Have you ever set off on a trip with a nagging sense that you left something important behind? You think hard, but nothing comes to mind. It is as if your body knows but can’t speak. Eventually, halfway to your destination, the item pops into your head. Even if the item was important, along with the feeling of frustration, you will notice a release of tension in your body.  We tend to live in our heads a lot of the time, thinking about plans, people, problems, or past memories and sometimes completely forgetting that we have a body at all.  In our heads, we tend to think that all useful processing happens in our brain, yet our body is an interconnected whole. Like many other animals, we have a central nervous system that includes the brain and spinal cord. Although we think of the brain as a separate organ, it is really a specialized part of the whole nervous system. The spinal cord contains over thirteen million neurons and is connected to the limbs and organs by the peripheral nervous system, which extends across the body.

The felt sense refers to the awareness of what is going on in our body at a subtle level. Although we notice when our body tells us that we are hungry, or feeling tired, the felt sense is more about the body holding something unacknowledged and unexplored, about a situation, event, or problem. The felt sense may include feelings that could be released if only we were more aware of what’s going on inside us and were more able to build a clearer and more compassionate relationship with our body. Another way of understanding felt sense is to bring to mind two people whom you know well and then recall the subtle differences between the felt sense in your body, when you’re with one person and then with the other. 

In the 1960s and 70s Eugene Gendlin, a psychotherapist developed a form of therapy called “Focusing”, which is about connecting with the felt sense of the body as a useful resource for resolving often unacknowledged issues in our lives. The Focusing process works from the bottom-up and uses the natural wisdom of the body, rather than top-down from the mind, to discover answers, resolve held emotions, and release physical tension.  The basic steps include finding out what is going on inside, letting the felt sense form, describing with words or images, finding a handle word or phrase that resonates with the body, and then asking questions and receiving responses. This process helps to bring clarity to the vague and indistinct complexity of the felt sense.  

Becoming familiar with the felt sense in the body brings a range of benefits: 

• By tuning into the whole of our body, we bring ourselves into the present moment and make use of a broader range of inner resources.
• Developing a relationship and working with our own felt sense allows us to become more aware of what’s going on for us and as a way of gaining useful insights on positive and negative issues in our lives.   
• Connecting with the felt sense takes us “out of our minds”, by reversing our normal top-down thinking to a more bottom-up awareness of what’s going on for us at any moment. 
• Becoming more familiar with felt sense connects us to our innate sense of aliveness, vitality, and energy that otherwise goes unnoticed and taken for granted.

The emergence of secular mindfulness in the 1990s and the Focusing approach from the 60s and 70s have many things in common. Both include developing greater awareness of the body, accepting, and working with whatever emerges in our lives, and allowing emotions and feelings to be just as they are. Within mindfulness we often scan the whole of the body, relaxing and releasing any tension we encounter, and also practise being aware of the body as a whole, full of vitality and sensations. Both of these practices also include compassion and kindness to others as well as ourselves.

Cultivating mindfulness appears simple at first, but as things develop you realize that there is an entire world to explore both internally, externally, and in between. With awareness and practice you can become much more skilful in working with the waves of thoughts and emotions while exploring your felt sense opens an ocean of possibilities.

Suggested weekly practice

• See if you can spend a few minutes after you wake up scanning your body, aware of the sensations, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head, and bring gratitude and compassion.
• Tap into the felt sense in your body during the week and explore this hidden resource and see what it is telling you.
• See how aware and familiar you can become with the sense of aliveness, vitality, and energy in your body.

Guidance
Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware.
There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes, or lower your gaze while the meditations play.

• Play the first settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
• Then play the second practice to explore and experience your felt sense through this adapted and shortened version of the Focusing process,  that’s designed to give you a taste of the usefulness of this approach.