Spacious listening encourages new ideas
Henrik, the main character in the short Danish film On My Mind, is a metaphor for the felt sense. He is in a delicate and deeply significant situation that is difficult to articulate. When he sees what he needs to do, the people he encounters do not know how to create an atmosphere in which his next steps could emerge. Spacious listening and reflecting his words would have provided the simple accompaniment needed for his felt sense to “carry forward”.
Carrying forward is an interactive process that can be blocked by conventional cultural notions. Cultural forms make for a comfortable social flow, but do not recognize the body’s capacity to make meaning. The body’s meaning-making process always wants to go further toward life. Pre-determined social forms can block and misinterpret it.
Spacious listening welcomes what is sensed but difficult to put into words
In his 1993 article, Three Assertions about the Body, philosopher Eugene Gendlin writes:
“The society has become more complex than the routines and concepts that it teaches. Most commentators on the current society do not see the increased complexity. They see only the breakdown of the old patterns and the losses that this now involves…The breakdown of the old patterns is actually caused by a new development which has only [just] begun. It is not just a loss and a breakdown. It is also an opening to a further development…Sometimes we cannot do what we were taught because we sense more in a situation than the old routines can meet.
In a difficult situation, if w cannot act in some easy and usual way, and if a new way does not quickly come to us, what do we… feel? Confusion, frustration perhaps. We may just be stuck. But what is it that tells us that the ordinary actions a phrases won’t do or are not what is needed? If we ask ourselves that question and if we pay direct attention to what it is that stops us, we may find a sense of what is needed, what would work, if only we could devise it. “
In On My Mind, Henrik is stuck. The film opens with him rhythmically banging his head against the window. He is in pain, but we don’t understand what is going on, and neither do the two people he encounters in the bar he walks into.
Spacious listening creates an atmosphere of safety, empathy, openness and trust for felt meaning to carry forward
Even though the bartender feels sympathetic toward Henrik, her first reaction to him is a rather judgmental suggestion. She says, “You don’t have to gulp [your whiskey] all at once. It’s OK to enjoy it.” Knowing what we know by the end of the film, this invitation doesn’t serve to create an atmosphere of safety, empathy, openness and trust.
Spacious listening recognizes the forming of felt meaning
Henrik pays and is on his way out when he sees a karaoke machine.
The karaoke machine becomes the “handle” that symbolizes Henrik’s next step.
He asks if the machine has the old Elvis Presley song On My Mind. The owner is doing his taxes and doesn’t want to be distracted by the music. He insists that karaoke only happens on weekends and today is Tuesday. Henrik finally puts down a 500 kroner bill, the equivalent of US$70. The owner agrees to let him sing, but for only 5 minutes.
Henrik asks the bartender to film his song on his phone. He says it’s for Trine. The bartender dutifully records the song, but a message comes through on the phone about Trine, so she stops recording and hands him the phone. He has to start over. Then halfway through the second recording, the owner pulls the plug on the machine. Five minutes is up.
The felt sense is hard to put into words, so it is difficult to explain the reasoning behind it, especially if one is in an atmosphere of judgment. Spacious listening welcomes what is difficult to put into words, because that lack of clarity signals the development of something new and different.
How “round, closed, common notions” get in the way of spacious listening
After the first interrupted attempt at recording, the bartender says “It’s a nice song.” That establishes some rapport. Henrik tells her that it’s his wife’s favorite. “She says it makes the soul fly.”
This could have been an opening for a more spacious listening and reflecting back. In fact, with these words, Henrik is indicating exactly why it is necessary for him to sing that song. But instead of reflecting this, the bartender asks him three questions, based on conventional notions of why a husband would want to record a song for his wife. Given Henrik’s unusual situation, these questions only block his self expression, especially the last question: “She’s not dead, is she?” This question brings a final draining of the whiskey glass, and a dispirited sigh.
With spacious listening, we don’t have to think of the right way to respond from our limited understanding. We respond by reflecting the words that express the felt meaning of the person we are listening to
After sighing into the glass, Henrik says,
“Look, the dew. The story it tells”.
“What’s the story then?” asks the bartender.
“A human breathed here. And now it’s gone. An imprint of the soul.”
That’s a pretty deep statement. I imagine a bartender wouldn’t know exactly how to respond. But as spacious listeners, we don’t have to respond from our own limited understanding of what is being said. We can just reflect back the life-forward meaning that we sense in the words.
