We’re in the thick of it now, and I’ll avoid slowing things down with a cumbersome intro. Go ahead and dive into number 6:

6. Make a commitment to responsiveness, not arrival.

Striving to access an ideal state that would accompany existence in a perfect world touches on the next important reframe. We want to affirm very clearly that our goal is not to reach some sublime state and stay there. In fact, psychotopology makes it very clear that such state-chasing is not actually the functionality of true thriving. To thrive, we must be present with what is, whatever that is. And we must be present with our whole selves, with all the relevant parts active and responding with wisdom and vitality in the here and now. Locking our awareness onto a single part of ourselves and locking that part into a single aspirational state locks us out of a true aliveness within ourselves and in the world around us.

What this means is that you are even more free to reach toward that perfect world in seeking the ideal state for this part. You’re not going to set this ideal state as being in any way dominant in your life. Instead, you are choosing to touch into it in order to restore your access to its insight, wisdom, and capacity for thriving.

Every part of you functions best when it has access to its own ideal. You can think of it as a North Star. If you know how to locate the North Star, then if you find yourself lost, you can orient yourself to that north-ward direction, and use that orientation to help yourself navigate toward wherever it is you want to go. We triangulate to navigate. We use the felt sense of where we are in the moment, compare that to the felt sense of our North Star, and choose the third point of where it is we wish to travel, how we want to respond in ways that honor our inner truth.

Nobody who uses the stars to navigate the surface of our planet expects to arrive at an actual star. Instead, the stars provide context by which we are able to sense into what is the right direction for us in any given moment, taking into consideration other factors including the topography of our current location, weather conditions, and more. We regain this responsiveness in locating the ideal state, not an arrival at the state itself. It is important to set this reframe as we begin the moving process so you can be clear about your relationship to the powerful states you will access.

One valuable thing we gain in restoring the responsiveness that comes with regaining access to the ideal state is a much more vibrant sensitivity. When parts of us have been locked outside the boundaries of awareness, the job they are doing becomes much more difficult. They are trying to signal that some essential need is not being met, that something should change within yourself or in your world in order to restore a state of thriving. And because that signal is not being heard, it tends to intensify over time.

Unfortunately, this sets up a vicious feedback loop. The stronger the feeling state becomes, the less we are able to accommodate it, and the more intensely we commit to our strategies to keep it outside of our awareness. Which, of course, results in it intensifying further, which strengthens our defenses, round and round.

When you restore access to the state in its full spectrum of expression from reactive to ideal, and when you have experienced a confident trust that this part of you is working to serve you, no matter what state it is inhabiting as its expression, things get much, much easier. You actually notice when you start feeling some discomfort. Your attention goes to that state, and you have a reference point for what its purpose, its truth, its ideal wants to be.

And so, with little fanfare, you make a small choice. You communicate something to someone. You step away from a situation. You turn inward to connect to your own resources. You do whatever it takes to re-ground yourself, to re-nourish yourself, to respond to the situation in a way that honors your needs and moves you in a direction that serves your life. And it’s no big deal.

7. Invite the background support of related parts.

Every part of you inhabits an ecosystem of other parts. You’ll learn much more about this in the upcoming Science section. But even at this point, after mapping one or more feeling states, you may have a good sense of the fact that the part you have chosen to work with has strong relationships with other parts. You may have mapped one or more, you may have named a few others, while still others may remain in the background, unidentified at this point. Some of those relationships may take the form of enmeshment, others of conflict or separation, while others may collaborate in their pursuit of a particular task or function, perhaps that of protection or alarm, for example.

Always, parts coordinate their activity overall, even when that coordination involves direct conflict between parts. And in their coordination, many parts have a kind of investment in a particular part staying exactly the way it is. To take a simple example, a part that feels a boastful arrogance might might feel that its role is being undermined if the shame it is protecting suddenly goes away. At the same time, the shame part might feel uncomfortably exposed if the protective arrogance is shifted. It is as if the two parts are bonded in a contract, with each performing its role in order to maintain equilibrium.

Add a third part, and suddenly you have three contracts instead of one. With a fourth, the contracts double to six in number. Work your way up to the nine parts generating every full experience of being a self, and you can see that it becomes impossible to re-negotiate these contracts one by one.

All of this is rooted in the past, and this state you’re about to move is anchored in that past. But in the fieldwork moving phase, this part becomes very definitely grounded in the present moment, and it is able to reach forward into the possibilities of the future. This capacity also exists for all the other parts in relationship with this one. We want to invite this shift in focus into the present moment in order to support this part of you in exploring its full range of expression.

To support this, we directly speak to the other, related parts. We invite them to participate in this process first as passive witnesses, learning from the process what is possible for every one of them as well. Second, we invite them to be present in full support of the focal part having freedom to explore and discover its core ideal, affirming that in doing so, it will gain access to wider resourcefulness in serving the whole self, including these related parts. And we want to remind all of the related parts that this part will be free to return to its original state if that turns out at any time to be what best serves the whole.

8. Express openness to other parts’ needs.

At the same time that we want to invite other related parts to be in full support of this part’s shift, we also want to leave open the possibility that one of the other parts may indeed have more important needs that want to be addressed first. In this case, we speak more to the explorer as the one engaging this process, and let them know that if they notice another feeling state coming strongly into the foreground, they should pause and decide whether to turn attention to that part.

Rather than power through and push the intruding state aside, it can be very helpful to pause in order to investigate just what this other part needs. From there, a respectful and supportive decision can be made about how best to continue the work. Sometimes, that might look like a simple affirmation before continuing with the original part. At other times, though, it might make more sense to shift attention to the signalling part, to map it if it hasn’t been mapped yet, and to move it first before returning to this one.

9. Finally, trust this part’s inherent compass to find its own way home.

Moving a feeling state is honestly a big deal. Having access to a virtual slider by which you can shift a state in pretty much any direction, on purpose, defies expectations of all kinds. Because of this, it is common for other, related parts who experience themselves as being more or less “in charge” to step in and try to direct things.

One way this shows up is through thoughts about what a part “should” become. “Oh, that anxiety needs to just chill out and become confident instead.” Another way is through expectations. “Obviously this sad part will become full of joy.” Sometimes the thought or expectation is for a very uncomfortable state to just “disappear” or “go away.”

It is important to invite impulses such as these to step back and to serve instead as support for the part itself in its exploration. We do that by explicitly naming the fact that every part has its own inner compass, and that all we need to do in order to follow that compass is to trust the part itself. By making our virtual material property adjustments solely in directions that result in the feeling state moving toward what feels best to itself, we honor that inner compass.

In this way, we are affirming a deep trust in the wisdom of feeling. We are not acting from a conceptual or belief framework, but instead we are fully trusting that by following what feels good, we will be led to the place of the ideal. Feeling itself is the guide.

One of the best indicators that we are following this inherent wisdom faithfully is that of surprise. Very often, the part arrives at a state we could never have predicted when we started. And yet, when we arrive, it feels absolutely spot on. The right state reveals itself when we show up in full support.

As you get the hang of the fieldwork moving process, you will come very naturally to a place of pervasive trust. You will come to see every part of yourself (and others) as having something profoundly valuable to contribute, and you will trust that contribution to be revealed in its own way. Occasionally, the state the part arrives at turns out to be familiar, something you remember having access to at an earlier stage of life. But more often, you lost your access to this state long enough ago that you do not carry any active memory of it, and it seems both completely new while at the same time providing a felt sense of coming home.

One thing is clear, though. We can’t ever actually know what we truly want unless and until we are free to experience the ideal state of having everything we need. If this has never been true in the course of our life in the context of this part you’re working with, or if this state was lost a long time ago, we can be sure that whatever the perspective of the distressed, reactive feeling state we’re working with, its idea of what we need or want is bound to be mistaken. For that reason, we need to surrender fully and completely to the wisdom of feeling.

To Be Continued…

We’ve gotten through the nine reframes, and it’s time to take a break. Pause for a moment (or a week), and reflect on what you’ve read so far. Some aspects of these reframes do show up, at least partially, in other places. Maybe you’ve encountered them, or even taken them on for yourself, to some extent. What do you notice when you hold all five together?

We’ll be back with some reflections on the reframes next week. In the meantime, here is another sample map-and-move for your delight.

Another Example of What You Have to Look Forward To

To support your anticipation for what is to come in this adventure, I am offering before/after examples of feeling states my client Ruby gave me permission to share.

Dread

Feels connected to the Fear.

Surface of my upper back, around my shoulders, head and face, and the top part of my chest. On outside. Six inches thick. It goes all the way down to the sternum and connects through me to the back part, almost like the rope thing of Self Doubt. Like this huge helmet kind of thing. Seems to be solid, (but that seems too solid), a heavy, very thick gas. A soft solid, like paint that kind of dries up. Black, kind of shiny almost, opaque. On the hotter side. It’s a feeling of weight coming down on me, like there’s something heavy on top of me. It’s like a voice making a sound effect in a low tone, a tonal “uugggghhhhh.”

With the pressure going down, because the bar is going through me, I feel it especially in the heart area.

I’m noticing that the reason I’m dreading doing these preparations (or whatever), is that I’m afraid it’s going to be fruitless work. This part knows these things must be done, but it’s so hard. I’m not sure how to do it. The Self Doubt: Is it going to be good enough?

If this were to come to pass, disappointment (Fear), and a told-you-so tone (Self- Doubt).

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Divine Flowing Breath

⟹ Cooler and lighter, softer; an energy - if you put your hand into it you could feel it tingling; warm; white, translucent, glowing; ... (feeling of a little self- doubt, “am I doing this right?” heavy, pretty lethargic, so it’s hard to get into a real positive place. This feels like the Sadness.)

(At this point, we turned attention to Sadness and moved it to Self Trust.)

⟹ Comfortable coolness; lighter and softer, a vibrating energy, tingly to the touch, like a tangible energy; light blue, translucent, iridescent.

In the lower back, where the kidneys are, I feel it come out through my stomach, out in front of me, and then it goes way back behind me, starts way back behind, goes all the way forward and through; two strands: one through the right, one through the left, of the lower back, each curved into loops, and they circulate back; start close to the spine, go out in front two feet, curves out to the side, back in through my side to the starting place. The origin is three feet behind. Flowing. Sound of flowing water.

I have nothing to dread. I have everything to look forward to. I’m going to be fine. This part wants me to breathe.

Name: Flowing Breath.

What’s different: I’m filled with life, and light. It’s like I have a respect for what’s going on inside me, my feelings. But I realize that I’m the creator here. I have the power to form my life as I wish.

There’s usually a fight within me about teaching my classes how I’m “supposed” to, or really teaching them from my heart and that might mean that I’m teaching them differently than I’m supposed to. There’s still a concern there because I care about my students so much and I want my class to fulfill their needs, but with this Flowing Breath, I trust that I’m guided to teach in a way that will automatically nourish them. Those things I’ve been taught about what I’m supposed to teach are good, but it’s OK to present something different to show a different experience of yoga.

A few months later, after moving a few other states:
⟹ Warm, a little brighter and shinier, likes moving from behind and in the loops, and also circulating through the rest of my body, swells up and down to fill my body, like a mist from water.

Feels like lightness, like when you take a deep breath, “Aaahhh.” And peace. Sound of breath.

It comes from divine source, the same source that we’re all connected to. It’s not just coming from inside me, it’s coming from something greater than me.

It’s a really unlimited source of power and energy. And I feel like if I connect to it, I can bring lightness and maybe even healing to other people. It’s very much like presence as well. Connecting to Flowing Breath gives me presence, thus taking me out of my ego.

New name: Divine Flowing Breath.

The part that swells up into my body goes out more than just to my skin; it shines, turns into light and shines out. The yellow light is Encourager (see a few weeks ago).

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Next post/chapter in this series on fieldwork moving: (coming)

Volume 1, Table of Contents:

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In the last post, I offered a preview of what’s coming this next few weeks. The preamble has been a fixture of the fieldwork moving process for decades. Think of it as an onramp to a very different way of interacting with what’s inside. We’re accustomed to thinking about and interacting with our interior in certain ways. Deliberately shifting a feeling from one state to another through its virtual material properties kind of messes with the assumptions that support those longstanding habits.

The preamble leads you step by step through a series of reframes that open things up so the part you’re moving has greater freedom and agency as it goes through the process. And at the same time, taking a careful look at these reframes shines some light on the persistent, omnipresent gap between what we believe and say about our inner lives and what we actually experience on the inside if we pay closer attention. This gap is where the disruptive power of psychotopology points, and it is very helpful to open our eyes to it as we begin using the moving process.

Nine Reframes

The preamble contains the following nine elements, each of which sets a crucial reframe for the moving process. At the end of this chapter, I will offer a baseline script you can use, whether facilitating your own practice or that of someone else.

1. Confirm access to the feeling state and set expectations for the moving process.

The fieldwork moving process absolutely depends on directly and tangibly feeling the state as you begin working with it. You shouldn’t be moving into the moving process until you’ve revisited the mapping details for the state you’ve chosen to work with and revived the presence of this state as the focus of your awareness. This section of the framing script acknowledges that this has been done.

Of course, the main reason to establish contact with the feeling state is to be able to undergo the moving process. Just as important, though, at this stage before we begin, you need to have direct access to the state in order to set the reframe in a way that supports an easeful process. To get the setup underway, we need to verbally affirm that we are entering the moving process, and that the feeling state will change and become something different.

2. Acknowledge “this part of you” as the host for the feeling state.

The second section of the framing script is anchored in the topology revealed by fieldwork (as will be described in the Science section). This topology is modular in nature, with each module anchored by one specific feeling state in any given moment, but having access to a wide spectrum of feeling states as it serves its core function in the context of the whole self.

How we attribute “thing-ness” in our maps of reality strongly influences how we navigate. Typically in the modern way of thinking about emotion, we attribute thing-ness to either the emotion itself or to what we attribute as the cause of the emotion. We treat depression or anxiety, for example, by assuming that the nervous system pattern, or history of trauma, or whatever, is the defining “thing” that needs to be corrected or managed in some way.

Psychotopology fundamentally brings a new approach. The module is identified as the “thing” underlying all emotional expression, and the specific feeling state is one among many possible expressions of the module. The feeling state in no way defines the module.

We affirm this modularity as the underlying reality or identity and choose to use the wording “this part of you” to refer to the module that has expressed itself as the originally-mapped feeling state. As soon as we start the moving process, this module will no longer be expressing as that specific feeling state, but will be engaged in a wide-ranging exploration of a full spectrum of possible expressions. If you start by mapping “sadness,” as soon as you shift the substance toward being lighter or softer, for example, it will no longer make sense to refer to it as “sadness,” and the farther the moving process goes, the more true that becomes.

One thing I should note here is to make a distinction between parts as they are referred to in psychotopology and “parts” as they show up in various other modalities of inner work. Typically, “parts work” involves something more like sub-personalities or personas, each with a kind of job to do, a personality with which it does that job, an age at which it shows up, etc. This work tends to meet the “parts” where they are and to work with them as they show up, on their own terms, through dialogue of some kind.

The parts we work with in fieldwork are more fine-grained and fundamental. In fieldwork, it is likely that a “part” worked with in one of these other modalities would turn out to be made of multiple modules of consciousness. Taking these modules through the mapping and moving process would typically result in the original “part” being completely dissolved and replaced by something more organically integrated into the whole person. This is not to say that standard “parts work” as it exists today is not useful. But psychotopology is working at a very different level in its approach to inner experience.

Getting back to the flow of our framing script, by affirming that we are working with “this part of you,” we free the part from its attachment to either the state it has been holding or the interpretations of itself or its context that led to its choosing that state. It gets to reconnect to its original agency and wisdom as an integral, functioning, semi-autonomous participant in generating your full experience of being a thriving self in the world.

3. Affirm the part’s positive intention and persistent service.

Ultimately, every feeling state is an experiential signal about how well we’re doing in a complex, interconnected system of inner parts, outer people, physical well-being, material resources, environmental factors and more. Every part of us has a particular role to play in meeting specific needs and delivering specific capacities within that encompassing system.

Unfortunately, our modern culture often ignores or dismisses the fundamental functionality of feeling experience. Instead, it interprets feeling as peripheral to rational thought, and it handles expressions or indications of feeling as something to be managed carefully and curated appropriately. In addition, our culture also has a poor understanding of our essential needs and often ignores or suppresses these needs as a standard practice. “Big boys don’t cry” is a good (albeit simplistic) example of this.

The impact of the collision between our inherent nature and our cultural maladaptation is that most of us carry parts of ourselves that have been locked away from the normal healing and restorative power of our awareness for a very long time. In this separation, these states have become rigidified, locked into reactions from long ago.

These exiles carry the beliefs laid on them long ago. Often, the feeling expression was locked away because it was labeled as shameful, hurtful, sinful, or otherwise a marker for compromised value of some kind. We needed to hide it because of how it was interpreted by others around us, and eventually we took on these judgments ourselves as we attempted to navigate the world we shared with others.

