Mystic and the Physicist” by Dr Lawrence LeShan
Exercise 1
Can pause here
and have small group reflections:
Have you had
information along these lines?
What was it like? How
did the information come to you?
(how
did you relate to what came?)
[[Sharing in 3’s or
4’s Then
some whole group sharing]]
------------------------
Exercise 2:
An example of this is
the Health Intuition process. www.healthintuition.com
[we
can do this exercise, as well, that follows, which is from Karen Kassy’s book “Health Intuition”]:
Think about someone –
be it yourself, a pet,
or someone you care about
Step One – Meditate/ Quiet Down
Spend a few quiet
minutes with your breath
Step Two – Invocate
“Dear (Divine Source),
please give me the information on {person, animal, name and age if you have
it}.
The truth so that they
can hear it and it can help them.
Please let this
information come through with compassion, clarity, and, if appropriate,
completeness, the cause behind the cause, through my heart center.
Please do not let
anything of mine (filters, biases, assumptions, etc.) interfere with the
message.
I ask
that none of my vital energy be used in obtaining this information.
Please
send a blessing to {person, animal,etc} .
Thank you.”
Step Three – Tune In
Take a
few minutes to notice and maybe write down your impressions.
Your
mind can ask questions, like a journalist
Whom.. What … Where…
When…. How…?
..and then take notes physically or mentally.
Step Four – Re-entry. Shake off the energy. Sit quietly for a
moment.
------------------ ---------------------------
Taking in, integrating, and going forward
Let
us take a few minutes to settle in
And
connect with our breath, and our bodies
As
we do so, while holding an awareness of ourselves here, and of our bodies and
of our breathing
Check
and see if it is ok for awareness to expand into some additional realm of
sensing. We have covered a great deal.
Perhaps some aspect of it will call to you. . . .
Perhaps
connected to something we have gone over; perhaps somewhere else that wants
attention
Check
and see if there is anything that you feel that you would like to welcome in.
What
comes for you?
Some
information or insight?
Some
energetic or felt experience of something?
It
may be something new that seems to come from beyond you. It may be with places
in you that have good reasons to be making the choices that they are.
Allow
this to unfold while you also honor this bodily felt aspect of your being.
Allow your body to help you assimilate what comes at a pace that respects all
of who you are.
You
may want to check and see if there is any sense of a next step for you- with
respect to this material, or in your life in general……
And,
as we return back to this shared space, thank whatever has emerged for showing
up.
And
also, allow yourself to BE thanked by anything that has emerged,
And
allow yourself to thank yourself for your being open to what is right for you,
for whatever you connected with.
And,
when you are ready,,,,,,
? small group sharing, then whole group?