A spacious listener might say, “Oh, this is something important (that touches you, that means something to you). A human breathed there and now it’s gone. That droplet is an imprint of the soul.” This open acknowledgement of a “something” helps validate that it exists. Its meaning might not be clear yet, but the felt meaning is definitely felt “there”, somewhere in the body. Hearing his words back would have shown Henrik that his felt sense was worth exploring.
But the moment is lost, with the bartender’s silence and a strange gust of wind that blows through the bar. Henrik seems to give up on the possibility of being understood. He just wants to get back to recording the song.
Cultural logic ignores the intricacy of the body sense
With her three questions, the bartender applies a cultural logic to Henrik’s need to sing the song. Is it for their anniversary, or his wife’s birthday, or to commemorate her after death?
In his article, The Small Steps of the Therapy Process: How They Come and How to Help Them Come, Eugene Gendlin says that carrying forward is “…picking up on where the person is, making contact with where the person really is. And the very contact changes the form” (p. 212, paragraph 4)
Spacious listening creates a place for felt meaning to grow, for it to create its own logic.
Spacious listening is having faith that felt meaning will be carried forward into its own right way of being
If Henrik’s “felt meaning” had been acknowledged, a carrying forward might have happened. This would have enabled him to express his reasons for insisting that the recording needed to be made NOW. It would have avoided the argument with the bar owner, given that the owner immediately understood the situation once it was expressed.
But, of course, then there would have been less drama to make a movie about.
Expressing the body sense brings relief and opens possibilities
When felt meaning is expressed and reflected back, there is often a bodily sense of relief. A way forward opens that had not previously been seen.
We see this in Henrik’s ability to be calm, dignified and confident as he encourages his wife’s soul to fly away at the moment of death.
Spacious listening carries felt meaning forward: implications for human interactions in general
Henrik followed the dictates of his felt sense, even though he was not understood at first. The well-intentioned bartender wanted to relate to him, but their communication was limited when she asked questions that were based on her accustomed cultural and conversational patterns.
Spacious listening and reflecting would have helped Henrik move forward. An agenda on the part of a listener can impose an already-existing pattern. That doesn’t leave space for the kind of interaction that seeks to contact and faithfully reflect the felt sense. Contact with the bodily felt sense brings something new and full of life.
Implications for the world
Can you feel the implications of this for the evolution that needs to happen in order for life to continue on this planet? The logic that we have grown up with no longer serves us. Nobody knows what to do. War and fighting have been “go to” solutions for millennia, but internationally we are too aware of the destructive power unleashed by the weapons that have, up to now, seemingly insured safety and security. In the US and elsewhere, polarization leads to people not being able to listen to each other, and that eventually results in violence.
Change steps are an interactional process that respects and facilitates the ability of the body to “make sense”. This sense-making does not necessarily correspond to any already formed system of logic. It changes as it is carried forward. The changes come in a precise way, arising from the body’s implicit knowing of what will make life better.
TAE Steps 1-14: A Deepening
A year to experience the steps of Thinking at the Edge
Format, days and time
Twelve monthly classes with partnerships in between
Prerequisites for TAE: A Deepening, Steps 1-14
Investment:
Your TAE mentor: Beatrice Blake
To sign up or find out more:
Online courses in Thinking at the Edge (TAE)
What is life calling you to do?
This online course in Thinking at the Edge will help you appreciate, enjoy and revel in your unique way of being. Your deepening relationship with felt sensing will enable you to let go of old ways of thinking and step into the urgings of the soul.
You’ll have the time and space to delve into the ideas and information that come through your body, your lived experience. You’ll explore the ways you connect with the world, the universe, nature and other people. You will gravitate toward your gifts. As your flower unfolds, your idiosyncrasies might even start to make sense!
My kind of TAE could be called ‘Living from Who You Are’
TAE grounds you in your lived experience so that you can better express who you are and what comes through you. You will return to the felt sense of a chosen theme over and over again, leading you to a deeper understanding of your own intricacy. Your felt senses become even more trusted and useful guides.
You will experience Gendlin’s steps 1 to 11 in class and practice them with fellow students between classes. We will also go over Steps 12-14, although Step 12 often takes more time for the dedicated effort of building a theory. At the end of the course, there will be the opportunity to continue your process in collaboration with your TAE companions.
Thinking at the Edge Proficiency Award:
You need to have a minimum of 36 hours of class time and TAE practice sessions in order to fulfill the basic requirements for the Proficiency in TAE Award, but often the process of understanding TAE takes longer than that. The hours that you spend learning and practicing in this course will count toward the Award. When you qualify, you’ll be able to join the TAE Partnership Network.