These judgments are universally false. All of them. What psychotopology reveals unequivocally is that every single feeling state is attempting to serve the thriving of the whole. The whole includes the precise part expressing through that feeling state as well as a number of other parts in intimate relationship with it. The whole also includes many more parts of ourselves (we’ll get into this later in the Science section) that make up our entire, complex being. This whole extends further, out into our world, including those close to us, the world around us, and all of life. All of it. Every feeling state is attempting to serve the whole of life as it manifests within our individual selves and echoes throughout the universe.

We need to remind the part we’re going to work with of this truth. We need to affirm that no matter how dark or distressing the feeling state it holds, it originally took on that feeling state in order to serve you, and for no other reason. We want to acknowledge that service, to explicitly thank it for taking on this most likely very difficult job, and to let it know that we absolutely trust this essential purpose it holds. It has always been here for us, it is here for us now, and it will continue to be here for us far into the future, for as long as we exist. This we can trust, wholly and without hesitation.

4. Reassure the part that it can always return to serving in this way again, even after it transforms.

Next, we need to let this part know what’s coming. Often, it has been locked into a particular feeling state, perhaps for decades, maintaining a strong commitment to the service it originally took on before being abandoned by our generative awareness. But as we start to interact with it in the moving process, its state is going to change — swiftly, and often dramatically. We don’t want it to freak out about abandoning its post.

All we need to do here is to let this part know that, while it is true that we are going to interact with it in ways that invite it to change, it has full agency about whether and how much to engage with that process. Not only that, but it also maintains its full freedom to return to the exact state we started with, at any time after we finish doing the work.

The fact is, in moving a feeling state, the part gets to explore a far greater range of possible expression. After this exploration, the part is able to choose to express as the ideal state it discovers, or the original state we mapped, or anything in between. Stating this reassures the part that moving the state is safe. There is no risk, only gain in the form of freedom and agency.

5. Encourage the part to reach for a “perfect world” scenario.

After establishing that it is safe to move the part by transforming its feeling state, we want to invite the part to reach as far as it can to find an ideal. To do this, we introduce the idea of “a perfect world,” and we center the definition of “perfect” on the needs of this specific part and of yourself as a whole. A perfect world is one in which” “all your needs are met, fully and completely, exactly the way you want them, and you know how to keep them that way.”

The purpose of every part, expressed as a feeling state, is to meet specific needs. If those needs are well met, the part signals this satiation with pleasurable feeling states. Taking on this reframe encourages the part to reconnect with the feeling state associated with this fulfillment.

It is important to affirm that this exploration is of an ideal, a hypothetical reality that may never actually exist, but is nevertheless very useful to identify, to feel, and to establish as a touchstone for what is most important. We are taking on the “perfect world” reframe in order to give this part permission to find its own North Star, its most essential truth, its clearest resonance with its identity and purpose.

In this process, we are focused on this moment only. We are exploring the full extent of the terrain available to this part of you, not committing to any particular state in that terrain. In this moment, we are reaching for the ideal, but we are doing so only within the safe container of our perfect world hypothesis. What could this part be, what could it feel in such a world?

To Be Continued…

We’ve gotten half-way through the reframes, and it’s time to take a break. Pause for a moment (or a week), and reflect on what you’ve read so far. Some aspects of these reframes do show up, at least partially, in other places. Maybe you’ve encountered them, or even taken them on for yourself, to some extent. What do you notice when you hold all five together?

We’ll be back to finish the series next week. In the meantime, here is another sample map-and-move for your delight.

Another Example of What You Have to Look Forward To

To support your anticipation for what is to come in this adventure, I am offering before/after examples of feeling states my client Ruby gave me permission to share.

Sadness

Painful realization of the Self Doubt part of me that is so mean and discouraging.

It feels like it’s within my whole torso, from the throat down into the lower abdomen. A heavy gas. Warm. Greenish black, translucent. It’s going in a slow circle, down the front and up the back. It sounds like sad music, instrumental. The whole gaseous part of it is strongest and thickest in the throat. It makes it hard to talk.

It’s asking a question: “How can there be such a self-defeating part of me?” It just doesn’t feel right.

Noticing another thing, now again it feels strong in the heart. In addition to the circulation, there is a pulsing, but it changes places where it pulses, sometimes in the heart, sometimes in the throat.

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Self Trust

⟹ Lighter, thinner, a light; a refreshing coolness; white light, glowing; a ball at my heart radiating out, and about a foot and half away from my body it would outline my body all the way around. The outer band becomes thicker at times in response to my sadness on one hand, but on the other hand as an expression of my happiness. Would sound like a woman’s choir, singing “aahhhhh.” A floating upward, uplifting.

You are complete and whole as you are, and on the right track. Trust yourself. I love you.

Name: Self Trust.

What’s different: I’m excited about what I have to do instead of dreading it. Because I trust myself, there’s a real connection to within myself rather than a dependency on what’s outside of me. It’s huge because it actually makes everything possible. So rather than looking for solutions to health problems and all these other things outside, where they may or may not exist, I can solve those things just by connecting within myself. That’s what this gives me, the confidence that if I start within, everything else will fall into place.

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Next post/chapter in this series on fieldwork moving: (coming)

Volume 1, Table of Contents:

Get your printed (or PDF/ebook) copy:

You’ve likely encountered the preamble of the fieldwork moving process either as a very concise version in Volume 1, FO-1: Fieldwork Quick Start or as the longer script version offered in FO-2: Try It! (also in the Try It #3: Fieldwork Moving post). In preparing to deliver this again for Volume 2, I took the opportunity to step back and look at it with fresh eyes. The preamble has been so embedded in the process for so long that it has become almost automatic for me when I facilitate, just part of the water I swim in. But in looking at it more carefully, I can see that this brief little onramp to the moving process is quite significant, and it deserves a more thorough introduction.

Over the course of many years as I was developing this work in the early days, the preamble took on a three-part structure, and it has kept that structure for at least 15 years, probably more. It took shape as a way to soften the entry into the moving phase of the work, and to set things up so that the parts we’re working with have an easier time with it. Those three sections of the preamble were centered on three places that can often generate a kind of resistance or doubt around inviting any kind of change to a feeling state.

• Inherent goodness: The first section took on the typical belief that a dark or negative state needed to be controlled because it was inherently bad in some way. We conceptually merge the reactivity of the state into our beliefs about the underlying motives. This first section separated that conflaction by acknowledging that the part took on this state to serve in the original context, and thanking the part for doing so.

• Opportunity for positive exploration: The second section reassured the part that even though we are going to move the state, it can always be returned to its original reactive state if that’s what’s needed. Therefore, it’s safe to move it, and because it’s safe to move, it’s a good idea to really go for it, and to discover what the part could become in an ideal situation.

• Recognition of related parts: The third section acknowledges the presence and invested relationships of other parts/states coexisting with the one being moved, and invites them to “participate passively, as witnesses only,” to support the moving part and absorb the learning from the shift.

But as I’ve listened to myself delivering the preamble more recently, and also in the course of simply facilitating the process of both mapping and moving, I’ve noticed those three sections of the preamble seem to be branching out and getting a little more complex. There is more that I am trying to communicate to these parts we’re getting ready to move, and I’ve decided to unpack that “more” to make my understanding, baked into my intuitive ways of working, more explicit and easier for you to learn.

As I have unpacked that complexity in writing this chapter, I have begun to realize that this preamble grew out of an intuitive reckoning with the significant gap between the deeper currents of our inner world and the surface norms by which we typically communicate with ourselves and one another. We are constantly using surface constructions of language based on our shared agreements about what is “real” in this inner world as we go about our days and share our experiences with one another. In the everyday, it’s easy enough to ignore the gap, at least when we’re with our closer friends and family.

But when we are digging into what is actually there with this kind of deep inner work, we experience this gap much more tangibly. This is the case with all kinds of inner work, not just fieldwork. And some methods do better than others in supporting the navigation of that gap by prioritizing direct experience over interpretions and concepts.

In the course of this chapter, I’ve broken this gap down and spelled it out as best I could. This serves a double purpose. First, of course, it explains why we do the preamble, and why it takes on its very specific structure. But this understanding goes beyond the preamble.

These elements unpacked here need to follow you throughout the work. They need to show up in the interactions between the explicit moving questions, in the attitude you hold toward new parts as they show up, in the overall grace and respect you offer to every part as you encounter it.

As you gain experience with fieldwork, both in working solo and in facilitating others, I suspect you will find, as I have, that these deeper structural parameters will begin to inform all of your experience far beyond fieldwork itself. This is the DNA of conscious experience, and as such, it lives with us in every moment. I hope you have good opportunities to notice this resonance and to benefit from it in your everyday life.

And. No worries, we’ll be digging far more deeply into all of this later in this book and the next. Take in what you can for now, use the preamble in its complete form when you do the work, and trust that all of this will make more and more sense over time.

Digging in…

Optimally at this point, as you get ready to move the feeling state, you (or your explorer if you’re in the facilitator role) have chosen a specific, already-mapped feeling state to work with, and you are ready and able to center this feeling state in your awareness, to bring it alive in your inner experience so that you are able to work with it. But we’re not quite ready to start the actual moving process.

Every feeling state you will ever work with has complex relationships with other coexisting states, with your life history, with the people around you, with the web of beliefs and knowledge you hold, and with the cultures (and sub-cultures) you inhabit. These relationships often impose constraints on the freedom of this state. These constraints can be thought of as rules governing what the state is free to do or be.

We want to respect these constraints. At the same time, we want to provide a free and open space within which the part underlying this state you’ve selected can explore what is possible.

The fieldwork method, along with the topology it reveals (which you will read about in the Science section), combined with my lived experience of many thousands of hours of actually doing this work, have all coalesced into a new understanding of human experience. This new understanding sits upon a very different foundation than the one we’re used to occupying.

Now, it is completely possible to do the steps of fieldwork without noticing or examining how the experience of mapping and moving feeling states contrasts with professional and societal norms to which we’re all accustomed. The practice will still get results, and you’ll still experience benefit. But at some point along the way, if you continue doing the work, you are likely to experience a mind warp, where it becomes clear that your expectations do not line up with your experience. This is the zone we’ll be unpacking here as we enter into a more thorough treatment of the moving phase of the work.

In short, what we are about to do in engaging the fieldwork moving process represents a rupture in the reality we commonly believe we inhabit. The “laws” we assume to govern our “psychology” are about to be warped rather significantly. We will address a few of these governing expectations as we begin.

To do so, we will of course rely on language, doing our best to describe the differences between what we expect and what we are actually going to experience as we go through the process. At the same time, though, we are not confined to engaging this intellectually. Not at all. We are working here with a deeper reality of being.

As we step into this new paradigm, expanding our conceptual boxes to welcome more of our direct, inner experience, the typical experience is one of reunion, of recovery, of restoration. We get to reconnect with something we have always known and felt beneath the surface of everyday awareness, but never had words to express. In its inability to speak up for itself, it was exiled from our many shared realities. In this work, especially in the moving phase of the practice, this deeper reality gets to return home to the center of your lived experience.

To support this homecoming, we want to build a gentle bridge from the old reality to the new one. In service to this bridge-making, I have designed an elegant preamble to the moving process. This preamble sets several frames — perhaps I should call them reframes — that expand what we allow to be possible. These reframes enable each state to enter a different way of being that activates its full freedom to transform itself and restore its most natural functioning. Let’s take a look at these essential reframes.

To Be Continued…

This chapter got way too long to fit into a single Substack post, so I’ve split it up. But I’m still going to offer another example of a state shift from Ruby to keep that going for you. And next week, we’ll start into the nine reframes embedded in the updated preamble.

Another Example of What You Have to Look Forward To

To support your anticipation for what is to come in this adventure, I am offering before/after examples of feeling states my client Ruby gave me permission to share.

Self-Doubt

First encounter: This is about myself as a teacher - “Am I good enough?”

Six weeks later: In my heart, more like encapsulating the front of the heart, the size of the front two-thirds of a softball; feels more solid, the bottom part of it has a thick rope that goes down and connects to a smaller ball in the pit of my stomach, a thick, solid ball the size of a golf ball. Both made out of the same stuff and the rope too. The rope is a little softer, thickness is a half-inch thick. Pretty hot. The balls are pretty hard. Yellowish dark brown, opaque.

They kind of move up and down a little, away from each other and back together, pretty slowly, like the Fear (see last week’s post) is slow. Voice is like the Overwhelm (another state mapped the same day), saying all that stuff, “You’re not going to be able to do this, you’re not qualified, etc.” Also, a laughing sound, how someone would laugh if they think you’re full of crap and know you’re going to mess up, male, like one of those scary movie kind of guys.

At the core of it is very hurtful, saying, “I don’t believe in you.” It makes me want to cry when I hear that part of it.

It’s hard to believe there’s something inside of me that could be that mean or discouraging. I didn’t realize it was that bad. This is Sadness [see next week’s post]. It’s very painful.

A few days later: This is the core of the Fear. When the balls move closer together, the feeling gets more intense. This happens in coordination with the pulsing of the Fear. When the Fear intensifies by expanding, the Self-Doubt intensifies by contracting.

---

The Vibrancy Comet

⟹ Slightly cool. Softer, an energy, it would be expansive. Red-orange, translucent, luminous. It moves, circulates, but it starts in the shape of a ball, but behind it is all this luminous, glowing energy that sort of follows it, pretty much like you would think of a comet; it’s quite long. Ball is a little smaller than what’s coming from it. Ball is a higher-density energy. Ball is the size of my fist, primarily moves within my body, in a somewhat circular motion, can go out a foot from my body (because the tail is so long, it has to). The tail can grow, varies between one and five feet long. Tail is more translucent and sparkly. Sound of a really beautiful instrument, maybe a harp sound but even prettier, (an angel’s harp). Sound is in accordance with the movement.

It wants me to know it believes in me. “I want to help you. I want you to shine and be energized.” And that’s why it has that shape, so it can fly through me and give me energy.

Name ideas: The Energizer, Vibrancy, ...Comet...

New name: The Vibrancy Comet

What’s different: I’m really happy. I feel this source from within me, a source of joy. I’m very present, and live my life as though this is the only moment that matters.

---

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At this point, I’m guessing you’ve mapped at least one state, and perhaps a few or more. If you still haven’t done so, make sure to dig into Volume 1: Fieldwork Mapping section, and if it helps, use the Try It! page(s) to complete mapping for at least one.

Now, before beginning to actually walk a specific feeling state through the moving process, we’ll need to set things up in a way that helps the move go smoothly. Here’s what’s most important for the setup.

Choosing a State to Move

Now, one thing to keep in mind as we go forward here is that every part of you is strongly interconnected with other parts. We’ll go deeper into the topology of that in the upcoming Science section, and that will give us the understanding we need to navigate the complexity better. For now, we’re going to keep things relatively simple.

If you’ve mapped only one state so far, just go for it and take that one through the moving process. Often, the first time through goes very smoothly, in part because you’ve never experienced it and don’t know what to expect. So any parts that are connected with this one will most likely go along for the ride.

Later, after you’ve gained some experience with moving, other parts related to the one you’re moving may have higher priorities and require being moved first. For now, if you’ve mapped more than one state, let me give you two rules of thumb for choosing which one to move.

Option One: Go for the Easy One

As you enter into practice with moving states, I recommend starting with a mapped state that is easy for you to access. Choose one that you feel very tangibly, the map for which feels clear and accurate to how you actually experience the state. Avoid states that seem ambiguous or vague.

Option Two: Go for the Most Uncomfortable One

If you have two or more states mapped, often one will feel more uncomfortable than the others. This one is likely to offer a more satisfying moving experience, so it’s a good place to start.

Option Three: Go for the Pivot

Two or more states that are related to one another often have dependency relationships. In other words, one state is a reaction to something you experience as outside of your control, while another state is a reaction to the first. If the first is not reacting, neither is the second.

Here’s an example. Let’s say I’ve mapped Anger and Shame. If I feel aShamed about having lost my temper, for example, the Shame is likely to be a secondary state reacting to the Anger, rather than a primary one. In contrast, if the Anger shows up in situations in which I have lost connection with someone important to me because of something I did about which I feel Shame, and the Shame gives rise to the Anger, then it is the Shame at the center.

I call these reactivity hubs pivots. Start with a pivot, and you’ll have much greater leverage in moving the group of states. The moving process will proceed with greater ease than if you try working from the outside in.

Entering the Felt Experience of the State

As you approach the moving process with the state you’ve chosen, it will be very important to start from a place where you are clearly and tangibly feeling the state, in the moment. If you’re having any trouble with that, take some time to read through your mapping description. Carefully place your field of awareness over the space occupied by the virtual material properties of the state, taking in the full size and shape of the feeling object.

Then, review each of the properties, revisiting your experience in the moment with an openness to noticing how your current experience may be a little bit different from what you mapped. If needed, use the slider test (see Volume 1: FM-11: Pro Tips) from time to time in order to confirm that yes, this state you are experiencing right now is the same part you originally mapped.

