Focusing, Chapter 7: Boneless Relaxation?

I’m re-reading Chapter 6: What Focusing Is Not and Chapter 7: Clearing A Space For Yourself. I find that I don’t have much to add to chapter 6. It seems straightforward. 

In chapter 7 Gendlin talks about Clearing A Space (Focusing’s most controversial and, I think, most skipped step). In addition to specifically setting problems aside to create space, this step in the routine also plays the role of transition from normal life into one’s Focusing space. 

As such it gives a valuable opportunity to intentionally develop a habit of self-relating in a new and useful way. And the first step is the place to do so. Chapter 7 is full of useful advice on what such an intention can look like. It's worth reading in full.

What stands out to me the most is the unusual relationship Gendlin has to his body and how it comes into play. 

All quotes are from Chapter 7.

“Think of the first movement as a brief time when you allow yourself to stop being a monument to your troubles. Most people harbor a feeling that they must make their bodies express their troubles constantly. We live life with our bodies. Every trouble and bad situation is like a cramp in the body. As long as the body is cramped by trouble, it already has the shape of the trouble and therefore can’t cope with that trouble as a fresh, whole body. It copes with the trouble while being the trouble. Therefore focusing begins with giving your body a pause, a break, in which to let it become whole.
Most people let their bodies be cramped into the shape of what’s wrong with their lives, being a monument to all the things that are wrong, every moment.”

There’s a lot contained in those few sentences. We express our troubles in the body. That’s a radical statement, unless you’re already steeped in the language and models of the somatic therapy space. Whole books are written about this idea. (For example, The Myth Of Normal by Gabor Mate and The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk) 

Every trouble and bad situation is like a cramp in the body. That’s interesting and said in a way I can viscerally feel. And vice versa. What are these cramps in my body? And how can I relate to them? 

As long as the body is cramped by trouble, it already has the shape of the trouble and therefore can’t cope with that trouble as a fresh, whole body. That’s super interesting. We can’t solve the problem from within the problem. And as long as the body is expressing the problem we’re within the problem.

Therefore focusing begins with giving your body a pause, a break, in which to let it become whole. So there’s a whole distinct skill here that’s being alluded to, of letting the body become whole without first dealing with the situations that are causing the body to be cramped. 

I don’t think I’ve personally mastered this skill. (I notably also never much bothered with this first step of focusing because I found that I could do the following steps without it. I’ll do a little bit of something like clearing a space only when I feel like there’s not enough space to work on the problem or question I’ve chosen to work on.) So that gets me thinking. 

Notably Gendlin is described as seeming physically relaxed most of the time. “Bonelessly relaxed”, Ann Weiser Cornell says in her book The Radical Acceptance Of Everything. 

It seems like part of the key of that skill must lie in this idea of whether we’re making the body into a monument to our troubles. That’s a very evocative bit of language. I feel like I need a bit of inquiry into whether I’m making my body into a monument to my troubles.

“In seeking this first-movement state of tranquillity, you will find it helps to trust in your body. Let your body return to its natural state—which is perfect. The body can feel completely at ease and natural every moment. Just let it. 
Once your body is allowed to be itself, uncramped, it has the wisdom to deal with your problems. You will be dealing with these tense feelings and situations with a relaxed, loose body. 
It is true that this little bit of good feeling—this rest you are giving your body by stacking the troubles in front of you—is incomplete. 
But also expect, soon, when you start to work on this stack, that you will feel much better. Your body always tends in the direction of feeling better. Your body is a complex, life-maintaining system.”

The body can feel completely at ease and natural every moment. It can? That would be… radical. I don’t think anyone I know is walking around feeling that. I certainly am not. But I’m intrigued. 

The instruction for this is to just let it return to its natural, perfect state. I really wish he would say loads more about this. I don’t feel like I have a move of just letting directly available. (Just letting is language people use when they have a lot of capacity build up that’s allowing for a direct move that isn’t necessarily available to everyone. In university math class we would say “we leave it as an exercise to the reader”. Groan.)  A bit of reverse engineering might be needed.

Stacking up the problems in front of us is this rest you are giving your body. Hmm. It really makes me think that there is a lot more meat in this first step than I’ve been assuming. That really, there are two practices here, included in these instructions. That Clearing A Space might be a practice in its own right, not just a pre-amble to the real steps. 

Gendlin says something to that effect in the section A Vast Space.

“The first movement (clearing a space) can be done alone, for its own sake. If you do it very slowly, you may come to a state that seems important in its own right. Then you might leave the rest of focusing for another time.”

This is leaving me pretty motivated to go playing around with simply clearing a space.