Comments from recent participants
If this resonates with you, please sign up for a free consultation.
Up-coming TAE courses:
THURSDAY GROUP: 9-session course over 4 months
Every other week, with practice sessions in between classes:
Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Eastern (1500 GMT, 1600 CET, 1700 EET)
February 2 and 16, March 2, 16, and 30, April 13 and 27, May 11 and 25, 2023.
Investment: US$475 per person for nine 2-hour sessions.
10% discount for members of The International Focusing Institute (US$428 per person.)
2023 Yearlong TAE course: TAE, A Deepening
Last Monday of each month at 7 p.m. Eastern
Investment: $495 for 12 two-hour sessions
$450 for my previous TAE students
Find your time zone here: http://www.thetimezoneconverter.com
To join, please submit a contact form.
Your TAE mentor:
Beatrice Blake, Certifying Coordinator with The International Focusing Institute. For more information or to sign up, contact me for a free consultation.
Photo credit: https://www.carriebakerphd.com/photography
Listening in a Focusing way
Listening in a Focusing way
Listening in a Focusing Way will take place on Tuesdays, November 1 through December 13 from 1 to 3 p.m. Eastern (seven 2-hour sessions).
Mentor: Beatrice Blake, a Certifying Coordinator with The International Focusing Institute (TIFI).
Prerequisites: Focusing Level One or at least three Focusing sessions with a certified Focusing trainer.
To sign up, please fill out the contact form. If you haven’t worked with me before, we can schedule a free introductory session. Please sign up soon–class is limited to eight participants.
Investment: $370.00 (10% discount for TIFI members: $333.00) via PayPal.
CCEs: Qualifies for 13 Continuing Coach Education credits from the International Coaching Federation.
Source material: The Small Steps of the Therapy Process: How They Come and How to Help Them Come by Eugene Gendlin.
A fresh source of information
We live in a time of existential challenges to life on earth. Despite growing awareness and ever-increasing data about these challenges, there is a split between our experiencing and our ability to change.
When we allow the bodily felt sense of a situation to form, we have access to a fresh source of information about life. However, the felt sense has its own logic that can be quite different from the logic we are accustomed to. Listening in a Focusing way allows us to follow the felt sense so it can grow and develop.
A special kind of listening
In order for the felt sense to unfold, a special kind of listening is needed. It is not just “empathic listening”, though that can be helpful. Listening in a Focusing way involves reflecting back the essence of what someone is saying. When this essential meaning is heard and taken back in by a Focuser, a characteristic silence follows. In this silence, the Focuser is listening inside to the further unfolding of the felt sense.
In a normal conversation, there is no recognition of the importance of this silence. But in Focusing, we welcome that silence and give it space. We know that inside the Focuser, a certain kind of development is taking place. The felt sense is “carrying forward”.
In a normal conversation, this silence may look like spaciness, or disconnection. The silent person might feel they have to apologize for it: “Sorry, I spaced out for a moment. Where were we?” and thus the carrying forward is ignored or lost.
People who know how to listen in a Focusing way honor that silence, because they have experienced it for themselves as the source of inner knowing. They recognize the expression of inner attention that appears on the Focuser’s face. Often that expression turns into a calm smile of inner truth as the session comes to an end.
Being with what is unclear
This source of development and change is not widely known yet. For both the Focuser and the Listener, it requires a letting go into what is unknown, unclear, difficult to put into words. That lack of clarity is the way the felt sense often presents itself. As we give the unclear bodily sense our gentle attention, words and meaning arise from it. This is in contrast with the way we often address problematic situations, going round and round a set of known ideas in our heads. Given the amount of time we spend going round and round in our heads, if that could lead us to a solution, we would have found it.
Listening for the aliveness
But with today’s challenges, there are no known solutions. The bodily felt sense connects us to a new way of knowing. The felt sense of a situation is intimately connected to our sense of being alive, the way that plants and animals find the elements they need, without having the intellect we humans have. We need to balance our over-developed intellect with our very human sense of what is alive, growing, and developing inside. Learning to listen in a Focusing way engenders meaningful change.
Spacious listening encourages new ideas
Spacious listening encourages new ideas
Henrik, the main character in the short Danish film On My Mind, is a metaphor for the felt sense. He is in a delicate and deeply significant situation that is difficult to articulate. When he sees what he needs to do, the people he encounters do not know how to create an atmosphere in which his next steps could emerge. Spacious listening and reflecting his words would have provided the simple accompaniment needed for his felt sense to “carry forward”.