Choosing to Intensify Slightly Before Setting the Container

If you’re able to access it easily, and you feel it strongly and clearly, you’re good to go. If it feels a little “meh,” not so tangible, then I recommend going for a little intensification before you start. To do this, use the slider test again, but this time, deliberately shift one or two key properties that seem to have a strong effect on your experience of the feeling. Shift them in the direction that intensifies the feeling state in your experience. You always have the option of reversing the intensification, and you might just practice that if you have any concerns.

At this point in the process, you will want to intensify only to the point where you can feel the state very clearly. This will help make sure the next step in the process works well and the container can be strongly set. We’ll do that in the next chapter. Feeling the state clearly and distinctly makes it much easier to communicate with it about what is about to happen, and to set its expectations and intentions to best support the process.

Going for More Intensity to “Set the Hook” Before Actually Moving the State

Looking ahead to slightly later in the process, after setting the container, for some states it can be very helpful to use the property sliders to further intensify just a bit before starting to work through the properties. I call this “setting the hook,” as if we’re catching a fish and we want to make sure we really have it on the line.

By setting the hook and intensifying the felt experience of the state we’re moving, we activate it strongly enough to influence the physiological systems of the body. The heart pounds a bit, the stomach tightens, the breath gets more shallow — that sort of thing. This lays the groundwork for a full-body experience of the shift when we work through the properties and transform the reactivity into resourcefulness. It’s a powerful tactic, and it sets things up so your entire being experiences a profound shift that can’t be mentally explained away.

When the full body is more involved in this way, other states related to the one you’re moving will often experience a bit of a shift as well, so you’re getting a broader effect for your work.

Again, though, make sure as you begin that your intensification is fully within your capacity for agency, and that you have the ability to ratchet it both up and down, completely by your own choice. This strengthens your position as occupying a strong witness outside of the state itself, and solidifies your position as the facilitator of your own inner experience.

More…

After you have more experience with both mapping and moving, and after you’ve had a chance to begin to understand the underlying topology of how these parts connect to one another, you’ll be in a position to bring much more skill and agency to your fieldwork. Later in the book, you learn about the topology of a set in the first Science section. Then, I’ll go more deeply into some of the more advanced skills and strategies of this practice. There’s a lot to this work, and it’s quite an adventure to gain the agency and capacity to observe that enables us to more fully explore this inner terrain.

Another Example of What You Have to Look Forward To

To support your anticipation for what is to come in this adventure, I am offering before/after examples of feeling states my client Ruby gave me permission to share.

Fear

Goes hand in hand with Self-Doubt (to be shared in the next chapter).

Especially arises before starting a new class, becomes a barrier I have to get through to even start the planning process for that class. It also comes a little more subtly before any class I teach.

I’m planning two new classes coming up, in a new space, new set of people, starting in August. With that a lot of fear has been coming up, to the point I haven’t even started planning it and it’s coming up in just two weeks.

Whenever I feel any of these emotions, I get a sensation around my heart.

Fear is in heart center area, starts to go up into the throat. Gas, thick, heavy; seems mutable. Pretty hot. It’s almost a metallic color, but dark like when silver gets really old, silver-grayish, translucent. Both circulation and a very slow outward growing, then back in a little. It’ll go out a little, then come back in a little, increasing fear with outward movement. Kind of like a creaking sound that you’d hear in a scary movie when they go to a scene in a forest. Shape is in the throat and chest, but when it expands out, it goes out the back of the chest and I feel it throughout my rib cage and stomach area, goes a little outside my skin, just a little.

Very negative. It tells me that I’m not going to be able to succeed in these things. Something’s going to go wrong. Therefore, why even try if it’s not going to work? And... “You don’t know what you’re doing,” etc.

---

Support

⟹ Cooler, a comfortable warm temp; lighter... it would be light; an emerald green, shimmering, translucent; still in throat and heart, but more free to expand, and when it expands it can go out of my skin a little bit. It can expand all the way down to my hips. Radiating out, particularly from the heart, and it goes all the way to a foot outside of my body; I’m picturing these rays of light radiating, but within the rays is a shimmering, wavelike movement. Sound of singing, an “aahhh” sound, a male choir.

It still wants to warn me, because that’s its job, but in a nice way.

[If nothing to be warned about?] ⟹ It would want to support me.

I keep hearing, “We are here for you.” It’s like they are my spirit guides.

New name ideas: support, guidance

New name: Support.

[What’s different?] It’s amazing; it’s like, I can truly go out in the world as myself, free of that fear of loss or failure. And I can just... there’s no restrictions as I go about my life.

I have had a hard time planning new classes because of that Fear, but if Support is there instead, not only is it easier to do it, but it’s so much more enjoyable.

I’m feeling the Support really wants to see me touch other people’s lives.

---

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When we worked our way through the sequence of mapping questions in Volume 1, for each parameter trying on this value or that one until we found the right fit, it felt as though we were merely applying an instrument of perception. Mapping seems like using a fancy telescope to view something far away, or passing x-rays through a body part and capturing the image on film in order to reveal the contours of the broken bone.

In mere perception, you can’t interact with your perceptual representation to directly alter what it is you are perceiving. For example, you can’t take a white pen to the x-ray film and color in the gap between the broken ends of the bone, and expect the bone to heal itself as a result.

The Bizarre Power of Direct Interaction

However, here’s where things get weird. With the type of perception we have created in our mapping, we can do exactly that. Namely, we are able to directly manipulate the virtual material properties of the mapping image we have created, simply imagining them to be different, “trying on” different values for specific properties, running the “slider” one way or the other, and the feeling state itself will transform as a result. If you take an anger that mapped as a hot, erupting liquid, for example, and simply imagine it cooling down, you will experience the anger itself “cooling down” as a result, most likely transforming from anger into something less volatile.

I can understand if this causes you to take a step back in skepticism. Nothing in our conventional understanding of feeling, mood, and emotion suggests that such a thing is possible. In my very first experiment with this method, my map was very crude, consisting only of the observation that a feeling of depression in my chest seemed to have a strong, gravitational pull downward. I reversed the direction of the gravity, imagining a strong push upward instead, and the feeling transformed instantly into a pervasive cheerfulness that shifted my mood for the rest of the day.

I was so stunned that I backed off, and did not attempt another such experiment for a couple of weeks. In the background, my mind was freaking out about what it might mean if my experience was actually what it seemed to be. At that time I was strongly invested in the methods I had been using to attempt to get control of my moods, namely self-hypnosis, journaling, reframing my thoughts and beliefs, and other approaches oriented around rewiring traumatic memories and the beliefs formed around them. I had invested hundreds if not thousands of hours in training and practice along these lines.

In contrast, in this experience I had made no effort to connect to the past, to memories, to ideas or beliefs, to any kind of thought structures or memories whatsoever. I had brought my attention, focused on the pure present moment of my experience, exclusively to this absurdly trivial and nebulous quality of the downward pull. A “downward pull” seemed irrelevant to the meaning and feeling of my depression, yet the impact of shifting it was impossible to deny.

The bizarreness had to do with a disruption of the fundamental, unconscious and unexamined assumptions I held, and we all hold, regarding our own experience of feeling. The baseline for these assumptions could be summarized like this:

Feeling is a product of a) our somatic physiology and b) our cognition including thoughts, beliefs, and interpretations of our perceptions. If we want to change how we feel, we must manipulate the underlying causes of the feeling by changing our physiology or our cognition.

This is something so close to home, so much a part of the air we breathe, the water we swim in, the ground we walk on, that we don’t ever consider questioning it. All of the science of emotion is built on these assumptions, as are most if not all of current psychotherapeutic, spiritual, and other practices.

When we encounter something that behaves in a way that goes completely against our most fundamental assumptions, the experience can be disorienting. It was for me, and it is for many people. Here is what my client Louise wrote about her experience of shifting her first feeling state:

“The experience of shifting the feeling left me stunned. It moved quickly and the feeling of relief and lightness was sweeping and overwhelming.”

Be prepared for your own experiences of “Huh?” as you begin to move your own states, and give yourself enough open time and space to integrate, especially with your first few times through.

A Brief Overview of the Process

In this Fieldwork Moving section of the book, I want to lead you step by step through your own experience of shifting a feeling state. The process I describe is the result of over three decades of incremental refinement. My intention here is simply to lead you through the experience as best I can.

Direct experience will be key to your understanding. Afterwards, we can begin to dig more deeply into how to skillfully apply the method. And we’ll be in a better position to apply our skills to more rigorously investigating what it is we are working with here, and continuing to assemble what our work reveals into our new science of subjective experience.

The fieldwork moving phase has six steps. Make sure to continue taking thorough notes as you go through the process. What comes up along the way may play a role in completing your move with this part, and it may also turn out to be helpful in working with other adjacent parts.

1. Choose a State

Every feeling state you will ever map exists in relationship with multiple other states. Each state is a unique expression of a module of your whole self, a part of you with its own function, purpose and intention. These interrelationships mean it can matter quite a lot which state goes first in the moving process.

2. Prepare the Container

Because of the tightly interwoven relationships between the state you choose to move and the others in its family, it is very important to set the space in such a way as to give the part you’re moving a maximum sense of freedom and support to follow its own inner compass.

3. Invite a Shift

In moving the state, we prioritize and support the part’s own autonomy in choosing what it prefers. One by one, we work our way through the virtual material properties, inviting the part itself to choose what feels best to it. Eventually, we reach a point of optimization, where it seems that no further property tweaks will make it feel any better.

4. Notice New Thoughts

From the new state that arises in the course of adjusting the virtual material properties, we gain access to a new perspective. In the course of moving the actual felt experience, we discover that our perceptions, thoughts and beliefs have spontaneously shifted in ways congruent with what we feel.

5. Name & Draw

After arriving and settling into the new state, it’s time to sit with its presence and find a new name for the feeling of it. At the same time, drawing the state with its new configuration of virtual material properties can further feed into the adjustment and refinement process as the visual representation brings the state even more tangibly into your felt experience.

6. Integrate What’s New

After a part has regained access to its ideal state, a phase of integration opens up. This part has recovered a more complete range of expression, and through that, a deeper sense of its identity and purpose. The emerging sense of new possibility invites you to establish new relationships with the other parts with which it is connected, and with your life as a whole.

Looking Forward

Over the coming chapters/posts, I’ll walk you through each step to help you get the best results. If you’re eager to begin, in Volume 1, the chapter FO-1, Fieldwork Quick Start takes you through a very concise presentation of both mapping and moving. Here on Substack, you can visit the Try It! page for links to that and several other posts that will lead you through the process using audio, body outline templates for drawing, and other support.

Also in Volume 1, make sure to review the question of whether it will work best for you to work solo or with a partner. Chapters FM-2: Working as a Solo Explorer and FM-3: Working with a Partner cover these complementary approaches.

An Example of What You Have to Look Forward To

To support your anticipation for what is to come in this adventure, I will be offering before/after examples of feeling states my client Ruby gave me permission to share.

Should

A looming feeling; a shield the shape of my body in front of me, especially my face & forehead; heavy; dark. I can feel it in front of my face, and weighing down on my chest. It’s not completely solid, more like a gas, but it’s heavy and dense, and more dense in certain areas; black, kind of translucent; moving like a shadow with me as I go around, moving as one whole unit; kind of warm (uncomfortable).

“You have to practice yoga every morning and you can’t eat until you practice, because you’re not going to be a good teacher unless you practice yourself.”

Encourager

This becomes lighter in density; a little cooler, so it’s a comfortable warm; an energetic light; whitish/yellowish, translucent, iridescent, sparkling; all around me, touching me, and I can feel it in my heart too; radiating/glowing, moving out from me in all directions out from my skin, and there’s a little ball of it in my heart, radiating out a little bit too; a high, singing sound, like an angel’s voice, kind of hard to hear.

Wants to be something that is supporting or guiding me in a positive way, “I’m OK how I am, and everything’s going to be OK.”

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The New Experience of Being Hugged

Susan: So in the moments right as I saw my new drawing, and as I experienced my feeling state shift, there was a very palpable, distinct opening in my heart. I could really feel that steel plate moving, and I could feel an openness that I would really... It’s like that barrier that I had always been aware of inside of me, that really was gone. It was just gone.

That in itself, of course, was a lovely thing. But the thing I really want to emphasize is I began to experiment. Like, “Oh, what does it really feel like?” So one thing I have done very differently -- I don’t always remember to do it, but I mostly do -- is when I am hugging people, I deliberately relax my body even more. I really think, “OK, open and receive.” And while I’m hugging the other person, and they’re hugging me, I really think, consciously, “Receive this hug. Receive this love.”

And I didn’t realize until we had this session how, when I was hugging people and they were hugging me back, of course I was aware I was being hugged back; I couldn’t miss that. But the distinction, the contrast that I saw was how I never really let the hug in. You know? I was so focused on hugging the person and sending love to them, and accepting them, and all that, that I just was oblivious, is the truth, to “Oh, my goodness; I’m also being hugged here. I could receive this.”

So it’s been really interesting, and I would say the result of me doing that is I notice I have experienced a very consistent feeling of being loved, in a way that I hadn’t in the past.

A World Full of Love

Susan: It was also that recognition – and this came like a couple of days later, and it was in the context of a circle, but I know that our work together opened the space for me to have that – is how much love there is in the world. And that really, I mean like my head of course has known forever that the world is full of love, but the contrast was a visceral experience of, “Wow, there is lots of love everywhere all the time if I open myself to it.” I mean, there is always the love of the divine. And again, my head of course has known that my entire life. But it feels like I have more of an awareness of it, rather than just, “Oh, of course God loves me, of course he does.” It’s like, “Oh! God loves me!” I feel it. I can tune into that. It’s like, without that steel plate, and with that radiance, that opening, it’s like, “Oh. I can feel this any time. I can tune into this any time.”

I Create My Circle

Susan: In circling, my experience has been that I am now aware that I create my circle. In the past, my idea – which is one of those 20:20 hindsight in retrospect how could I have been thinking that – up until we had our session, I had put the feeling of the circle kind of outside on the circle. Like this is something outside of me that’s happening. And now when I go in a circle, it’s like, it’s here. The circle is here. The love is here. It looks however it looks. It may, depending on where people are in the circle, there may be somebody there who’s upset, (not with me), but just who comes in with a fit, or who comes in kind of guarded, or with some protection or holding back, it’s like, “OK. I know you are love. Whatever is happening on the surface right now is happening, but you, yourself, are love. And I can open and receive that.

Love Is

Susan: And so another part of it is, I see, it’s like love is. Contrasted to doing-ness. It’s just, “Oh! It’s always here. It’s always available.” It’s a matter of tuning into it, not creating it, not doing something, not making it happen. It just is. And knowing me, you can know how significant that feels for me.

Infinite Love

Joe: A lot of what you’re describing, it sounds like a big part of your experience is the state you called Infinite Love.

Susan: Yes. Yes.

J: And that it’s always available, always present.

S: And kind of like breathing, it’s not something I have to have conscious thought about. We’re not saying, “In...[breath] out...[breath]” You know? We just breathe.

J: Right.

S: And I don’t say, “OK heart, beat... beat.... It just does.” So it’s in that category.

J: Yeah, yeah.

S: Which, as you can imagine, is a significant upgrade in my life experience.

J: That’s exciting.

S: Yes. I agree! [chuckle]

“You’re Different.”

Joe: Has anyone spoken of noticing anything different in you?

Susan: So pretty much everybody that’s seen me has said, “Wow, you’re really different.” And nobody said, “Wow, you’re really different; you’re so much more loving.” I mean, nobody has said what’s really different, but pretty much to a person, it’s been like, “There’s... you’re... clearly something’s happening with you.” [chuckles]

And it’s not surprising because I think people experience me as loving, so I wouldn’t think people would say, “Oh, and you’re so loving.” I mean, that’s what they think I am anyway. That’s their experience anyhow. So I think what they’re feeling is how I feel different inside. Like it’s so different for me inside that my energetic outside, it’s like, “Something’s different,” without there being a precise thing.

J: And I imagine, my sense is, that there’s... when I feel that my love is being received, that feels different.

S: Yes. And again, no one has said, “Oh, you’re really receiving me now, aren’t you, and you never did before.” Or, “You’re receiving me much more than you did before.” I think it would take a finely tuned perception for somebody to get that, or to notice that. Because I am quite tuned in about my hugging, I can feel when people are letting me in or not. But I don’t think most people have an attentiveness to that or a discernment, a distinction about that.

And actually, the comments come before they’re hugging me. It’s like they walk in the room and say, “Wow. You’re different.” [laughing] “You’re different.”

J: Wow.

S: And I mean, I have been in many ways on a very accelerated path of transformation. So I don’t think people need to think they can tell exactly what it is about me. You know? It’s just like, “Oh, more!” [chuckle] “More of that.”

Original Fear to Love

Joe: I’m curious, it sounded like there was a specific memory you had about what happened that made the Fear show up. It was like, this was appropriate to show up, but then it stayed around for too long.

Susan: Yeah.

J: It should have been something that I let go of, but I hung on to it, and the Shame was about having hung on to it.

S: Yeah, it was like, why did I think that was a good idea. Give me a minute and it will come...

