Robert's Response

[Robert Greco]

#537

Sondra:
“This topic calls forth images, words, ideas, and big fuzzy feelings that are anchored in the writer’s body. What is elicited, then, is not solely the product of a mind but of a mind alive in a living, sensing body.”
This quotation, along with many others, makes me think about the difficulty of trying to get past the idea that the mind is the sole thinking part of the body. In order to cope with this, I think that I’ve established a sense of the way in which the body and the mind interact. I can’t personally get over the idea that the mind is the only part of the body that can really think; however, for me felt sense functions as a mechanism to address the limitations of consciousness. Consciousness is, in many ways, extremely limited. We rely on it, and we tend to privilege conscious thought, but the reality is that we cannot thrive or even survive on consciousness alone. Although I fear buzz marketing popular nonfiction, I’m reminded of Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink, which deals extensively with those parts of our mind that are entirely unconscious but nevertheless have a huge impact on the way we think and interact with the world. I see felt sense as a way of dealing with the limitations of conscious thinking. I can’t directly think all the sensations that my brain is capable of processing, so if find other outlets, other ways of expressing those thoughts, feelings, and sensations. So when I conceptualize felt sense, I think not so much of tapping into the body as using the body as a conduit to better understand my brain. I’m not certain if this is the way that Sondra or Gendlin mean felt sense, and I’m not even sure that this conceptualization is compatible with their understanding, but for now I’m not certain that I can go far beyond this. Maybe that’s a limitation of my own consciousness or limitation my own theoretical understanding of how we think and interact the world but, I’m comfortable with this as a starting place for further exploration.

[Sondra Perl]

#550

Robert, you write:
“So when I conceptualize felt sense, I think not so much of tapping into the body as using the body as a conduit to better understand my brain. I’m not certain if this is the way that Sondra or Gendlin mean felt sense, and I’m not even sure that this conceptualization is compatible with their understanding, but for now I’m not certain that I can go far beyond this.”

You seem to be saying that there is something that stops you here, that you can’t get beyond, that somehow doesn’t make sense to you or fit with your own understanding of the body and the mind. I would say that there is a felt sense here — a nagging something — and Gene would say to stay with that, to inquire into what that sense is telling you, into what it means so that you can say more. This is in some ways the edge of your thinking — right here — and it will open into more saying and more thinking as you explore what prevents you from going further (what we might call your discomfort with these conceptualizations).

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

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