Carrying forward is an interactive process that can be blocked by conventional cultural notions. Cultural forms make for a comfortable social flow, but do not recognize the body’s capacity to make meaning. The body’s meaning-making process always wants to go further toward life. Pre-determined social forms can block and misinterpret it.
Spacious listening welcomes what is sensed but difficult to put into words
In his 1993 article, Three Assertions about the Body, philosopher Eugene Gendlin writes:
“The society has become more complex than the routines and concepts that it teaches. Most commentators on the current society do not see the increased complexity. They see only the breakdown of the old patterns and the losses that this now involves…The breakdown of the old patterns is actually caused by a new development which has only [just] begun. It is not just a loss and a breakdown. It is also an opening to a further development…Sometimes we cannot do what we were taught because we sense more in a situation than the old routines can meet.
In a difficult situation, if w cannot act in some easy and usual way, and if a new way does not quickly come to us, what do we… feel? Confusion, frustration perhaps. We may just be stuck. But what is it that tells us that the ordinary actions a phrases won’t do or are not what is needed? If we ask ourselves that question and if we pay direct attention to what it is that stops us, we may find a sense of what is needed, what would work, if only we could devise it. “
In On My Mind, Henrik is stuck. The film opens with him rhythmically banging his head against the window. He is in pain, but we don’t understand what is going on, and neither do the two people he encounters in the bar he walks into.
Spacious listening creates an atmosphere of safety, empathy, openness and trust for felt meaning to carry forward
Even though the bartender feels sympathetic toward Henrik, her first reaction to him is a rather judgmental suggestion. She says, “You don’t have to gulp [your whiskey] all at once. It’s OK to enjoy it.” Knowing what we know by the end of the film, this invitation doesn’t serve to create an atmosphere of safety, empathy, openness and trust.
Spacious listening recognizes the forming of felt meaning
Henrik pays and is on his way out when he sees a karaoke machine.
The karaoke machine becomes the “handle” that symbolizes Henrik’s next step.
He asks if the machine has the old Elvis Presley song On My Mind. The owner is doing his taxes and doesn’t want to be distracted by the music. He insists that karaoke only happens on weekends and today is Tuesday. Henrik finally puts down a 500 kroner bill, the equivalent of US$70. The owner agrees to let him sing, but for only 5 minutes.
Henrik asks the bartender to film his song on his phone. He says it’s for Trine. The bartender dutifully records the song, but a message comes through on the phone about Trine, so she stops recording and hands him the phone. He has to start over. Then halfway through the second recording, the owner pulls the plug on the machine. Five minutes is up.
The felt sense is hard to put into words, so it is difficult to explain the reasoning behind it, especially if one is in an atmosphere of judgment. Spacious listening welcomes what is difficult to put into words, because that lack of clarity signals the development of something new and different.
How “round, closed, common notions” get in the way of spacious listening
After the first interrupted attempt at recording, the bartender says “It’s a nice song.” That establishes some rapport. Henrik tells her that it’s his wife’s favorite. “She says it makes the soul fly.”
This could have been an opening for a more spacious listening and reflecting back. In fact, with these words, Henrik is indicating exactly why it is necessary for him to sing that song. But instead of reflecting this, the bartender asks him three questions, based on conventional notions of why a husband would want to record a song for his wife. Given Henrik’s unusual situation, these questions only block his self expression, especially the last question: “She’s not dead, is she?” This question brings a final draining of the whiskey glass, and a dispirited sigh.
With spacious listening, we don’t have to think of the right way to respond from our limited understanding. We respond by reflecting the words that express the felt meaning of the person we are listening to
After sighing into the glass, Henrik says,
“Look, the dew. The story it tells”.
“What’s the story then?” asks the bartender.
“A human breathed here. And now it’s gone. An imprint of the soul.”
That’s a pretty deep statement. I imagine a bartender wouldn’t know exactly how to respond. But as spacious listeners, we don’t have to respond from our own limited understanding of what is being said. We can just reflect back the life-forward meaning that we sense in the words.
A spacious listener might say, “Oh, this is something important (that touches you, that means something to you). A human breathed there and now it’s gone. That droplet is an imprint of the soul.” This open acknowledgement of a “something” helps validate that it exists. Its meaning might not be clear yet, but the felt meaning is definitely felt “there”, somewhere in the body. Hearing his words back would have shown Henrik that his felt sense was worth exploring.
But the moment is lost, with the bartender’s silence and a strange gust of wind that blows through the bar. Henrik seems to give up on the possibility of being understood. He just wants to get back to recording the song.