I’m pretty sure that this would have been put in place when my mother died, with that decision, which I clearly remember making. I didn’t make the steel plate thing, that wasn’t conscious. That was more like a consequence or result, because when my mother died, and I have a vivid memory of this, I consciously said -- I was 13, sudden, completely unexpected death -- I said to myself, in my intense grief, “I am never going to love anybody that much again, because it is just too devastating to lose them.” And I can remember consciously deciding that.

So that was when I was 13. When I was in my mid-30s, I was vividly reminded of that decision when I met an older gentleman at church who was grandfather age that I just happened to sit by in church one Sunday and we really clicked. When the service was over he said, “Well, you probably need to eat. Would you like to come to lunch with me?” And I said, “OK.”

During that lunch, he shared with me that he had a diagnosis of prostate cancer, and back then the very best prognosis you could have was to live about eight years after your diagnosis, even if you did all the treatments you could do and they worked as good as they could work, eight years. He was about at year four. So of course, as evidenced by my mother, anybody could die at any time, but this was a person who was absolutely going to die, and sooner than later. I remember thinking that decision I had made, and I thought, “Susan, you can do this however you want to, but there’s such a loving, precious connection that’s available to you here. Your own grandparents died when you were eight, so here’s a lovely opportunity to have grandparent love and attention, and you can have this, and you can totally open your heart, and you can love this person with all your heart, or you can stick with your decision. And it’s up to you.” And I thought, “You know what? That was not the best decision I ever made. Let me unmake that one.”

Original Fear of Being Loved

Susan: What I didn’t realize until around the time we were having this session... Oh, it was right before this session because that’s how it impacted me so much. In a circle, I saw that was a corollary decision I had made at the same time, that I didn’t realize I made, that I wasn’t conscious of, which was, “And I am never allowing anybody to love me that much either, because it is too devastating to lose being loved.” When I saw that, it was like, “Wow. OK, didn’t know that. Now that I do, let me be aware and rethink that one.” And that’s the thing that, when we did our session, like I had always, any time I would feel it, I would feel that steel plate. You know? I could feel that it was there. I just hadn’t paid much attention to it. It was just part of who I was. And I certainly hadn’t examined the origins of it. But when I saw that, and then we did the feeling state work, and I felt the steel plate, it’s like, that’s what that is. That is the thing, that I, without any consciousness at age 13, 52 years ago, put into place to protect myself from the pain of losing.

And so when all that kind of came together, it was like, “Oh, and you know what? I don’t have to do that any more.” You know, I can receive. I choose to receive. Even though, yes, when that person or that relationship ends, am I going to notice it? Will I feel grief? Will I feel the loss? Of course I will. And why not have all the love in the world I can have, I can experience, why not receive all of that every minute I do, and when it’s not there, it’s not there.

And there’s also that Infinite Love that’s always there. So while I might lose a specific relationship, and would certainly have the natural, normal grief about it, it wouldn’t be the devastation that I had erected that to protect myself from, because now I know there’s an infinite supply. Whereas when I put that up, it was like, that specifically came from my mother, and now I don’t have my mother, and so, you know, 13-year-old mind, grief, shock, whatever that had me decide that, now I’m many, many years older, and I can make a different decision.

Origin of Shame

Joe: What’s your sense of how the Shame found its way in there?

Susan: So the Shame is that I know how I feel it when I love someone and they don’t accept it. And so the Shame is, “Oh my goodness, completely obliviously, unintentionally, but nonetheless truly, have I been not receiving people’s love.” And not trusting it. Like there was the whole mistrust thing. And the impact I had been having all these years, these 50-plus years, on all the people who loved me. You know? And feeling the embarrassment, and the Shame, that I had pushed them away.

J: So it seems like the Shame, what you’re describing is, that is pretty recent, it really showed up as you became aware that you had been doing that?

S: Yeah.

Shame + Marriage

Joe: Seems like the Fearful Fear would leave if it knew how, but it doesn’t know how.

Susan: Right.

J: So it’s not a shame that Fearful Fear appeared, but that it was meant to be temporary and somehow it got trapped. That it never meant to stay.

S: Yeah. It’s that, yeah, that’s the Shame. That I didn’t know, and the impact that has had. And it was like, I would like to think that I’m loving and that I allow myself to be loved. And I can look back, like for example in my marriage, where in the beginning at least, (and there’s a story around that), where I was loved as much as my husband was capable of loving me. And I can remember pushing it away. Part of the pushing it away was, I had a sense which turned out to be correct, that he was loving an idealized version of me, contrasted to me. So I wasn’t off on that one. But still, I was pushing it away.

Something that was true in my marriage was, both my husband and I were pretty exquisitely attuned to the energetics in our relationship, whether we were consciously aware of them or not, or whether we spoke of them or not, we were both really tuned in to that. And so I’m sure he felt my guardedness. And that cannot have felt good. It just cannot have felt good.

I’m not going to say that ruined our marriage, there’s a million factors about what worked and didn’t work in that. But my shame is that he loved me and I didn’t let it in. And the impact that had on a tender heart that was very open and giving.

J: Do you think that shame was present then?

S: No, I don’t think I knew it at all. I mean, the Shame came up out of the realization. I mean, was it present somewhere at some deep, completely unknown level? I think yeah, it would have had to have been. But there wasn’t the consciousness of it.

That’s why when we were doing it, and it showed up, it was almost kind of a surprise to me. That’s my recollection, in the session it was like, “Oh! And then there’s this, this unexpected thing, and what is it when I feel into it? It’s Shame. And it’s Shame that I would have been doing that, that I would have been pushing, or keeping, making a barrier to receiving love.

And until I processed and forgave myself for that, nothing could move.

Opening to Something New (Another Month Later)

A month after our followup call, (two months after the session), Susan and I were talking, and she shared the following story about the further unfolding of the work we did.

Susan: My ex-husband called after a mutual friend died. While we were talking about her I said, “You know, I really miss talking to you.” Because it’s been his choice for us essentially not to communicate.

A little later he shared that a book he’s always wanted to write about his family’s history is finally about to be published. I was saying what great news that was, and really celebrating with him that this is coming to pass. And I said again, “I just want to be sure that you heard me. I really miss us being in communication like this. I really treasure us just being able to be friends and talk.” And he said, “I know. And I acknowledge it was my anger and my hurt and the way I was being that stopped this, but I think I’ve moved past that now, and I miss you too. And I’m willing to be in communication with you.”

As far as I’m concerned, that’s just a miracle. I have so longed for that, but it’s not anything I could make happen. You know? It had to be his choosing to do that. And so he has sent me the final draft of the book for me to read over. A year or more ago I had said I’d be happy to read over a draft of the book, and it was like, “Nope.” So he’s now sent it to me to read, and he said, “You always have great comments. Here are the things I want you to look for and comment on.”

So it just, it feels wonderful, to have that. It does really feel like a shift, and for me, what I’ve noticed is that, (and this sounds paradoxical), what it feels like is that I now feel like I’m free to pursue another relationship. It seems funny. I don’t want to be anything except friends with my ex-husband. The marriage part of our relationship is done, and I’m not looking to rekindle that. But what I’ve noticed is that for me, the not-friendship was like an incompletion, and I was holding out for that. It’s kind of like all the relationship space in my head was taken up with, can I just get him to be friends with me please. And now that I have that, it’s like “OK, cool. That’s complete. Now I can move on to the next thing.”

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Audio:

J: All right, so, any final thoughts?

S: No, I mean, it does feel like there isn’t any boundary or barrier any more to letting love in. I mean like, I’ll find out the next time somebody hugs me or whatever.

J: Right.

S: But just checking in with my body right now, I don’t feel any barrier.

J: Right. Well, this seems like it was a great little tour here, little excursion.

S: And what I noticed is, and I think you pointed to this before, but actually getting to what the heart of it is, getting down to it, as soon as I got there it started shifting without me even making any effort to shift it.

J: Right, right.

S: When I got to the Shame, which I didn’t know was there, and I think the key point was when you asked me, “if you feel into the body of the Shame,” as soon as I located the heart, and it started pulsing, it was already done.

J: On the way.

S: There was the exploration, the doing of it, but it was like, “Oh!” The love that I thought was out there, that I needed to be cautious about receiving was already inside.

J: Yeah, yeah. And its natural state is, there’s love everywhere.

S: Yes.

J: No shortage.

S: Right. Yeah. And I think the sensation that I will carry with me is the expanding infinitely out and then flowing back, and then even further out, which means there’s more to come back, which is there’s more to give out... so, which is consistent or congruent with how I think love is anyway. The more you give, the more you can receive, and the more you receive, the more there is to give. That’s just how it works. But actually experiencing the sensation of that.

J: Great.

S: So I would say it’s moving it from an intellectual idea to a felt sensation.

J: Right.

Anticipating the Future

J: Projecting forward, imagining the next time somebody hugs you, or expresses...

S: Well I was thinking just going to the grocery story. I mean, that’s the next task outside my home I have to do. And it’s like, Oh, I could just be standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, or going up and down the aisles, or whatever.

J: Yeah.

S: It’s just like, Oh! I could just be sending love out into whole grocery store, and receiving love back, and it doesn’t even have to be love that’s specifically meant to be for me. But just the love that’s inside the hearts of the people in the grocery store. The Heart Math people have figured out that the electromagnetic field of the heart is somewhere on the average 20 to 40 feet.

J: Wow.

S: So it’s like, wow, the grocery store is full of these electromagnetic fields of 20 to 40 feet of all the people in the grocery store intersecting one another.

J: That’s a nice image.

S: Yeah.

J: And now, without that barrier, that’s available to you.

S: Yeah. So like moving through a field of love, an electromagnetic field, an energetic field of love.

J: Right, right.

S: Which feels really safe. So that’s the Exquisite Safety. A very different emotional state or feeling state.

J: Mm hm. Would you anticipate it will affect your experience of circling?

S: Yeah, I would, actually, because, I mean like recalling that idea about the electromagnetic fields, it’s like yes, we’re all on the computer screen. Yesterday on a call we happened to have somebody in Norway and someone in Australia, a huge geographic distance, and then us in Texas, in the middle. But I mean it was a huge geographic distance. And yet, you know, we could feel that field amongst us. So I think it does give me an even deeper way to connect in this global community that has quite a great, a lot of geographic distance.

J: Yes, that’s great.

S: And just remembering that our hearts are sending, I mean, this is not something we control. I don’t say to my heart, “OK, only a 10-foot electromagnetic field now. OK, now you can have a 30-foot one.” It’s just doing what it’s doing. So it doesn’t even have to be that I’m having loving thoughts. My heart is out there doing that, just like I’m breathing, and I don’t have to think, “OK, In. Out.”

J: Right, right.

S: It’s doing that. That’s a very different world view.

J: What’s cool is it sounds like, like you said, this has been an idea. You’ve known this.

S: The facts, yes.

J: But it hasn’t been a felt experience.

S: Right.

J: And now you’re actually already feeling the difference of actually having it be embodied.

S: Yeah.

J: That’s great.

S: Yeah, I mean, there’s seven point three billion people on the planet with hearts that all are having electromagnetic fields. And even the ones, I’m assuming even psychopaths or whatever, their heart does this too, not in their conscious control. You know? There’s nothing that I’ve read about the electromagnetic fields of the heart that says, “OK, if you’re a psychopath or if you’re a really mean person, then you don’t have an electromagnetic field on your heart.” I think you do anyway. Which expands my understanding of The Course of Miracles, which is my spiritual path, which is, there is only love. (And... it can seem like there’s a lot of other stuff.)

J: Yeah.

S: You know, which is real enough in the physical plane. But in the meta view...

J: Right.

S: Yeah. So a lot to think about and be with.

J: So you’re going to have these thoughts running...

S: ...percolating...

J: ...through your whole body as you go to the grocery store, and go there...

S: Drive on the highway or whatever.

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Audio:

Moving Love

J: We could draw Receiving right now. Or we can go ahead and move one of the other ones.

S: It almost feels like this did move everything else.

J: Yeah? Well let’s just check in and see what happened, see where the other things went. Let’s check in with the Love. Now that Shame has become Receiving, what does the Love get to be?

S: The Love just gets to be more and more and more. It stays Love, but it’s free to be as big as the universe. It can be as big as it wants to be. There are no restraints on it.

J: So in a perfect world, with access to Receiving, if this part of you were free to be as big as it wants to be, how big would it want to be?

S: Truly as big as the universe, like out into the galaxy, beyond the Milky Way. Huge, it wouldn’t have any boundaries at all.

J: OK. And in becoming beyond-galaxy, infinite universe size, if it were free to take on qualities of any substance at all, would it want to be more like a solid, liquid, gas, pure light, energy, or something else, what would it most want to be?

S: Pure light, I think.

J: And this pure light, what temperature would it want to be?

S: I don’t think it has a temperature, really. I mean, definitely warm contrasted to cold, but it doesn’t feel like light really has a temperature.

J: OK. And what color does it want to be, if it could be any color or colors at all?

S: Iridescent, like all colors.

J: Is there a certain pattern, or a way that these colors are distributed?

S: No.

J: OK. And is it moving at all? Is this light flowing, radiating, pulsing, vibrating, circulating?

S: It feels like it’s going out to infinity, however far that is, and then coming all the way back to me, like to my physical body. And then like all the way out, and then all the way back. Like bringing everything back and then putting it out, and each time it goes out it goes further, brings more back, sends more out, constantly expanding.

J: Great. OK. And what about sound: if you listen to this, what sound wants to be there as a way of more fully expressing its nature?

S: It’s kind of back to the music of the spheres. I think the stars are supposed to sing or make some kind of a sound, so whatever that sound is.

J: All right. Anything else to notice about what this wants to be?

S: I don’t think so.

J: All right. And so from this new place, what feels true, or real, or important?

S: Well in this space, Shame and Fear and No! are not even concepts. They don’t even exist. It’s like they don’t even make sense. They’re not even present. It’s like if it’s August and it’s summertime, the concept of snow is completely irrelevant, you know? It’s 100 degrees, there’s not going to be snow.

J: Right. So what’s important to you about that?

S: Just the expansiveness and the freedom and the possibility.

J: Anything else to notice about what this wants to be?

S: I think that’s it.

J: What name would you like to give it?

S: Infinite Love.

Note: This drawing was made later in our process, after moving all four parts.

Moving Fearful Fear

J: Let’s check in with what happened with the Fear. So now that you have access to Infinite Love and Receiving...?

S: It’s like, if it were fog, it’s like when the sun shines really brightly the fog just disappears, or dissipates.

J: OK. So let’s follow it. So this part of you has a gift for you. And let’s say that the fog does dissipate, but it has the opportunity, from that dissipated place, wherever that is, to contemplate how does it want to come back into the space in and around your body in such a way as to offer you its greatest gift?

...And in doing so, if it were free to take on qualities of any substance at all, would it prefer to be more like a solid, or a liquid, or a gas, or some kind of pure light or energy, or something else?

S: It feels like a soft blanket. Very, like cashmere, very light weight. Not even a blanket; like a cashmere shawl that’s literally, you notice it’s on your skin but there’s no weight to it. And it’s very soft.

J: Ahh. So the temperature is like a neutral temperature, or warm? What temperature would you say it seems to be?

S: Neutral.

J: And if it were free to be any color at all, what color would it most want to be?

S: Kind of a cream color, an ivory.

J: Opaque, translucent, transparent?

S: Opaque.

J: And so the location is like a shawl, or if it could be free to locate itself anywhere, where would it most want to be?

S: It’s maybe six inches away from my body. So it would be as if I could feel the presence of it, but I’m not at all wrapped up or bound in it.

J: Ah hah. Great. And around your whole body? Is it like a...?

S: No, just from my waist to my chin. Kind of like overall where everything else was before.

J: OK. And does it want to be moving in any way?

S: No. It seems to be still.

J: OK. And does it want to have any kind of inner sound to express its nature?

S: Like some kind of soft humming, almost like a lullaby sound or a soothing sound. It doesn’t necessarily have a melody, but just some kind of comforting hum.

J: Anything else to notice about what this wants to be?

S: No. I don’t think so.

J: And so from this new place, if this part of you were free to express in words what feels true, or real, or important, what would it say?

S: You’re safe, and protected.

J: Mm hm. OK.

S: Before, in the very beginning when I was saying it felt like if I let the love in it would just be too much, or overwhelming, this is like, “No. It will never be too much. However much it is, you’re safe, you’re protected. You can let it all in and it won’t be too much.”

J: OK. And what new name would you like to give this?

S: Spaciousness..

Note: This drawing was made later in our process, after moving all four parts.

Moving No!

J: All right. Should we check in with the steel plate, the No!?

S: Yes.

J: All right then. So, you’re getting the hang of this, I’m just going to open up the...

S: Well it feels like the steel plate has gone down under my feet, like it’s this very solid foundation.

J: Mm hm.

S: So if we’re doing the floating out in the universe thing, it’s like the steel plate, now its job is to be the foundation. There’s something to come back to. There’s something solid.

