Working With An Issue
In the last article we talked about the benefits of Clearing A Space and taking some time to just be - free from the stresses of every day life.
In the initial steps, we took some time to find (in imagery) a place to just be, separate from our issues and concerns, in order to experience what a clear space would look and feel like. Let's take the process forward now in some further directions.
For this article we will talk about picking a particular issue and working with it.
Maybe you don't know yet which issue you will work on - patience, understanding, calm - the key is to ask freshly in the moment, what feels right, right now…
There are any number of questions that might fit on any particular day. You'll find your own right words that exactly fit your mood, and what you are currently needing. For now, with your awareness still in the body you ask yourself internally any one of theses sample questions:
• Is there anything between me and feeling really good in my life, right now…?
• Is there anything I'd like to be different in my life, right now…?
• Is there anything calling for my attention, right now…?
• Is there anything between me and….(fill in the right word): my goals, my plans, my creativity…?
It is important to sit quietly for a moment to see what feels right to work with or 'be with' - and sometimes it feels like the issue is picking you! - an inner sense something like an eager child saying "choose me!"
Once you know what you are focusing on, you gently acknowledge to the other issues, that you will get back to them on another day - at another time - again like telling a child, "OK, it not your turn this time, but I will get back to you" (and you do - at another point - one issue at a time).
Locating The Issue
When you have a 'feel' for what you would like to work with, notice freshly where you carry that issue in your body. Perhaps you notice a flutter in your stomach connected with this concern, or a tightening in the throat, or some other bodily sensation that seems to fit with all about this issue…
The next step is getting a 'feel' or 'sense' - we call this a felt-sense about: What is this really all about…? That would seem simple enough, but getting a genuine sense of the 'crux' of the issue, requires a kind of listening…as you might to with a good friend, or a child that you love.
Being Loving To Yourself
Whatever is the right analogy, the point is that your 'attitude' is kind, gentle, understanding, and patient, as if you're saying, "You can tell me anything…and I will just listen… with no judgment or criticism."
Most of us are somewhat skilled in listening with full attention to someone in our lives we care deeply about. It takes some practice to treat ourselves (and our issues) in exactly the same loving manner.
What happens next is that as you sit quietly, waiting… watching… and listening… the issue begins to form, and take shape. You begin to find new pieces and angles that hadn't come into focus before. Sometimes images come, or memories, or words and phrases that give you 'more'…more feelings, more information, more understanding of what this is really about…??
Questions To Ask
When you've reached a point where you've listened and learned what you can there are again, a series of questions that you can ask. As the process becomes more comfortable and familiar, you will know just what questions 'fit' on any given day, and what is needed to create a shift in how you 'hold' or 'carry' the issue (inside, in the body).
There are two categories of questions that you will hopefully find helpful. There are those that ask what is wrong, and those that ask what would be right. Here are some examples:
Questions that ask the felt-sense what is wrong:
• What is the worst of this…?
• What is the crux of this…?
• What is it about all this that feels so…?(fill in in the right 'felt' word)
• What is between me and feeling really good, right now…?
Questions that ask what would be right or what needs to happen that hasn't happened yet:
• What does this (felt-sense) need, right now, to feel better…?
• What would it be like if it was all OK…?
• What would feel like a step toward relief, or fresh air…?
• If this whole thing could speak…what would it say…? What would it want me to know…?
Hopefully, 'something' comes that just feels so right, that you notice immediately an easing or shift in how you experience the issue.
Relief In Trusting Ourselves
Focusing expert Dr. Gendlin gives a wonderful example of this in his book. Let's say you get on a plane and as you are rising up, higher and higher, you suddenly remember that you forgot something…but you can't remember what. If you just sit with that feeling, which you've no doubt had (knowing that there's something you can't remember…) you can almost feel the tension in your body…probably something like a knot in your stomach. Then, by just sitting with that discomfort you suddenly hear yourself saying, THAT's what it is…I forgot to water the plants…! Now you know that you can't do anything about it at 30,000 feet in an airplane, and yet just the remembering, frees something up inside and there is a definite sense of relief.
The whole idea of trusting that the body or felt-sense already knows the next right steps is both freeing and occasionally thrilling. Trusting that inner or 'gut' sense and being ever more aware of it, allows us to work with ourselves with a new kind of synchronicity and eventually, hopefully, in a better synchronicity with others. Yet another step toward peace - inside and out.