Cultural logic ignores the intricacy of the body sense
With her three questions, the bartender applies a cultural logic to Henrik’s need to sing the song. Is it for their anniversary, or his wife’s birthday, or to commemorate her after death?
In his article, The Small Steps of the Therapy Process: How They Come and How to Help Them Come, Eugene Gendlin says that carrying forward is “…picking up on where the person is, making contact with where the person really is. And the very contact changes the form” (p. 212, paragraph 4)
Spacious listening creates a place for felt meaning to grow, for it to create its own logic.
Spacious listening is having faith that felt meaning will be carried forward into its own right way of being
If Henrik’s “felt meaning” had been acknowledged, a carrying forward might have happened. This would have enabled him to express his reasons for insisting that the recording needed to be made NOW. It would have avoided the argument with the bar owner, given that the owner immediately understood the situation once it was expressed.
But, of course, then there would have been less drama to make a movie about.
Expressing the body sense brings relief and opens possibilities
When felt meaning is expressed and reflected back, there is often a bodily sense of relief. A way forward opens that had not previously been seen.
We see this in Henrik’s ability to be calm, dignified and confident as he encourages his wife’s soul to fly away at the moment of death.
Spacious listening carries felt meaning forward: implications for human interactions in general
Henrik followed the dictates of his felt sense, even though he was not understood at first. The well-intentioned bartender wanted to relate to him, but their communication was limited when she asked questions that were based on her accustomed cultural and conversational patterns.
Spacious listening and reflecting would have helped Henrik move forward. An agenda on the part of a listener can impose an already-existing pattern. That doesn’t leave space for the kind of interaction that seeks to contact and faithfully reflect the felt sense. Contact with the bodily felt sense brings something new and full of life.
Implications for the world
Can you feel the implications of this for the evolution that needs to happen in order for life to continue on this planet? The logic that we have grown up with no longer serves us. Nobody knows what to do. War and fighting have been “go to” solutions for millennia, but internationally we are too aware of the destructive power unleashed by the weapons that have, up to now, seemingly insured safety and security. In the US and elsewhere, polarization leads to people not being able to listen to each other, and that eventually results in violence.
Change steps are an interactional process that respects and facilitates the ability of the body to “make sense”. This sense-making does not necessarily correspond to any already formed system of logic. It changes as it is carried forward. The changes come in a precise way, arising from the body’s implicit knowing of what will make life better.
It’s not true that there is no truth. Focusing partnership demonstrates why.
The felt sense leads us to a new “place”, where our understanding of the original issue is no longer what it “was”.
When we know Focusing, we go inside and follow the unclear “something”, the dot-dot-dot. This is the bodily felt sense of a situation or issue or feeling that we want to explore. As we follow the felt sense with our inner listening, it changes and develops, leading us to a new “place”. In this new place, our understanding of the original issue or situation or feeling is no longer what it “was”.
The vital presence of the Listener
The Listener provides protected time and space for the Focuser to accompany the felt sense as it develops and unfolds into meaning. The revealed meaning makes sense directly to the Focuser. It feels true.
The Listener wordlessly receives what the Focuser says. If the Focuser requests it, the Listener repeats back what the Focuser expresses as s/he experiences each new development. The Listener’s vital presence helps the Focuser to stay inside and follow what is happening.
To foster this world-changing process toward truth, Listeners put aside all opinions, ideas, suggestions — all attempts to be “helpful”. The Listener is in receptive mode, receiving the meaning that is being revealed to the Focuser.
What is needed along the road to truth
In Focusing partnership, the Listener doesn’t have to understand the details, the “story”, or the context behind the Focuser’s expressions. The Listener relaxes into knowing that the felt sense is leading the Focuser along the road to truth. Both partners honor what the felt sense does as it develops and reveals meaning. This knowing and honoring grows by experiencing the Focusing process for oneself.
A Process Model: Focusing is En #3
A Process Model can show us how to describe Focusing in a new way.
All Focusers have the same problem: how to communicate what Focusing is. We can say “Focusing accesses the wisdom of the body.” Or “Focusing is a way of getting to know how you really feel.” If you have done Focusing, I’m sure you have thought about this and tried to put it into words, as I have over the years.
I’ve recently come to a new way of communicating what Focusing is. It’s based on A Process Model, which was Eugene Gendlin‘s way of explaining how there could be a world in which Focusing could exist, a world in which felt meaning could exist, a world in which human beings, with our strange and intricate felt senses, could exist. For Gendlin, the basic terms with which Western culture views reality make human beings seem impossible.