J: Right.

S: So I don’t just expand expand expand expand and never stop expanding. This is when the energy comes back, it comes back and it’s got the home base, so to speak.

J: Got it. So let’s explore, what does the substance want to be? Does it still want to be steel, or...?

S: Yup. It’s the same as it always was.

J: OK.

S: It’s just completely re-purposed.

J: So the same substance and color?

S: Yep, same everything.

J: How about temperature? Still cold?

S: Cool. Yeah, it’s still a little cool. Everything else is warm, so it’s like the cool is a contrast to be the homing beacon or something. It needs to be just slightly different than everything else so it can be easily located.

J: Mm hm. And what about the size and shape of it? Is it the same exact...?

S: Still the same. It literally is that same steel plate. It’s just completely re-purposed.

J: But it’s horizontal now.

S: Right. Now it’s horizontal as if it’s under my feet.

J: OK. And now, any inner sound that comes with this?

S: It’s that same kind of low tone that it was before, and again, the purpose is like a homing beacon or like the signal.

J: And so from this new place, what does part of you bring? What does this part of you most want you to know?

S: That I’m safe, that there’s a place to come home to.

J: Right.

S: No matter how much everything goes out, there’s a big, solid place that it can come back. So it’s really just an exquisite safety. I’m not going to be lost.

J: Great. And what new name would you like to give this?

S: I would say Exquisite Safety, just what it feels like.

J: Great.

Note: This drawing was made later in our process, after moving all four parts.

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What’s Next:

In the next post, Susan will reflect on the journey she has made and how she anticipates these shifts will influence her experience moving forward.

Volume 1, Table of Contents:

Get your printed (or PDF/ebook) copy:

The audio:

J: So does it feel to you like it would be more of a relief to shift the Shame first or one of the others?

S: No. It’s definitely from the inside out in this case.

J: Mm hm. And the Shame, that could shift and the Love would be OK with that.

S: Well, it’s like the Love wants to expand...

J: Wants to expand, right...

S: ...yeah, it wants to... I mean, it’s kind of like, sort of vaporize or... I think vaporize would be the right word. It’s not like blow it up, but it’s just like dissipate it, disappear it.

J: Yeah, yeah. All right, well let’s see what happens with shifting the Shame.

Preparing to Move Shame

J: So before we shift this I want to just establish a couple of frames. One, I want to acknowledge this part of you, this Shame. It took this form at some point in your life when it seemed like this was the best way to serve you. So I want to thank it for doing that. And I want to reassure it that if it ever needs to serve you in this way again, it can do so. Yes, we are going to move this today, but it’s safe to move because you can always put it back. We’re adding to this part’s repertoire of feeling, not taking anything away.

And so because of that, because it’s safe to move, you might as well go for it. What could this part of you be in an absolutely perfect world, where all your needs are met, exactly the way you want them, fully and completely, and you know how to keep them that way?

Also, I want to acknowledge that, as you see, this Shame is connected to the No! and the Fearful Fear and the Love, and there are other parts it’s connected to that we haven’t identified. I want to invite all the other parts of you to participate in this process passively, as witnesses only, to experience for themselves what’s possible for every part of you. But if there is some other part of you that is needing to contribute something crucial to the process, you’ll notice another feeling coming to the foreground, and just let me know. All right?

S: Yes.

Moving Shame

J: So in this moment, in the spirit of exploration of what’s possible in a perfect world, if this part of you were free to become, oh let’s say harder or softer, bigger or smaller, warmer or cooler...?

S: Definitely softer, no more porcupine quills. And it would change color. It would be yellow, kind of like a glowing light, like a sun.

J: OK.

S: But really, very soft.

J: Yes. OK. And so in becoming softer, and changing color, if this part of you were free to take on qualities of any substance at all, would it prefer to be more like some other kind of solid, or a liquid, or a gas, or some kind of pure light, or energy, or something else?

S: Pure light or energy I think.

J: And in becoming this pure light or energy, if it were free to take on any temperature?

S: Comfortably warm. Like maybe a hundred and two degrees, like a little warmer than body temperature, but you know, you could still have your hand on it for a while without being burned.

J: Mm hm.

S: Maybe only a hundred degrees. You know, just a little bit warmer.

J: OK. And in taking on this new quality of being pure light or energy at 100 degrees or so, to confirm the color, if it could be any color of the rainbow...?

S: Sunshine yellow, or maybe lemon yellow, or egg yolk yellow. Like the heart was the reddest red? This is like the yellowest yellow.

J: OK. Great. And would it want to have qualities of being transparent, or translucent, or opaque?

S: Translucent, maybe. Like transparent, it really likes being yellow, and it wants to be noticed.

J: Ah hah. And obviously it’s luminous, this light? Any qualities of being sparkling or shimmering, iridescent, anything like that?

S: Shimmery or sparkly.

J: OK. And if this part were free now to located itself anywhere in or around, or in and around your body, and occupy any size and shape at all, where would it most want to be?

S: Well, the center of it would be right where the porcupine was, but then it would definitely go, like covering all the parts that were gray before. Almost like a circle except there’s not sharp, defined edges. So it would even go up to my chin, probably an equidistance down which might be the top of my thighs, and maybe out to my arms...

J: How about forward/back, also? Would it be a sphere or more of a circle?

S: It’s kind of a shape like this , so however far back the gray fog went before, it’s like that far back, and then however far the steel plate was, it’s like just past the edges of that. So sort of encapsulating.

J: Right. All right. And does this light want to be moving in any way? Is there any kind of a flow, a pulse, a radiation, vibration?

S: No. It’s just glowing. But it’s not... The fact that it’s light means that there’s activity.

J: OK.

S: Without any overt activity.

J: OK. And if you listen internally, does there want to be any kind of inner sound that arises with this feeling?

S: It’s kind of tinkly bells or wind chimes. I don’t know, celestial sounds, angelic sounds, music of the spheres sounds... I mean I can hear them in my mind because I have CDs that have music like that.

J: All right. So you know what that means.

S: Yes.

J: And is there anything else you want to notice about what this wants to be?

S: No. I think that’s it.

J: And so from this new place, this new feeling, what seems true, or real, or important now?

S: It seems very expansive.

J: And what’s important to you about that?

S: That I’m very open, so it’s like I am open to let the love in. It feels like it made that expansiveness.

J: Great. And what new name would you like to give this?

S: Receiving.

J: Mm. Great.

Note: This drawing of Receiving was made later in our process, after moving all four parts.

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What’s Next

In the next post, we’ll have an opportunity to see what Susan’s Love wants to become. We might assume that, well, it’s already “love,” so what more could it want? Well, hang tight. You might be surprised.

Next post in this series:

Volume 1, Table of Contents:

Get your printed (or PDF/ebook) copy:

What you have here, in this book, represents something substantively different from what has come before. Psychotopology fieldwork says, “Yes, strong passions live inside of you. They clamor for expression. And you are granted permission to experience them as they are, to learn from them, discover their deeper needs and longings, and to shape them into expressions that serve you and your entire life.”

There is nothing in the doorway of fieldwork that assigns an interpretation to anything you experience when you walk through that doorway. There is nothing in fieldwork that does anything but support you in noticing what is actually there inside of you, and re-establishing a healthy, real relationship with all that is there.

Through fieldwork, we have an opportunity to enter into these spaces by ourselves and together, and to re-imagine what it means to be human. Through fieldwork, we are invited to feel again, and to show up with the presence of that feeling in our shared worlds. Showing up in this way, with what truly lives inside of us, has the potential to reshape our world, to dissolve these scaffolds of rational confinement, to reconnect us to the powerful creative forces within ourselves. As we begin to feel again, I believe we will regain the capacity to choose presence over production, connection over separation, life over these endless spirals of evisceration.

Life. It lives in us. It wants to move through us, and among us, into the world and back again. This is what it means to be human. This is what it is to fully live, to feel, to be.

Upcoming Group Explorations

One thing I am intending to offer soon, most likely primarily as a local offering in Bellingham, is a series of cohort explorations using fieldwork to “get real” with the actual felt experience behind many of our confusing and complicated personal, relational and social dynamics. Here are some of the topics we may explore:

• Belonging and inclusion/exclusion

• Intimate relationships and sexuality

• Power and social status

• Identity, transitions and self-concept

• Grief and loss

• Conflict and disagreement

• Parenthood and caregiving

• Addiction and coping mechanisms

• Work and vocation

• Religious and spiritual life

• Family systems and intergenerational dynamics

• Ancestry and legacy burdens

• Embodiment and health

• Nature and technology

• Inner safe spaces and danger zones

• Social collapse and global despair

• Transitions and thresholds

My vision for these groups is to support a profoundly accepting space where we are each able to discover the subtle richness within ourselves and one another by:

• Stepping out of the illusion of the citadel self by embracing the beautifully sophisticated multiplicity within us all,

• Escaping the dominance of language over what we allow to be real in our lived experience,

• Noticing and affirming that belonging exists as a fundamental property of existence for all of us, all of the time, and

• Offering and receiving a deep trust among ourselves that in our humanity, we are expressions of life itself in all its wondrous beauty.

I would also like to begin offering training explorations for therapists, counselors and coaches. Let me know how that would best work for you.

Spring will most likely join me in hosting many of these, and I am intending for these offerings to launch organically, through conversations with you. As you begin to open to the opportunities for growth and awareness available through fieldwork, I invite you to reach out to me with your own desires for exploration (joe@psychotopology.com). It will be through these points of contact with you that I will receive the signals for what to offer next, and how to gather a cohort for that offering.

Looking for Collaborators

For maybe one, maybe a few of you, something of what is in this book touches a nerve. A good nerve — one that sends a jolt of intrigue through your system. You smell something, you sense something, you get flashes of some kind of possibility in what I’ve written and what you’ve experienced already in exploring fieldwork.

For example, because fieldwork gives us access to the core architecture of our being, it can be immediately applied in quite a number of directions to support efforts already underway to master this experience of being human. In these various directions, whether philosophical or spiritual, psychotherapeutic or cultural, or simply personal, fieldwork can be incorporated into current practices and frameworks in such a way as to enhance what is already strong. That’s awesome. If this turns out to be your path, I want to support you in whatever ways I can. Let me know what you are drawn to and we will figure something out.

Beyond that, I am also looking for collaborators in this new science. If this speaks to how you think about things, how you approach the challenges of our world, how you tend to hold your own most important projects and questions, perhaps you might find a role to play. I would love to welcome one or more people who see the potential in this already, who trust where I am coming from, and want to jump in, learn more, and contribute their best efforts to bringing this science into the world.

In either case, please get in touch with me and let’s figure out how you can get involved. Just shoot me an email (joe@psychotopology.com), and we’ll have a conversation to see what might be possible.

And if you are one who recognizes the importance of this effort and has something different than collaboration to offer, please let me know how you would like contribute. As I’ve mentioned before, it has been difficult at times running on a shoestring, doing all the many tasks on my own, etc. I will be immensely grateful for any support you can muster.

One of the most valuable contributions I invite you to consider making is that of an introduction to someone else who might benefit from this work, or who might have something to contribute to it. Reach out to make that introduction by email, or simply share this book with someone. Even if it’s more of a one-link-in-a-chain kind of thing, where you introduce me to someone who might know someone who might know someone who can help. My goodness, I will be so grateful for that.

Stay in Touch

Finally, to all those who have been captivated by what is here in Volume 1 and would like to make sure to stay in the loop for the rolling out of Volumes 2 &3, as well as opportunities to study and practice fieldwork in cohort trainings, study groups, and other programs, please make sure to subscribe. If this work is turning out to be valuable to you, please also consider signing up for a paid subscription or making a donation through PayPal or Venmo (message or email me to ask for details).

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Every little bit helps. Thank you!

~ Joe Shirley
Bellingham, WA
June, 2025

Volume 1, Table of Contents:

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There is a lot you can do with this if you work supporting others through therapy or coaching. Fieldwork mapping addresses some of the challenges in this work in a way that is maximally honoring of the client’s inner experience. In turning toward fieldwork, you support the client in finding their own inner compass, making sense of the challenges of their life using their own wisdom, strengthening their capacity for witness awareness, and exercising more freedom of choice in how they respond to any situation. Not only that, but you can use fieldwork mapping to support yourself in maintaining your own solid base as you lean in to support others. Let’s take a look at a few of the ways this can work for you.

Adding a Stabilizing Third Point of Contact

Typically in therapy and coaching, we rely either on the cognitive dimension or on somatic sensation to navigate the tricky terrain of the inner world. Bringing fieldwork into the process sets up a third, stabilizing point of contact, neither somatic nor cognitive, through directly and intentionally accessing the virtual materiality of the feeling experience.

This can be incredibly powerful. For example, quite often a client has run through the story of why they have a particular challenge, and even why they should be able to get beyond it. But without feeling into the heart of it to notice other discrete feeling objects reinforcing the pattern, they can remain trapped, going around in circles without anything actually changing.

Similarly, someone can become very skilled at turning their attention to the micro-sensations of their body related to a particular difficulty. But the relationship between soma and mind, between body and behavior, is not two-dimensional. It also travels through the medium of feeling, and without bringing feeling into the mix, they can become stuck bouncing back and forth between the thought patterns and the body activations.

Another time the two-point focus on mind and body can get in the way is when someone becomes overwhelmed by physical reactions when they are accessing difficult memories, for example. Training this person in accessing their strong witness presence before entering this kind of territory is one way through, and simply bringing awareness to the more subtle dimension of feeling itself can relieve the overpowering effects of the body’s stored reactivity.

Finally, many times what interrupts solid progress in therapy and coaching is some form of resistance, where something is being protected that is very difficult to access through talk alone. By turning to fieldwork, we get to go in the back door, around the deflections of story, and to discover more directly what lies hidden behind those defenses.

Supporting Yourself in Supporting Others

Of course, resistance can also be challenging for the therapist or coach. How many times have you run up against your own judgment, frustration, or over-eager attempts to please when someone keeps detouring around the work that needs to be done? This can be a great opportunity for you to turn the lens of fieldwork toward your own inner terrain.

You might realize that your frustration was actually a familiar pattern fed by an underlying helplessness. Or that your desire to push them came from a place that fears failure. Giving form to your own countertransference lets you work with it compassionately. It helps you stay curious, brings you back to center.

When you’re grounded in your own feeling experience, you can hold the client’s experience without collapsing into it or floating above it. You become the third leg in their process — not just mentally present or somatically attuned, but field-aware, capable of tracking and inviting what’s actually showing up.

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As I sit here on the morning of June 8th, 2025, I feel a hesitation, a doubt, an impasse. I carry in this moment a profound sorrow for all that we have lost, for all that we are continuing to lose. At least, that’s the best way I have at the moment for putting words to what I am feeling. But it feels important, so I’m going to take my own medicine and do a little bit of mapping as a way of sharing more with you.

I will start by feeling into what I’m sensing and trying to name what’s there.

Sorrow: This is here for sure. It feels both very personal and broadly universal. On the personal side of things, last night, Spring and I talked about our respective difficulties showing up for one another with emotional caring when one of us is having a hard time. I am very good at being present, and listening, but offering emotional holding in a way that Spring experiences as caring is something absent from my repertoire. On the flip side, I have been completely self-sufficient with my emotions, using fieldwork obsessively over the past thirty years to take care of myself and to avoid relying on anyone else for that kind of caring. From this part of me, I wouldn’t even know how to receive that kind of caring if it were offered to me. In fact, it would feel fake, and I wouldn’t trust it.

This is a growth edge for me. I have worked the core structures in myself to dissolve the original reactivity that kept me distant, but have not proactively worked to rebuild new ways of meeting my needs and showing up for others. This is what Spring and I are doing now with one another, to the extent we are able, both of us coming from a place of not having much experience with this, me especially.

I share this very personal window into my reality because it touches yours in some way, or at least, it touches my sense of you as one who is reading this book. We all have those places in our lives where something falls short within ourselves. We are not able to meet someone close to us, or to step out of our productivity obsession, or to take care of our bodies, or to simply trust life and lay down our persistent vigilance. We all have those places where something in us shut down a long time ago, and where the sequestering of that part of ourselves impacts our lives today.

Plus, we all have those parts of ourselves that have stepped into the empty space left by these exiles, that have been doing double duty filling in for them while simultaneously trying to take care of their own domain as well. These compensation parts have grown out of balance. They take up too much space and require too many resources, sending our lives careening out of control at times.

For me, this compensation was through a supreme sovereign self, one who needed nobody, who took care of everything on his own, who lived his life in dedicated commitment to his work in service to humanity. And the primary exile was the vulnerable one, the one who cared deeply about others and longed to be cared for.

So, I want to share with you that fieldwork mapping can serve us in our recovery and rebalancing of these compensatory structures in ourselves. And I want to take the risk of showing you how that might work in real time, here today.

I’ve named Sorrow as a central state in my experience right now. I sense other states around it, and you might be able to see hints of those in the writing above. I’m going to make a judgment call, though, and to move forward with mapping the Sorrow before looking for other states. I could easily go the other direction, but I want to keep things simple, for one thing. For another, I do sense this Sorrow holds something profoundly important for me.

