Impatience and Felt Sense

[Anonymous]

#645

I was really late to write about Felt Sense, joining in just now in Hilarie’s conversation with Sondra where Hilarie saw felt sense as a way to move beyond language and fear that impedes creativity and Sondra noted that it involves patience. I loved both of those formulations. Lavender feels more theoretical to me. She writes:

“Focusing is a way of paying attention to one’s being-in-the-world, one’s interaction as it is experienced through the individual (but not separate) body. A felt sense is a temporary wave from the sea of being – it is understood as on-going process, not ‘internal content.’” This initially unclear bodily feeling is referred to as the ‘felt sense.’ It is physically felt, more than clearly defined emotion, and incorporates a whole constellation of this and other situations, now and other times, self and others, elaborated by language. By staying with a felt sense, a shift in meaning may eventually occur that brings a physically felt relief in the way the body holds that issue. (Madison, G.)

Lavender’s explanations just don’t feel like they add much for me beyond Sondra’s version. Am I being impatient now? Feels like yes. Shallow? That too. I often disconnect quickly from theory when it stops feeling useful. And I trust (perhaps far too easily) that when it stops feeling useful, it’s OK for me to disconnect. I constantly use the language of feeling and resonance when I teach, think, create and write. So, I guess I feel like felt sense names something that is already central for me. So, why am I impatient with more theory about it?

[Sondra Perl]

#671

Interesting question to pose in a felt sense way to yourself…..as in “What’s underneath the impatience?”

• This reply was modified 11 years, 10 months ago by Sondra Perl.

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