A Process Model vs. the Unit Model
Gendlin called the basis for today’s science and culture “The Unit Model”. In the Unit Model, things are observed and described as if a spectator is “here” and the thing described is “over there”. This allows us to analyze the units that make up what we see around us—the atoms and molecules that combine to form the chemicals, hormones and neurobiological impulses, et cetera, that animate the body and the world. Gene always stressed that this way of looking at the world is very necessary. It has allowed us to produce the technological and scientific achievements of the last 400 years. So we want to keep it, AND we need a different model to describe living processes.
Interaction first
The Unit Model is excellent for analyzing things, taking them apart and putting them together. But this does not work with what is alive. Gendlin holds that human beings ARE interaction. Interaction is not one person over here, with set characteristics, interacting with another person over there with set characteristics. No. He says each interaction determines who and how we are, because life is interaction.
Understanding life through different “environments”
To help us see the world in this new way, Gendlin asks us to consider the idea of different environments from which to look at the world. Because the notion of different environments is a new philosophical concept, he refers to them as “en”. The purpose is to keep this new concept from being confused with currently understood uses of the word “environment”.
In A Process Model, En #1 is the spectator’s view
Society’s current way of looking at life is from the standpoint of a spectator. I’m over here, looking at what is going on over there. Gendlin calls this Environment 1, or En #1. Spectators notice things that they can identify from their world. For instance, biologists will define a monkey’s environment in their own terms. Gendlin gives an example on page one of A Process Model.
Let’s pause and take that in. Doesn’t it seem that most of the troubles in the world today come when we take the spectator’s stance? Racism, sexism, bullying, lack of civil discourse, not to mention climate change, none of these acknowledge life as interaction. They result when we attribute what we are familiar with to another living body and expect that body to see, feel and experience life the way we do.
In A Process Model, En #2 is the interactive life process
Gendlin goes on to present an alternative to the familiar spectator’s stance. He calls it Environment 2, or En #2, where interaction IS the process of living.
En #2 makes itself an environment in which life goes on further — En #3
Then Gendlin comes to Environment 3, or En #3. “The body is an environment in which body process goes on further.” The spider’s web is En #3. En #3 is where the spider finds what she needs to carry out her life process. And here, in En #3, is where Gendlin introduces the idea that we humans are the environment for each other.
Providing the environment where living process can develop and grow
So here is my new way of saying what Focusing is:
Focusing means getting in touch with the felt sense of a situation and symbolizing it in words, gestures, sounds, images, colors, etc. The bodily felt sense of a situation is the body showing us where life is stuck and how it can move forward. Or it’s showing us something that wants to happen. When a felt sense is symbolized, it is “carried forward.” It incorporates more life.
Focusing involves Listening, not as a spectator, but as part of an interactive process. In that interaction, the Listener provides the spacious, non-directive atmosphere. The Listener provides the atmosphere in which the Focuser can Listen to all the voices inside, so that their life processes can develop and grow.
Focusing as En #3
Let’s notice when we fall into En #1, the spectator’s stance. It is so easy to forget that we are interaction first. If we see ourselves judging, or thinking that we know in advance what someone else will say, let’s pause and breathe and remember that we are each other’s environment. We can do that too with ourselves! We can step back and slow down and ask, how can I be an environment for myself in which my aliveness can develop and grow?
And what do I need to be able to support my aliveness during my daily activities? What do I need to ask for from others in order to feel more alive?
Thinking together at the edge
A wonderful example of this are the members of the Embodied Critical Thinking Program, who are developing the practice of thinking together, through Thinking at the Edge and in the process, inventing new ideas about education. Monika Lindner, a member of that group, described their work together like this:
Focusing addresses mental healthcare crisis
Addressing the worldwide crisis in mental healthcare
Focusing provides an atmosphere of inner freedom where learning can take place
Focusing training helps Salvadoran scholarship recipients stay in school
Low-cost Focusing sessions make scholarship program more effective
Focusing trainers can take pressure off of mental health care professionals
How Focusing training addresses the mental healthcare crisis
Could this model help solve the mental healthcare crisis?
Adding Focusing’s embodied mental healthcare to programs that address material needs
The kindness of Thinking at the Edge
I recently attended the Gendlin Center’s online symposium, Saying What We Mean. At the gathering, the Embodied Critical Thinking project (ECT) demonstrated how they create an environment in which meaning can be expressed and grow.