As I settle in to prepare to map Sorrow, I am drawn to renaming it. In my mind, I was saying to myself, “I’m going to map my Sorrow,” and the “my Sorrow” felt more accurate as a name for what I am feeling. So: My Sorrow. Just saying that to myself deepens the feeling of it, brings me a nudge closer to feeling the latent (or pending) tears.

I’m in my recliner seat right now, and I’m going to close my eyes, lean back, and start leading myself through the mapping questions. First, though, let me try a bit to describe in more general terms what it feels like to be me, experiencing My Sorrow, as if I’m sharing with a friend.

It feels big. Like it encompasses a large space around me, and that we are all in this space. It is as if I see us all shrouded from one another in this heaviness, this longing, this separation. I can’t get close to you. You can’t get close to me. None of us can get close to any of us. All of us blindly stumbling around but never actually stumbling into one another, always separated by some distance. That’s my image of it. And I’m in the middle of it, experiencing my separation and seeing there is no way out because everyone else is embedded in the same stuff.

So, My Sorrow. Settling in to map it.

As I lean back to feel into it, I sense there are in fact two parts to it. There is a more concentrated, more painful part inside my chest. That is My Sorrow. And there is the much larger space that surrounds me, that contains everyone else. What do I want to call that? Something like perpetual separation, although that’s not quite it. It feels epic, ancestral, built in, like we don’t have a choice about it. It’s like a curse on humanity.

The word Ancestral comes through as being important. It’s about something much larger than any of us or even all of us here today. Ancestral what? It could be sorrow, or separation. Ancestral Separation gets close to it. But it’s more than separation. There’s a shutting down, an imposition, a closing-in-on, a binding that is carried in it that affects everyone. I’m drawn back to the word “curse,” and I want to call it Ancestral Curse. This is what made my parents so emotionally unavailable to me. This is what turns people everywhere into zombies who hate each other.

OK. So I’ve got My Sorrow and Ancestral Curse. They go together. Whew. I’m going to take a brief break and then come back to continue mapping.

I’m back, with a fresh little thermos of puerh tea.

On my break, and as I sit down again now, I am aware of a vulnerability in sharing this with you. And the vulnerability feels very connected to the My Sorrow. It feels like a third state to include here. I’m going to call it My Vulnerability, and I think I want to start my mapping with that. Something about it seems to shine some illumination on the My Sorrow and the Ancestral Curse.

Starting with a general description of what it feels like, it’s just a pervasive tentativeness. Like, “Oops. I’m not sure. Is this a good idea?” Like, I don’t really know where this is leading me, and it could lead somewhere that’s not good, and am I really going to share that?

At the same time, it feels central to the sorrow in that the vulnerability is a big part of what makes it so difficult for me to be that kind of close to others, where mutual expression of caring is easily present. That feels vulnerable, like I could be hurt if I allow myself to open to that and it turns out not to be available, or to show up in some way that attacks or shames me, for example. So yes, related. I am moving into the space between you and me in a way that is inviting that mutual expression of caring, and I might receive something very different back.

I feel a quiver, a shake of recognition in having spoken that. OK, so mapping it:

My Vulnerability: This feels subtle, more difficult to access than the My Sorrow. Actually, it feels as if it is located inside the My Sorrow, and that it will be easier to map if I map My Sorrow first. OK.

As I seek to place my field of awareness over the experience of My Sorrow, I struggle a bit. It doesn’t seem as distinct as it did earlier. I move my field of awareness out, away from myself, into the space of Ancestral Curse, and right away the My Sorrow differentiates and shows up more distinctly again in my chest. I am struck by how that general sense of people blindly stumbling around, unable to bridge their separation from one another, is key to both My Sorrow and My Vulnerability. It is because of people being under the Curse that they are unavailable to meet in a space of mutual expression of caring, and it is because I am unable to be met there, and because I see all others also being generally unable to be met there, that I feel the Sorrow.

OK, back to mapping My Sorrow. Just a comment, though, before I proceed. So far, this is a demonstration that there is a strong benefit from simply bringing awareness to the distinctly different feeling states inhabiting our inner world, and giving them an opportunity to become aware of one another. Even before explicitly mapping these three states, I have gained a lot from simply engaging with them in an open inquiry.

My Sorrow: I kept looking for it where I had originally sensed it, in my chest, in the space of my heart. But it didn’t seem to be there. Placing my awareness back out into the space of Ancestral Curse activated it again, and I could sense that what is there at my heart is more of a somatic activation, not an affect field. Letting go of that original impression, I can sense My Sorrow occupying a larger space in my upper body, more toward my back. As I bring my awareness there, I can again sense the somatic activation in my heart. The My Sorrow, though, occupies the space of the back half of my entire upper body, from even below my waist into my hips. It extends outside my body somewhat as well, into the inch or two behind my back and up above my shoulders on either side of my head.

The substance is a murky, slowly swirling, thick liquid. Dark, not exactly black, maybe more of a deep purple, but muddy as well. There’s a sense that much of the movement is downward, somehow, as if it doesn’t need to move back up. Some swirling-ish movement, but mostly drifting downward. There’s a weight to it as well.

The constant downwardness makes it seem never-ending, like it’s forever. Temperature is neutral, body temperature, maybe slightly warmer. Sound is like a coarse brown noise, as if under water.

It doesn’t matter. It’s just there as the background of life. “This is just the way things are. There’s nothing to be done about it. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

In reflection, yeah, this is it. It’s familiar. This is a lot of what I carry, overall, in bringing this work into the world. As if the task is too big, and people are too entrenched in their countless ways of staying separate from themselves and one another. And I am too inadequately skilled and too unclear about what actually needs to happen to make enough of a difference. (Sigh.)

OK. I’ll move on now to bring my awareness to the Ancestral Curse state.

This one feels easy, familiar, like it’s something I inhabit most of the time at this point, as I’m wrapping up this book. The mental imagery is as I’ve described, with each person trapped in a dark gray bubble, all the bubbles bumbling around, nobody able to touch anyone else through the bubble spaces and hardly even being able to see one another. Lots of projections going on, though. The bubbles work well as projection screens from both inside and outside.

So, holding that imagery, where/what is the actual, felt experience? I get a sense of a thick mist surrounding me, going out at least 20 or 30 feet in all directions. It’s hard to move within it. It’s more than a mist, more like a misty energy, thick, viscous. It saps my motivation, adds to the My Sorrow. Color is strangely light, a cream color. Like it’s innocuous. Again, a sense of, “this is just the way things are,” nothing special or “dark” about it. Temperature is air temp, like a warm spring day, but it can get colder and thicker. Sound is more of a white noise in contrast to the deeper pitch of My Sorrow.

Interesting to see how the “saps my motivation” is linked to the downwardness of My Sorrow. And this sense of “this is just the way things are” is also so demotivating. Ugh. It’s like, “Why are you bothering with this? There’s nothing wrong, this is normal.”

As I turn my attention toward the My Vulnerability, I notice another part of me wanting to just scream in response to all of this. Like, “No! This is NOT OK! This is NOT normal, not the way things are supposed to be, not the way things could be.” It’s very angry at the oblivious attitude of everyone inhabiting their bubble, pretending they’re content with things as they are while they’re absolutely suffering inside, but doing a good job distracting themselves with their projections.

What to call this? “Rage Against the Machine” comes to mind. Something even more apt in this age of the rise of AI. (I never actually listened to that band, but somehow their name came to mind as the most appropriate name for this state. Looking them up on the internet, it seems to fit well enough.)

I step back for a moment, go downstairs to get a fan from the garage. It’s getting hot in my office facing the sun on this hot June day.

The irony here, of course, is that in carrying these states, and the stories they hold, I am myself inhabiting one of those bubbles. I am keeping others at a distance, believing my projections, maintaining my isolation. The My Vulnerability part sees others as unsafe, believes it is important that I keep my distance. This is the part, I believe, that does not trust that if someone — even Spring — does express caring, that it is genuine. It sees a performance instead, disconnected from authentic presence.

The irony is an essential ingredient of the My Sorrow. I know I am also trapped in my own bubble, also contributing to and participating in this endless fugue of separation among us. I want to find a way out and through, but I have not found it yet.

It strikes me, though, that this realization is exactly what I entered this space in search of. I started writing this transparent recording of my own process to model what I want to invite you to do yourself. And here it is, actually working. In writing this, in sharing my process with you, I am demonstrating what is possible in using fieldwork to unpack your own inner complexity. Fortunately, I am also demonstrating how doing so feeds a desire for growth at the heart of whatever it is you choose to excavate.

Here, my biggest concern in getting ready to release this book is that nobody will “get it,” that I will remain isolated in having developed this new science and made these new discoveries. And in deciding to turn directly into that inner obstruction, I am moving very steadily through and beyond it.

OK, time to wrap up for now. It has taken me almost two hours to go down this path, and I’ve got to get the rest of my day underway.

Update 1: During my workout later, I found myself wanting to rename Ancestral Curse to Ancestral Trance, as a way to remove that kind of judgmental charge. No person or no thing created a “curse” to lead us into this trance. It’s just a trance. This speaks to the relative neutrality I found in the actual feeling of it, surprising as it was. I think the Rage Against the Machine still feels betrayed in some way, though, despite the absence of malicious intent.

Update 2, early morning of June 9th: Last night, Spring and I had dinner with some prospective land mates, people with whom we may be involved in helping to co-create a community living situation with a larger intention of establishing a retreat center supporting all manner of wellness offerings. These conversations about communal living have been underway for us in various forms with various people over this past year, but this one seems most potent in its potential to actually bloom.

I felt truly excited by the possibility, but afterwards found myself retracting somewhat, wondering what I am getting myself in for. These parts of me that I touched on yesterday are stirring. Not just stirring, but more like turning over, like freshly plowed ground.

It feels like dipping into this territory yesterday set me up for a more earnest participation in last night’s conversation. And it feels like last night’s conversation set me up for a more earnest engagement with this territory inside myself.

I am recognizing that, as Spring described in her foreword, I truly have been living like a hermit. The mists of the Ancestral Trance have served like the mists deep in the mountains, keeping me separated, minimizing my engagement with the world. In maintaining that existence, although I have taken an epic journey into the core of my being and have dissolved the great majority of my own inherited “curses,” I have not given myself the opportunity to learn new ways of engaging, collaborating, creating together. I have lived a mindfully steady, very intentionally crafted existence designed to give me the maximum space to find my own way through the deepest caverns of my soul.

Last year, as I began the project of writing this book, intending to finally complete this work and bring it more fully into the world, I made small efforts to shift that position, for example, by setting up my Substack. But I did virtually nothing to promote it, did not even announce it to the many people who have worked with me over the years but with whom I have fallen out of active contact. It was never “ready.”

Now, as I contemplate sharing community with others, contributing to caring for the land and hosting events open to others, I recognize it is time to step out of my hermit’s shell. And I recognize there will be much for me to learn. For example, I will have to be more proactive in making sure that I preserve time to work on the next two books, learning how to set and keep boundaries for myself while honoring my responsibilities to others. This will apply across the board, from making sure I have a space to which I can retreat when I want to do a deep dive into writing, for example, to ironing out clear agreements with Spring about how we share our much smaller living space.

I am grateful for these pending changes, and curious to see how they actually unfold. In the meantime, it is time for me to wrap up this chapter and prepare to release the book.

I suspect at some level you may be able to relate to what I have shared. Perhaps you have your own version of this Ancestral Curse/Trance in how you see the world and other people, at least those who are “different” from you. And I suspect you hold, somehow, within yourself, some way that this inner structure actually mirrors and helps to create what you most fear.

This is what I most want you to come away with as you finish this book. I want you to recognize that yes, we all do have our personal ways to keep ourselves separate from others. And in doing so, we simultaneously keep ourselves separate from large portions of our own selves. And this inner separation contributes to and participates equality in the outer separation. It’s not all “them” that creates the barriers to connection, and we hold massive agency in moving toward dissolving those barriers for our own and everyone’s benefit.

This is what I want to invite you to do, what I want to invite us all to do. I invite you to stop. And to feel. And to notice, in the feeling, what parts of yourself have been compromised. And to invite those parts back into the conversation, back into an ongoing, emerging birth of possibility among others.

I don’t know exactly the results of this little excursion I’ve taken here. I do know that a movement has begun within myself, and I am quite sure that movement will influence my connection with Spring, and with others in my world. I suspect it may lead one or more of you to consider reaching out to me, to get more involved in learning and applying psychotopology in your own life.

In that happening, I will be demonstrating for myself that I do have agency. That I do have freedom to create the kinds of close relationships I long for. That I do inhabit a space of possibility for a world I really want to belong to.

This is exciting. I’m not sure exactly where I will go from here, but it feels like things are already moving toward a more connected life for me. I may not need to do the full excavating, mapping and moving. But I may do it anyway, to offer you a fly-on-the-wall view as I go through the process. It might make sense for me to do that as part of Volume 2, or to share on the Frontiers Substack at least. I’ll keep you posted if you subscribe.

Back to You

Anyway, I do hope you have seen how helpful it can be to simply identify and map a few states as part of any kind of personal exploration. Here are some possible places to apply fieldwork mapping:

• Mindfulness (or other forms of) meditation: Bring a more enhanced awareness directly to those states which seem to get in the way of your intentions.

• Relationship enhancement: Take a deeper look at those places in you that get in the way of intimacy and trust.

• Therapy: Do some of your own work between sessions, and bring a more complete awareness to what you’re exploring in therapy.

• Career development: Get in touch with your longing and your fears as a way to open up more ways to grow into your life’s work.

• Creative efforts: Bring awareness to those places that get in the way of your flow, to find out what they need and how you might enroll them in your process.

• Big life decisions: These are the places where it might be most important to slow down and feel into what’s most alive for you.

• Others: There are as many possibilities for where to use fieldwork mapping as there are significant moments in your life. Go for it.

The bottom line is, you want to use fieldwork mapping to center your experience in feeling as your prime orientation to your life. At first, this might be challenging as you surface all kinds of intensely charged states that have been suppressed for too long. But over time, you will develop a stronger witness awareness, those charges will dissipate, and you will find yourself more and more able to trust what you feel to navigate with far greater ease and agency. In comparison, using your mind to navigate your life will seem in comparison either convoluted or controlling. Definitely no fun.

I’ll have a lot more to unpack about all of this over the next two volumes.

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Mapping Shame

J: All right, so, the Shame. If you were to say that the actual, felt experience of this Shame was located somewhere in or around your body, where would you say that seems to be?

S: Right in my solar plexus.

J: Ah hah.

S: And it’s about the size of my fist.

J: OK. Great. And does it seem more like a solid, liquid, gas, light, energy...?

S: Well, just what I said, it seems like this little porcupine.

J: All right.

S: You know, so it’s not solid like hard, but if you would think like a little porcupine body. It’s soft, but there is substance to it.

J: Right. And with spikes.

S: Spikes, yes. It’s totally, totally all the spikes.

J: In every direction.

S: Well, it’s like if I were lying down, it’s like it would be sitting on my solar plexus. So, like its little feet and tummy would be next to my body, but everything, like if anybody was going to come close, they would only feel spikes.

J: Right. All right. And what temperature does little porcupine-y thing seem to be?

S: Just body temperature. It’s like the same temperature as me.

J: Ah hah. And what color?

S: Gray. Whatever color porcupines are. Kind of gray.

J: Kind of gray. A darker gray or lighter?

S: A little darker, like the dark gray spots in the fog...

J: Mm hm.

S: That color gray.

J: OK. And is it moving in any way?

S: Nope.

J: Any force or pressure?

S: Nope. Just sitting there.

J: And if you listen internally, do you notice any inner sound?

S: Kind of whimpering. Almost like a little pain...

J: Almost like a...?

S: Like if it had a stomach ache or something. You know? Just little whimpers of pain.

J: OK. Anything else to notice about what this feels like?

S: Well, like if its little feet had claws or toenails, it’s like I can feel little, almost like little pricks.

J: So almost like little pricks. Where do you feel that?

S: On my tummy, where it’s sitting.

J: OK. And from this place, from that feeling, what seems true, or real, or important to this part of you?

S: Well, just like when you do the drawing, it’s going to be right under the edge of the steel plate, it feels like it’s the “what’s underneath.” Even though it’s on the outside of my body, it feels like it’s what’s underneath everything else that’s going on.

J: Ah. What’s its intention or perspective or attitude or belief, about you, about the world, about love?

S: It really doesn’t want to be noticed or discovered. That’s all the prickliness, the quills. It’s like, “Don’t come close to me, don’t notice me.”

J: Mm hm. OK. Anything else?

S: That seems to be the main thing.

I’m going to guess that you never expected “shame” would look like this. One of the things you learn pretty quickly doing this practice is to lay down your expectations. The words we use to point to our most private feeling experience are inadequate and clumsy. Fieldwork maps, in contrast, help to bring out the actual, felt experience lying beneath those clumsy words.

