Notes on June 2015 Shared Field Recorded Conversation http://www.focusing.org/conversations/index.htm

Shared fields have been considered a by-product of Focusing. We can bring them to center of our awareness, 

The future of Focusing is implicit in the present. This is happening, but has not yet been explored much. We sense it can open up in this direction.

For example “I’m sensing what is in me… you are sensing what is in you… and we are both sensing into the field which we are together.”

Interested in how my felt sense impacts what we are exploring together   - Focusing-enhanced conversation. Felt sensing into what happens between us, or what happens when we focus on the same topic.

Felt sensing what adds to and enhances the conversation between us.  

Being curious… Am I focusing privately on a relationship or situation that is really a system?  Could it be better focused on with another person who is also involved?  

“Tribal” resonance, a quality of rightness to this level of connecting. Feeling part of something that isn’t there in just me or between just two of us.

How can we bring more of this into Focusing?  Feeling connected to a larger system, like in a tribe. 

(My experience comes in here…. we in the Community Wellness kind of Focusing have been referring to our group as a tribe for a few years.  The way our relating feels was noticed by Suzanne Noël, so I started referring to our group that way too.  But we haven’t sensed together into HOW our interaction feels tribal.  That will be exciting to do.)

There are many different kinds of shared fields we live in that we haven’t noticed, common daily ones and vast, intricate ones.  Some of them are like tribal experience.

When I work in shared field, I don't feel so lonely and heavily burdened.  I recognize that it is NOT all about me, not my solitary concern.  Working with each other on common life.  We ARE not isolated, we ARE connected!  We are living together in a bigger connection.

“ Positive, Disconfirming Feedback” – other people don’t just confirm what I think already about myself, they give me a new view of myself, particularly when what others share is more positive than what I am holding about myself.  

SAFE sharing. Disconfirming comments are very different than usual Focusing feedback.  It’s a gift to be given what I am not seeing.  People resonating back from their own sensing, rather than repeating what I have said.  . In regular Focusing it’s not usually considered appropriate to give disconfirming feedback.

Difference between regular Focusing and some types of shared field exploration - some kinds are group CONVERSATION, rather than Focusing.  Conversation can be enriched by the ability of each person to go into Focusing.  It’s not regular Focusing; it’s a hybrid.

One way of seeing – “My experience is mine, and important as it is.”  

Another way of seeing – “My experience could also be a gift to the community.”

Are we only individuals?  

Are we also life energy moving forward that takes the form of different individuals, and comes together in community?

Reflections on Shared Fields and Quaker Meeting, by Nina Joy Lawrence

Quaker “gathered meeting” is probably a group mysticism, all gradings and shadings, from sublime heights to very mild moments of feeling lifted. 

A gathered meeting carries with it the sense of insight. 
The experience is not completely describable in words.

It is transient, rarely sustained more than three-quarters of an hour. One cannot grab it and keep it from fading.

When one rises to speak in such a meeting, one has a sense of being spoken through.

A gathered meeting in some way feels passive. We seem to be acted upon by a More-than-ourselves.
It brings a sense of unity with our fellow-worshippers.

Some conditions that favor a gathered meeting … not all within our control, some we can only approach indirectly.

1. Kindled hearts - which comes by personal daily practice.  We can do this. We bring to meeting our collectedness or our scatteredness which helps or hinders the meeting.  If we have already held our routine issues in the Inner Light,  we come with more readiness for silent waiting.  Meeting for worship becomes not a cacophony of personal problems, but a quiet group expectancy.  When even a few members bring more readiness, it helps everyone.

2. Being "written in each other’s hearts” - knowing each other in our inner lives.  We can also do this one deliberately. This doesn’t come from just sitting next to each other in meeting for worship.  It comes from deeply knowing and loving each other, eating together, sharing our spiritual lives, our joys and concerns.

[“Beloved Community”]

3. Words arising from someone in the meeting in a way that “deep is calling to deep”  This we can be open to and ready to respond if something comes in us that we sense we are led to share… but we can’t MAKE IT happen.

4.  The Spirit, the Inner Light, Something larger than ourselves, draws us together.  This we can be sensitively tuned for, but we can’t MAKE it happen.