The group uses Thinking at the Edge (TAE) as one of their tools. Until now, I have thought of TAE as primarily an individual endeavor, to be protected from what Gendlin called “group process”. However, more and more, I see the spacious listening of TAE engendering an atmosphere of group connection and creativity. TAE listeners are carefully trained to respect and protect each member’s ideas, so they have a different orientation than regular groups. Monika Lindner of the ECT, says that TAE fosters a unique “kindness.”
We ARE each other’s environment
I was fascinated by Monika’s presentation as part of the ECT panel, where she said “We ARE each other’s environment.” We need to understand this new group process. For that reason, I am sharing Monika’s ideas here:
“The kindness of Thinking at the Edge in a group is soft and strong. It comes through noticing my own and others’ interests, wantings, curiosities and desires to develop further. This kindness patiently attends to each interest that is brought forward, in order to empower the voice of each group member. Listeners hold the uncertainty of on-going exploration, as well as the warmth that comes with each bit of clarity. We invite interests to appear and be born into relevance in every given moment.
“I start with and in myself, giving priority to my experiencing and that of each of my companions. I take into account each member’s situation, attending to their interests in a nurturing way. As a result, there is a connecting of each other’s ideas into a web of understanding more. Together, we create an atmosphere of sharing and receiving that allows ideas and projects to emerge.
Growing together as a forest while becoming more the tree I am
“In the kindness held by the entire group, I connect more deeply with my ideas. I feel empowered and invited to develop further. It’s like growing together as a forest while becoming more the tree I am.
“The kindness of Thinking at the Edge comes from these basic elements of Focusing:
Creating a changed pattern of collaboration with Thinking at the Edge
“Experiencing such an atmosphere creates a changed pattern of collaboration. But so often, in academia and education, teachers and students don’t have that atmosphere. Logics other than ‘interaction first’ create and structure the environment. What counts in most academic environments is outcome, testing, and repeating predefined tasks and knowledge. “Education” usually ignores the body’s needs–it limits accepted body postures and, more importantly, it is unaware of how the bodily felt sense can contribute to free and critical thinking. Philosopher Eugene Gendlin’s concepts, such as en#2 and en#3, and behavior space, can open up a precise understanding, not only for how we create our own environment but how we ARE each other’s environment.
Being the environment that helps students open to the living place inside them
“What if I follow the thesis that we are each others environment? I imagine myself as being my students’ environment and not “the boss“ or the guide or the professional one.
“The kindness of Thinking at the Edge can become a professional attitude. According to Gendlin, thinking is “successively selecting symbols for present felt meaning”. This supports the unfolding of ones interest and its implying. Such kindness leads to generative interaction: connecting by listening, saying back, pausing, holding uncertainty, protecting vulnerability, sensing into the yet-unformulated felt quality. As an educator I can chose to BE that environment through engaging students to notice their experiencing. I can help them open up to more understanding and development from this living place inside them.”
Please click on our names if you’d like to tell us about something here that resonates for you. Monika and Beatrice.
Bibliography
Gendlin, E.T. (1997). Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, p 162
Thinking at the Edge empowers us
Thinking at the Edge is empowering
Thinking at the Edge (TAE) empowers us because it shows us how to think and speak from what we know from living. Teaching TAE brings me joy and faith in the future of humanity. I love to see the smiles on my student’s faces as they discover their own ability to generate ideas from their experience.
In this article, first I’ll lay out the problems with the common concept of what thinking is, then I’ll attempt to explain the new way of thinking that happens in Thinking at the Edge and give some examples. Next, I’ll show how Gendlin’s Philosophy of the Implicit takes us beyond the helplessness and despair of Postmodern philosophical theories that deny that we can say what we mean. After that, I’ll give an example of how Thinking at the Edge has empowered me. Finally, I’ll give you a short guide on how to practice TAE for yourself.
What is usually meant by “thinking”?
Somehow, we think (feel, are accustomed to the idea, believe) that only very smart people or “experts” can think (formulate valid ideas, propose realistic solutions, understand what is going on). I have often felt that I was incapable of thinking (coming up with new ideas, understanding the big picture, knowing what would work).
In the above paragraph, I have offered many different meanings for the word “think”. Post-modern Deconstructionist philosophers like Derrida have convinced society that words can no longer have meaning. Of course we can still look words up in the dictionary and find the meanings that are currently agreed upon. But we need new understandings. New words and phrases allow us to say new things. For instance, the meaning of “to think” has all the above meanings and many more, but the agreed-upon meanings do not contemplate the empowerment to think and speak that happens in Thinking at the Edge.
What do I want “thinking” to mean?