Whether you are facilitating someone else or exploring your own interior, I can’t emphasize too strongly the importance of holding the primacy of direct experience over any common (or therapeutic) language interface to that experience. The mapping process provides a more direct translation of the feeling state as it is experienced than any culturally-shaped language we have available. Trust the maps. Hold the labels loosely. Every single person, and every single feeling state within each person, is utterly unique. Support the explorer (and yourself) in maintaining an open, curious attitude to what they will discover, and hold them in a space in which they are free to generate their own unique interpretations and understandings of their experience as it emerges into more tangible awareness.

The shape of this feeling state, with its defensive spikes pointing out toward anyone who might draw close, suggests to me there is another state to be found. Every feeling state has one single function. More complex patterns come into being through the interaction of multiple states, each carrying out its individual task. Defense is one function. What is necessary to defend is a separate function. Each of these will be anchored in its own unique feeling state. I’ve noted this to myself, and will bring Susan back to it soon to discover what else might be there.

Drawing Shame

J: All right. So I’m going to leave it on the same color gray. Does that make sense?

S: Yep.

J: All right. And I think I’ll zoom in a little bit further. And let’s just see where that No! comes to an end. So it’s gotta be right there.

S: Yes, right there.

J: And I’m going to start with, just kind of draw the body a little bit. And then we’ll put our spikes on it... And let me draw this over here... So it’s going to be... About like that?

S: Yes.

J: OK. And then let’s see if this make sense... Does this look spiky enough?

S: Yeah. Yeah.

J: I mean, I could do it a little bit differently, but this is probably OK, right?

S: Yes.

J: Lots of them.

S: Yes. Lots and lots of these little spikes. It’s like if you put your hand anywhere close to it, you’re going to encounter pokes.

J: Yeah. OK. How does that look?

S: That looks just right.

When I facilitate fieldwork, I use two computers: a desktop computer to track the notes and the emerging structure of the feeling states, and a tablet for drawing. When I work with someone in person, I just hand them the tablet and they draw the image themselves. In those cases, we’re generally not talking while they are drawing. I’m including these little exchanges because it seems to bring the conversation more alive on the page.

Identifying Love

J: So. Now I have one more question for you about the Shame.

S: Sure.

J: If you bring your attention to the body part of it, and just scan through the center, do you notice anything? Is it the same kind of substance all the way through the center, or is there something else in there?

S: What immediately I saw when you said like scanning through its body, so it’s like the part inside the quills, the spikes...

J: Mm hm.

S: I mean there was almost like this little red valentine heart in there, that, you know, it’s the same substance or like it’s soft like the rest of the body, so it’s not like hard, but there was very much this little, I mean literally, almost like a valentine heart inside it.

J: Uh huh. OK. So what would you like to call that?

S: And I would just say love.

J: OK.

S: It’s Love.

Aha! Just as I suspected. The hidden state being protected by all those spikes is a vulnerable little thing called Love.

Susan was chuckling here and while mapping the porcupine Shame. It’s quite extraordinary in this process that people are often able to engage with quite distressing feeling states and maintain enough of a safe and stable witness perspective as to have a sense of humor about it all.

I’ll just say, though, that this is not always the case. Sometimes fieldwork will lead to very heavy, dark places. While the mapping process does provide a measure of separation, facing and entering these places can be exhausting, especially when you’re working on your own without a facilitator. Make sure to see the more detailed descriptions of strategies for managing your work in these more challenging territories like FM-10: Cultivating a Witness Awareness.

Mapping Love

J: So I’m going to take you through mapping the Love. OK? What size would you say, the size of a quarter or something like that?

S: Yeah. So it fits easily inside the little porcupine that’s the size of my fist.

J: Mm hm.

S: Maybe the size of a dime. No. Let’s see. No, a nickel.

J: OK.

S: So halfway between a quarter and a dime. A nickel.

J: All right. And if you were to say it has qualities of substance, what does that seem to be?

S: I don’t know quite how to answer that, but it’s definitely warm and pulsing.

J: Ah hah. So warm and pulsing.

S: So it is like a muscle. Like if the body is just like soft, you know? Like if you pet a kitty’s tummy or something, how it feels very soft? This has a little more tone to it. But it is like a muscle because it’s pulsing.

J: And what’s the color of it?

S: Oh, you know, Valentine red.

J: All right.

S: Or lipstick red, whatever that... red-red.

J: OK. And is it moving? It’s pulsing...?

S: It’s pulsing. It’s really warm. Not like melting warm, but like if you put your hand near it you would feel the warmth. You wouldn’t be burned. You know, it’s not like scorching hot. But noticeably warm.

J: Right. And if you listen, do you notice any inner sound?

S: Um, a heartbeat sound. You know, kind of a “kathump, kathump, kathump.”

J: All right. So sound of a heartbeat.

S: Yeah.

J: Anything else to notice about what this feels like?

S: It wants to grow. I mean, it’s very eager to expand.

J: OK. And what seems true, or real, or important to this part of you?

S: Just this compulsion, this compelling urge to expand, to get bigger and bigger. Like it’s really important, and it feels trapped and it wants to break through.

J: OK. Let’s draw it. So the red, we’re talking serious red here.

S: Yeah, like the reddest red you’ve got.

J: How’s that down in the corner here? That works?

S: That looks good.

J: OK. And let’s zoom in a little bit. So on this side... I think we’ll just do a dot, something about like so. Is that good?

S: It is. And I don’t know if you have like symbols and you can actually make it be a heart shape, but the color and the position are absolutely right....

J: Like this?

S: Yes, yes. That’s it... Um, I don’t know if there’s a way to show it in the drawing, but it’s pulsing. That’s a really important feature of it.

J: Yeah.

S: The other things are relatively static.

J: We could indicate that pretty easily. How about if we do this...

S: But this is really moving.

J: Yeah. Let’s try this... If I do something like this...

S: Yes, yes.

J: How’s that?

S: Yes.

J: OK. So any other thoughts?

S: Nope. I think that’s totally it.

Susan’s mapping of Love reveals a bit more of the essential nature of fieldwork mapping. Notice how precise she gets about the size of this Love. It’s the size of a nickel, not a dime and not a quarter. That’s pretty darned precise.

How is this possible? Most of us have a common experience of feeling as vague and nebulous. But when we bring the new lens of virtual materiality to the task, we find ourselves bringing incredible precision to our discernment. (Some people like Susan do seem to have a higher resolution in their feeling perception than others.) In addition, we seem to be able to enter that virtual world and interact in order to gather even more detailed information, as when Susan describes the temperature, “If you put your hand near it you would feel the warmth. You wouldn’t be burned.” What’s going on here?

I believe this represents an opportunity for a more advanced cognitive neuroscience to investigate, perhaps now or maybe some years in the future. For now, I like to think of it like this:

When we enter consciousness as an infant and even before we are born, our first awareness is drenched in and infused with materiality. At first we experience the liquid and solid environment of the uterus and our own bodies lying undifferentiated (to us) within it. Then birth, and the sharp boundaries that emerge between skin and air, skin and skin, milk and tongue, and all the myriad substances surrounding and encompassing us.

This direct apprehension of materiality is our first consciousness, and I believe remains the foundation for all our consciousness. Our brains have the capacity to perceive this surrounding materiality and to map our own bodies quite precisely in relation to it. Further, we have the capacity to extend our own body map to include a toy or hammer in our hands as if it were an extension of our embodied selves. We adjust our sense of inertia, momentum, center of gravity and other properties to incorporate a jug of milk, a hula hoop, a kid sister on our shoulders, and to move as if we were one with the extension. (I unpack this foundational virtual materiality in chapter SO-5: How Virtual Materiality Makes Perfect Sense.)

I believe this capacity is employed in generating our feeling sense, specifically to serve essential functions of consciousness. A self-aware, conscious agent requires certain fundamental functions to be handled if it is to succeed in navigating the world. It must differentiate self from other, for example. It must manage the differences between the array of possible actions, the current state or motivation, a desired outcome, and ongoing guidance of specific actions chosen, with a responsive feedback about the results of those actions in the world.

In fieldwork, (and this is jumping quite far ahead into Volume 2 and beyond, but so be it), we see these functions clearly represented in the qualities and behavior of specific feeling states. Or more specifically, we see modular patterns show up again and again in which feeling states anchor these functions. It is as if the virtually generated “things” of feeling states become anchors for these cognitive functions.

(Ah, there is so much to share with you here! Forgive me for jumping ahead.)

OK, so back to the dialog. At the end, Susan clearly indicates that the Love has a strong motivation to expand. My assessment is that the Love has a natural impulse to grow and expand, but is contained by the Shame. Apparently, for the Shame in its current state, an expanded Love would be intolerable. Perhaps at some point in the past, Susan’s loving led to something painful, and in order to avoid that pain it seems important to keep the Love confined. (We’ll learn more about this in Volume 2, in Susan’s reflections a month after the session.) Most likely, then, we can consider the Shame to be the pivot for this cluster of four states. I suspect we’ll probably start the moving process there after we draw Love.

Before we move on, let’s look at all four of these images overlaid upon one another so you can see the structural relationships. This kind of tight interconnection is what we can expect when mapping related feeling states.

Above: All Four Reactive States

What’s Next

In Volume 2, I will be laying out full instructions for the fieldwork moving practice both online and in book form. When that is complete, I’ll come back to finish Susan’s session with the recording and transcript of our working through moving each of these four parts to their ideal states, and we’ll look at the impact of this session on Susan’s life experience a month or two later.

For now, I hope you’re getting a more clear idea of just what we’re getting ourselves into here. Fieldwork mapping takes us into complex and rewarding new territory, a frontier, for sure.

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Mapping Fearful Fear

J: So let’s go back to the Fearful Fear. If you were to say that the actual, felt experience of this is located somewhere in or around your body, where would you say that seems to be?

S: It actually seems to be, like from my heart, maybe like the upper third of my chest. Like if the steel plate starts in the middle of my chest, this starts in the upper third. And it actually goes all the way up to my jaw. So some of it is protected by the steel plate, and some of it is not.

J: OK. And what’s the depth of it? Behind the steel plate, how far back does this Fearful Fear go?

S: Well I’m assuming if my body were sliced vertically, probably about to the middle, wherever the back of my heart is physically located. It goes that deep, like heart deep.

J: Got it. And if you were to say the actual, felt experience of this has qualities of substance, does it seem more like a solid...

S: Like a fog.

J: Like a fog, OK. And this fog, does it seem thick or thin, heavy or light?

S: Thick... and hm... It’s like it’s patchy, so parts of it are heavy but parts of it seem very light. So kind of like overall it’s light, but there are patches of heaviness.

J: OK. And what temperature would you say this fog seems to be?

S: Definitely cold. Not freezing. Maybe like 40s, 40 degrees, like when you walk outside and you say, “Oh! I should have worn a sweater.” But not shivery. But definitely noticeably cold.

J: And what color would you say it seems to be?

S: The heavy parts are dark gray, and the overall color is a light gray. Like it’s not white, but it’s just kind of a dingy color.

J: OK, so sort of a grayish.

S: Yeah.

J: And is this fog, does it seem to be moving in any way? Any kind of swirl or flow, or pulse or vibration?

S: Not swirling, and not pulse and vibration, but it is kind of moving, like maybe back and forth like this.

J: So sort of a drifting back and forth?

S: Yeah, drifting, that’s a great word.

J: OK, back and forth to the right and left, yeah?

S: Yes.

J: And if you listen internally, do you notice any inner sound?

S: It’s like a soft crying, not sobbing.

J: More like whimpering?

S: Not whimpering, not moaning. Gosh I don’t seem to think of...

J: Well, “a soft, crying sound” is probably close enough.

S: Yeah.

J: OK. Anything else you want to notice about what this feels like?

S: Well, the whole time I’ve been talking about it, the word “shy” keeps coming up for me. Almost like it wants to hide or not be seen or not be noticed. And almost like a little feeling of shame.

J: Mmmmm. So from this place, what seems true, or real, or important?

S: It seems like it really would like to go.

J: “Go” meaning...?

S: Dissipate. It doesn’t really want to be here. It just is.

J: Ah huh. Any sense of why it’s here?

S: It seems like it was just a really bad day, like a bad weather day, but just like a bad day and it just came up and then it didn’t know how to leave.

J: Ah hah. OK.

S: Kind of like if smog came in and it got trapped in a valley, and short of there being a big wind storm or a really fierce rain or something that would dissipate it, it’s just kind of stuck there.

Notice how precise Susan gets in describing her feeling state. She gives a specific temperature, quibbles about the color, is very clear about the patchy density of the fog, and describes with a gesture exactly how it moves. The gesture also indicates how integrated the experience of feeling is with our ever-present experience of embodiment. We experience ourselves, before anything else, as material bodies in a material world, and this pervasive materiality infuses our every moment.

Also notice how Susan mentions a hint of “almost like a little feeling of shame” as she summarizes her experience of the fog. As a facilitator, I am constantly alert for hints like this one which often point to further feeling states connected to the one in focus. Feeling exists as constellations of interrelated states, and fieldwork mapping activates a sensitivity to the nuances of our inner experience, supporting us in bringing the full network of distinct states into tangible awareness.

Identifying Shame

J: So you mentioned something like a little feeling of shame. I wonder if that word points to something else that’s connected to this, or if the shame is an attribute of the fog itself.

S: The shame seems to be that it would leave if it knew how but it doesn’t. Not a shame that it appeared, but that it was meant to be temporary, and it somehow got trapped. You know? It was really just like a bad weather day. Really, really it was meant that the next morning, you wake up and there’s sunshine.

J: Right.

S: But somehow that didn’t happen. And then it didn’t happen and it didn’t happen, and here it is.

J: Yeah. OK. So there’s some shame about this existing here, about this being here. It’s sort of a...

S: And that it never meant to stay. The shame is, it was like, yeah, it was a real feeling when it occurred, like the fear was real in the moment, maybe even appropriate, but then whatever triggered it, it was over.

J: Right.

S: But it’s still here.

J: Right. OK. So does it make sense for us to add the feeling Shame to the list of states that are relevant here?

S: Yeah.

First I ask a clarifying question, inviting Susan to compare her felt experience of the label “shame” to the already mapped fog of Fearful Fear. Her reply expresses a relationship between the shame and the Fearful Fear in which the shame seems to be a reaction to the Fearful Fear’s failure to dissipate. If shame is a response to the Fearful Fear, it is different from it, and so I confirm the name and add it to the list of states we are exploring.

Drawing No!

J: Let’s start with the No! So the color of No! is going to be a silvery metallic. Right?

S: Yes.

J: And the thickness of that steel plate is, half an inch, an inch...?

S: No more than a half an inch I would say.

J: Yeah. OK.

S: I mean it’s stainless steel, after all. It doesn’t take a lot of it.

J: Right, exactly. So I think I’ll just use this...

S: So it’s actually out in front of the body. So it’s barely... yeah, there you go. Like that.

J: OK. Is that about the right size, and is it curved a little bit the way I’ve made it, or is it...

S: Ah, no, it’s straight.

J: OK.

S: Yeah, that’s right.

J: All right. And then the front view is going to be...

S: So just start at the collar bone, so you can see where the collar bone is there.

J: Uh huh.

S: And then down to just... up slightly... yeah, right there. And if you were to color it in... yeah.

J: OK. So, that is No!.

For the drawing, I am sharing my screen with Susan and drawing on a tablet with the program ArtRage. I’m starting with a template outline of a human body, and adding the illustration of the feeling state according to Susan’s description and her in-the-moment guidance as we draw it together.

Drawing a feeling state is often a discovery process of its own. When the fieldwork explorer begins to visually see the explicit representation of the state, they will sometimes discover it feels different than what they originally described. If you are facilitating someone and taking notes for them, you’ll want to update your notes with the revised state description after the drawing is complete.

Now I want to call your attention to something unexpected here. Notice that the steel plate of No! lies completely outside Susan’s body. Our common assumptions about “emotion” include the understanding that emotions are strongly somatic, generated by the nervous system in response to threats and opportunities. Our common language about emotions, our science of emotions, our methods of therapy, all orient toward emotion as a phenomenon contained by the body, plus our cognitive engagement with that physiological response.

I don’t want to take you too far into this just yet, but it’s important that I introduce the idea that the feeling we are working with here is not emotion. This map of No! is clear evidence of that. Fieldwork maps of states extending beyond the body are actually quite common as we have seen in chapter SO-4: Challenges to the Assumed Somatic Basis for Feeling.

Drawing Fearful Fear

J: And then the Fearful Fear... I think... I’ll leave this No! here so that we can draw the Fear behind the plate. And we’re looking at, this is not metallic, but this has got gray, darker and lighter.

S: And if you were to drop a line from my ear, down through my elbow, that’s about how deep it goes. Like from there to the front.

J: Right. OK. But it starts a little higher?

S: Yes. Up, right underneath my chin.

J: And would you say it’s a...

S: Yeah, like that. … And then just a little further toward my back, like one more row of color. Yeah.

J: All right. And then, should we add some darker ones?

S: Yeah.

