Focusing, Chapter 5: A Taste For Opening

I’m reading Chapter 5: The Six Movements And What They Mean of the book Focusing. The quote is from this chapter. In this chapter Gendlin goes into a lot of detail on each of the six movements. It is very good. 

What snagged my eye is the following offhand comment:

“The body shift is mysterious in its effects. It always feels good, even when what has come to light may not make the problem look any better from a detached, rational point of view.”

This is really interesting, and it matches my personal experience. Often there are results from a shift that can be difficult: Negative emotions come out and want to be experienced, plans have to be complexified, relationships have to change. But the shift itself always feels good. 

It feels so good, in fact, that I’ve acquired a taste for it that extends to doing the work itself. It's like when you start craving the bitter taste of coffee because it is so strongly associated with a shift in alertness and mood. I want to sit down and inquire because I’m craving the feeling of the shifts. There’s just something about how it feels when a felt sense opens, a subtle sense of space, a joyful jubilance at knowing that I’m not any particular thing, I am freedom itself. I am a fluid, morphable, substance that can never be truly caged. I can taste the freedom, like a minty breath of fresh air, like what air smells like after a refreshing rain. There’s a deep sense of relief that stuckness can move and a deepening trust in the fundamental goodness of the universe that makes me cry happy tears when I pay attention to it. And there’s a rich sense of satisfaction associated with speaking the truth. It is truly delicious, like chocolate.

I think even before I had good reason to believe that this kind of work would be transformative I was hooked by the taste of opening. And I sorta think this makes all the difference. I know a gaggle of people who’ve experienced the transformative power of this kind of work but don’t ever want to sit down and do it. To them it’s a chore, like brushing your teeth. My guess is that people naturally want to do something that seems like a chore to other people (like exercising, for example) when there is such a direct experiential reward structure at play. When every few minutes or so, as you do it, you experience a notable hit of pleasure and satisfaction.

And this is one of the reasons why I think Focusing is so so important to learn. You can experience transformative shifts with a teacher but you may miss the subtle pleasure of felt sense openings because where you pay attention matters for such things. And you won’t easily build the association between the moves and the stance and the feeling of opening if you don't feel fully in control of it. Focusing forms an inner feedback loop for the process. The feedback is fast, and pleasurable and that makes all the difference.