I’ll attempt to define “thinking” in terms of Thinking at the Edge. First, you notice something you know but cannot yet put into words. There is a subtle bodily felt sense of this. You can learn to notice and describe the felt sense instead of skipping over moments when you struggle for words. You’ll learn to welcome it with openness and receptivity. When you welcome the bodily felt sense of something that has no words, it responds to your interest. Words, phrases and images start to come. The felt sense will offer you examples of times when you have experienced the knowing you are trying to articulate.
At first, especially, it works best to have a listening partner who accompanies you in this space, writing down what you say. It doesn’t take long: usually a 20- to 25-minute session is enough to make some steps in the process. Further sessions will enable you to speak about what was previously unclear.
Examples of felt sensing
Here are some examples that are similar to the felt sensing you use in Thinking at the Edge. You might recognize them.
Once we have a felt sense, it can dialog back and forth with our intellect. As that dialog happens we must make sure that the felt sense is not left out.
Deconstruction can now be seen as making way for something new
Post-modern ideas like Deconstructionism have lead to a kind of helplessness, stagnation and despair. They make it seem that true communication is not possible. But Eugene Gendlin’s Philosophy of the Implicit, and its practice, Focusing, open up new realms that value and validate human experience in the creation of meaning.
Instead of trying in vain to agree on the lowest common denominator and impose definitions on experience, human experiencing can enrich meaning and make words more relevant to our situations. We can actually pay attention to our experience instead of wondering automatically “Is it just me?” Thinking at the Edge empowers us to open up relevant meaning instead of imposing outside, publicly agreed-upon definitions. When there is space to explore the experiencing behind words, real thinking and communication start to happen.
How Thinking at the Edge has empowered me
Teaching TAE has shown me that I can think from what I have lived. For example, if I am looking at the subject of “communication”, I can
It reminds me of the Quakers, who stood up for the right to experience God in their own ways, by waiting in silence for the Light. They had no patience for “steeple-houses” (churches) and priests, the accepted ways of connecting to God.
It also reminds me of the recent revolution in music distribution. Now everyone can hear “their” music through Pandora, Spotify, etc. As a result, the record labels and radio stations no longer determine what we can listen to.
Thinking at the Edge empowers us to make our own thought connections, based on experience.
It’s time for us to learn about our own capacity for generating new ideas
Right now, people are living through unprecedented situations. It becomes clear that economists and politicians, spiritual leaders, even scientists, don’t know the answers. This is an opening for new ideas, new ways of doing things. This moment is offering transformation. We need to empower ourselves to think and communicate from a generative place in order to meet the opportunities that might not come again.
Empower yourself with Thinking at the Edge
Do you skip over moments where words are difficult to find?
Do you try to complete someone’s sentence when they struggle to express themselves?
Try welcoming those moments. Here’s how:
Find out more about my online classes in TAE.
“The personal is political”
The personal is political. What does that mean?
Trump’s current attempt to exploit fear in order to convince people to vote for him is one manifestation of “the personal is political”. This tactic has been used by dictators the world over.
For example, behavioral science is being used to “market” political candidates and opinions. According to the New York Times, the 2016 Trump campaign used Facebook data to create “a behavioral model powerful enough to manipulate people’s activity and, potentially, sway elections.”
If your Facebook personality profile showed that you were fearful, you’d get a message about how dangerous immigrants were. In 2020 you’ll probably get a message that “you’ll never be safe” if the Democrats win the election.
As a result of this successful combination of behavioral psychology and marketing, our political system is not based on reasoned arguments. This form of manipulation appeals to knee-jerk reactions.
You can move beyond these emotional triggers by learning to notice your bodily felt sense of a situation. You’ll learn how to “accompany” your emotions from a place of “Presence” so that you can be aware of what is going on inside without being overcome by it. Focusing puts you in the driver’s seat of your life.
An experiment in “the personal is political”
Here is a short experiment in Thinking at the Edge with “the personal is political”. It’s based on an exercise from Donata Schoeller, a leading scholar and teacher of Gendlin’s Philosophy of the Implicit. Would you like to play?
1. First, please choose one of the following 3 words:
“police”, “election”, or “hospital”.
2. Once you have chosen a word, notice what situation from your life “arises from” or “comes with” that word.
3. Check to see if the situation that came calls forth a bodily sensation
4. Describe the bodily sensation of that situation with words, metaphors, emotions, textures, colors, shapes, memories, gestures, sounds.
5. Now, take this description back to the original word and notice how it affects or re-informs the word you chose.
6. If it feels right to do so, reply below, or share your response in an email to me.
After this short form of Thinking at the Edge, can you sense the meaning of “the personal is political”?