J: Does that seem...?

S: Yep, that seems just right.

J: And how much of this dark color?

S: Just about what you’re doing. You’re on the right track. Yeah. That’s enough.

J: All right. This is the Fearful Fear. Excellent.

Because Susan has a well-developed sense of feeling, her drawings stay true to her original map descriptions. This drawing is simply about visually capturing what she has already discerned in the mapping process.

Drawing a feeling state provides a reinforcement of the detachment of one’s identity from the feeling. When you can see it in front of you, represented on an outline of (your) body, it becomes more difficult to experience yourself AS the feeling. You naturally find yourself inhabiting a perspective that the feeling is something you have, rather than something you are. This in itself is strongly therapeutic in many cases.

Let’s revisit the idea of feeling being different from emotion. In emotion, various external and internal perceptual signals stimulate the emotional systems of the brain and body to produce a physiological state that prepares the body for an appropriate response. The body has one emotional state, possibly generated by more than one emotional circuit but being forced to integrate as one state by the singular nature of the body as a whole.

In mapping No! and Fearful Fear, we see in contrast two distinct and different states. This is further evidence that in working with the actual, felt experience of feeling, we are engaging something very different from the body’s emotional circuitry. Keep that in mind as we proceed. What we currently understand about emotion does not map well to what we discover in our investigations of actual feeling states as we experience them.

Exploring Shame

J: First of all, let me ask, while we were drawing (Fearful Fear), did you discover anything else significant?

S: Noticing the Shame, I don’t think I knew that. I think that was a discovery that there was some Shame. And in particular that the Shame was that there was a good reason this all showed up, but then the reason was done with, and it could have gone away but it just didn’t know how.

J: Yeah?

S: If I were to describe it, it feels like this little porcupine. But all curled up, where it’s just all spikes, you know?

And that actually feels like it’s the feeling that’s at the heart of it. It’s like, if I weren’t ashamed, the Fear would go away, which means there wouldn’t be the need for the steel plate. And the Shame is almost like, it’s like I brought on myself this not being able to receive love. (I don’t know, I’m not saying this very well.)

J: What it sounds like is that the Shame is what grounds the interpretation that it’s not OK to receive love.

S: Yeah, yeah.

J: You haven’t been able to figure out how to let this Fear go...

S: Yeah. And it’s almost like I don’t deserve to, like if I created all this nonsense, and I don’t know how to get rid of it, well...! You know: of course I can’t receive love, and why should I be able to, having done all this silly stuff. You know?

I had originally been on track with Susan to move the two states No! and Fearful Fear. As this was a demonstration session, I hadn’t intended to go more deeply than these two. But Susan was surprised by her discovery of the Shame and wanted to explore it. As she poked around at it, it become clear that the Shame served to anchor the whole set of feelings in place. The Shame seemed to be holding the Fearful Fear in place, which in turn seemed to be holding the No! in place.

We often find these kinds of chains of control in feeling states. When I am conducting a limited session where my client’s intention is to get the maximum benefit in the shortest time, my goal is to quickly identify what I call the “pivot” state around which the entire pattern set revolves. Releasing the pivot often clears the way for a natural release of the full pattern. In this case, it’s clear that the best results will happen if we include the Shame in our list of states to complete.

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What’s Next

In the next post, we’ll dig into mapping Susan’s Shame. As we do, we will discover a fourth state lying hidden inside. What do you anticipate?

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This (including the following two posts) is the transcript and commentary for the first half of a single, self-contained demo session with Susan, a participant in a small training I conducted in early 2017. You can listen to the audio here:

The transcript has my comments interspersed throughout in italics to give you more information about what’s happening in the session, using what shows up to illustrate the method and what it reveals about the territory of feeling.

(NOTE: Susan — not her real name — gave me her full permission to share her session with the public. I am immensely grateful for her offer.)

We’re working remotely by video conferencing. My intention is to give Susan a complete experience of mapping and moving several feeling states and to demonstrate the basics of the fieldwork process.

As you follow this, you might imagine yourself in either my role, Susan’s role, or both. You’ll see an example of how to facilitate fieldwork sessions as well as what it is like to undergo the fieldwork process.

This chapter will cover our experience of mapping four states. I’ll wait to present the second half in Volume 2, where I’ll share the full fieldwork moving instructions. The full map-and-move will look like this when all states are drawn:

Above: Susan opens to love. Four states mapped and moved.

Identifying No!

Susan: I think something that’s really up for me right now in general is receiving, allowing myself to receive. And specifically to receive love.

Joe: That sounds like a great place to work. So what do you experience in situations where you’re not allowing yourself to receive love?

Susan: It’s a noticing, like somewhere inside my physical body there’s a barrier or boundary, like the love can’t come in. I can feel it around the outside of me. And I can even feel it on my skin, on the outside of my body, but as it approaches, and I would say maybe as it approaches my heart, there just seems to be a boundary. So that my heart... when I’m loving, when I’m sending love out, or opening my heart to someone else like in terms of connecting with them, I can feel my heart open. But when I think, “Oh, there’s just this wave of love coming my way, and it would be so delicious to take it in,” it seems to stop. Like to not go fully in.

Joe: Right.

Susan: And it’s almost like there’s a fear, if I really took it all the way in, I might just explode with love or something. You know? It would be more than my system can handle.

J: OK.

S: I mean, I’m just seeing that right now, that behind that barrier is I think a fear that it would just be too much.

J: So do you have any experience of what “too much” can feel like for you?

S: It feels like a loss of control. Like it’s more than I can control or contain. (These things are occurring to me as I’m speaking to you.) So it’s...

J: So the feeling of loss of control...

S: Yeah.

J: Let’s zoom in there. What would you call that feeling, the anticipation of what it feels like to lose control, to have more than you can contain or control?

S: Again it feels very scary. I mean, like there’s some fear, like what’s gonna happen?

J: So what would you like to call that fear?

S: Just, “no.” I mean, I notice when you asked me what I would like to call it, I wanted to do this. {gestures with arms blocking chest}

J: OK. Would it make sense to give it the name, “No”?

S: Yes.

J: OK. Does it need an exclamation point after it?

S: Yes.

In this first few minutes, my goal is to help Susan identify and name a single feeling state for us to map. She has identified something she is calling No! but there also seems to be an indication of something else that could be called “fear,” as if the “barrier” is the No! and as she says, “behind that barrier is I think a fear that it would just be too much.”

I want to call your attention to how I’m encouraging her to call her feeling states by whatever name she finds most useful. We shall see that the standard vocabulary for feeling and emotion is far too limited to capture the immense diversity of actual feeling experience, and it’s important to honor the uniqueness of each person’s experience of every feeling state in this way.

At this early stage, we’re not sure whether the No! is the fear, or the fear is a separate state related to the No! I suspect they are two different states, but that’s OK. I don’t need to know right now. For now we’re ready to map the first named feeling state, and we’ll discover more through the mapping.

Mapping No!

J: Now I’m going to lead you through a series of questions to help you describe what No! actually feels like. Just be open to whatever comes up, whatever shows up for you as an answer to the question, and test out: does that seem like it’s true for you in your experience. And don’t get too hung up on whether it’s a right answer or not. It’s just feeling your way into something that captures your experience as best as we can. All right? {Susan nods “yes.”}

So when you put your attention on this fear, this feeling of No!, if you were to say that the actual, felt experience of this is located somewhere in or around your body, where would you say that seems to be?

S: Heart level, starting mid chest, just below my heart, up probably to my jaw. So through my throat.

J: OK. So mid-chest, just below your heart, up probably to your jaw. So all the way through your throat. Is it just the front part of your chest, or does it go all the way through to your shoulder blades?

S: No. Just on the front.

J: And in that region, if you were to say that the actual, felt experience of this has qualities of substance, would you say that it seems more like a solid, or a liquid, or a gas, or some kind of light or energy, or something else?

S: Solid. Definitely solid.

J: OK. And hard or soft?

S: Hard.

J: Heavy or light?

S: Heavy.

J: OK. Anything else to notice about the substance quality? Does it resemble anything from the material world?

S: Well it feels like a steel plate.

J: What temperature would you say this steel plate seems to be?

S: Slightly cooler than body temperature. Like not freezing cold, but I experience it as cool compared to my body temperature.

J: And if you were to say that this feeling, this felt experience, this substance, this steel plate has color, what color would you say it is?

S: It’s silver, I mean like stainless steel color.

J: So the color of stainless steel. And would you say it’s opaque then, like steel, you wouldn’t be able to see through it at all?

S: Yes. It’s definitely opaque.

J: And is it shiny like stainless steel then?

S: Yes.

J: And is this stainless steel plate moving in any way?

S: No.

J: So it’s perfectly still, no pulse or vibration?

S: Nope.

J: Any force or pressure that you notice?

S: Yeah, a little. I mean, I’m sitting up, so it’s not like it’s weighing on me, keeping me from breathing. But it is as if it’s pressed solidly against me. So I’m very aware of it but I’m not feeling crushed by it.

J: OK. And if you listen internally, do you notice any inner sound that arises with this feeling?

S: Kind of a hum, like mmmmmmmmmmm.

J: OK. What note is that?

S: It is kind of a low tone. And more a minor key than a major key.

J: All right. Is there anything else you want to notice about what this feels like?

S: Well it feels like it covers my chest up to my collar bone, so like from my collarbone to my jaw, my neck and throat, I feel like a little upward pressure. You know, like if someone were, like if I press on my chest, then there’s kind of a pressure up in my body.

J: OK. Got it. So the actual steel plate doesn’t come up to your jaw, but...

S: No. Just to my collar bone.

J: But then there’s the experience of something pushing up.

S: Yeah.

In this portion of the session, we map the first feeling state. I introduce the mapping process by giving Susan full latitude to explore, letting her know there are no “right” answers to the questions I’ll be asking and putting the responsibility on her to find the best ways to capture her experience. My primary job is to guide her attention; her job is to report what she finds. Along the way I’m also taking detailed notes to support her reflection and integration of our work after the session.

Susan is a bodyworker, and has studied a couple of somatic therapy methods as well, so she finds it easy and natural to answer the fieldwork questions. She is able to place her attention on her inner, felt experience of No! and quickly report back about its qualities. Some people will have an easier time than others. You can find tips for how to support someone learning this skill for the first time in the Fieldwork Overview and Fieldwork in Depth: Mapping sections.

The questions themselves follow a standard form in this mapping. I’ve found that most often, things flow most smoothly when attention is led through the feeling experience in this order:

• Location, size and shape.

• Substance, including the possibilities of solid, liquid, gas, light, energy, or other.

• Temperature.

• Color and transparency.

• Movement, force and pressure.

• Sound.

(In the example of substance, providing a list of options makes it easier for the explorer to say “no” to specific qualities and notice which one fits best. It’s a little harder when the question is left wide open. We’ll notice later, though, that Susan doesn’t need this careful guidance.)

At the end of this section, we see that the force of the steel plate pushing inward on her chest is eliciting a responding sensation of something behind the plate pushing upward. These kinds of interactions between feeling state forms are common, and in this example, I choose to explore that upward pressure in her chest.

Identifying Fearful Fear

J: What would you say that is, that’s being pushed up? What’s your experience of what’s behind the plate?

S: It sounds weird but it feels like the metal plate is kind of pushing on the fear, like the fear is rising up in my throat.

J: Ahh.

S: So, like, “Oohhhhhh!” Kind of a panicked, “Whoaaaaaaah,” like that.

J: So it’s like the fear is actually behind the No!.

S: Yes.

J: Ah hah. OK.

S: It’s like the No! is to protect, almost, (that sounds weird too, but), to protect the fear.

J: Right. And what would you like to call the fear? Do you want to call it “fear” or something else?

S: Actually, it’s like Fearful Fear. Which is kind of funny, but it seems to be what’s true.

J: OK. Great. You can call feelings anything you want. So Fearful Fear is a great name. I’m going to suggest that we go ahead and map Fearful Fear, because we will find that No! probably isn’t going to want to move as long as that fear is there. Right?

S: Right, because it’s the protector.

J: Exactly.

S: It’s not going to go anywhere as long as there’s something to protect.

Here we see clearly how the No! and the Fearful Fear coexist and interact. These are two distinct feeling states that are simultaneously present. Susan’s awareness of the actual, felt experience of this interaction provides insight into the meanings of these feelings.

Completing No!

J: So, the No! – come back to the steel plate. We’ll map the Fearful Fear in a second. If you were to capture in words what seems true, or real, or important to that steel plate, what would you say?

S: Well it feels very responsible, like it’s got a very important job to do, and it really needs to do it well. So a big feeling of responsibility.

J: Right. OK. Anything else that comes to mind that you want to notice about this No! feeling?

S: Well I notice it also has a feeling of competence, like it’s up to the job.

J: Ah hah. Great. So it’s a competent protector.

S: Yes.

Here we are inviting this specific feeling state to express its perspective. By inviting this expression, we have an opportunity to learn more about the nature of this feeling state, what it is trying to accomplish, and what other feeling states might be interacting with it.

It’s important that we welcome whatever the expression is, honoring the No! exactly where it is. In doing so, this part of Susan is invited to lean into the process, to trust where we’re going. (In this case, the No! is expressing something that might be conventionally considered a positive sentiment or function. But as a facilitator I want to remain positive in receiving an expression even if it might seem to be “negative” in conventional terms.)

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In this chapter, I would like to revisit work by my client Louise from the intro chapter, IS-1: A New Science of Being. There we learned about her experience of shifting a state she called Crumbling to one she called Core Strength.

In this chapter, we start with Louise sharing her experience of moving another state she called Isolated Outside. Then we check in at two weeks and a few months later for her to share more of her experience of how things shifted in her life over several months and beyond. It’s a nice peek into the experience of psychotopology fieldwork.

Shifting Isolated Outside to Inclusive

In Louise’s words:

“The next feeling I mapped was a strong feeling state I called Isolated Outside. I have always felt on the outside of things. Like a shadow observing but never invited to enter. I saw the whole world of social interactions as something I could never really be a part of. I felt comfortable interacting with one other person, but I always kept my distance emotionally and kept a very solid invisible wall around myself.

In groups, I felt isolated as though everyone involved was a part of something I didn’t have the ability to understand. ‘You’re so quiet’ is a comment I heard many times. I would smile sweetly and say something elusive and somehow people got the idea I was intelligent. I was happy to allow that perception when in reality I felt lost and wary and lonely, and lacking in whatever it was everyone else seemed to have.

I discovered that Isolated Outside is a part of self I developed in response to being so sensitive to people. A simple phrase that may or may not have been intended as a criticism or ridicule would just about destroy me. I kept an uninterested cool exterior image as a front to hide how fragile I felt.

“I shifted Isolated Outside and I discovered a space around me that felt safe and that I influenced. It pulsed. It felt like a warm yellow light all around me. I saw it as a space where people could exist in my life. It was a space I held and it was a part of me but it was removed enough that what happened there could not destroy me. This was a huge relief. I look back at my self in this state and feel a deep sense of compassion, as though my self in that state were an undeveloped me, too young to understand but still kind of cute in its fumbling way.

“Moving this part changed my interactions immediately. I began making friends quickly. People I had known on an acquaintance basis for months or years got closer. The only thing that changed was me and all I did was shift my awareness of, and reaction to, other people. I created a space to let them in.

I realize now that many people also feel shy or insecure or self-conscious at times. I am not the only one. This realization has transformed my interactions with people. I always felt judged by others because I was so harshly judging myself. Other people’s reactions to me shifted. As I became more at ease in my self, people around me became more at ease in my presence. It has led to a wonderful unfolding in my social, professional, and personal relationships.”

---

Below are my notes capturing Louise’s mapping of both Isolated Outside and Inclusive.

Isolated Outside

I’m standing back from the feeling. It’s out in front, spherical, four feet in diameter; like a dense, foggy cloud, charcoal dark gray, wispy on the edges, dense in the middle, but you can run your hand through it, not solid. Kind of cold and damp. Just floating, pretty still. Total silence. Dense feeling at my heart, very dense but moist and gray and very cold. It’s like the cloud is coming out from my center, cold, and then it forms this cloud and gets cool and damp and less intense and bigger, like moisture particles.

I can see what’s coming from here. So I’m safer back here. I can see what might come at me, so that I’m ready. It’s safer here.

---

Inclusive

Body temp; lighter, pure energy; gold, shimmering, translucent; moving with a lot of energy, constant movement, little particles vibrating, humming; radiating out from my core in all directions; pulses in and out, very gently; there’s a pulse but there’s no real end; it’s continuously radiating out of my core. Going out and coming back, like breathing, rate of comfortable breath. Sound is like a breath.

You carry all the protection you need inside of you. It creates a space that other people can move into; there’s this gentle pulse, allowing things in, including other people in the pulse of the interaction.

---

Reflections

Here is what Louise wrote about her experience a couple of weeks after this shift.

“After mapping and moving several states over the last two weeks, I love how this process has a path that you follow. And each part really couldn’t be any other way. It just is. It’s like a discovery. I like how each layer unfolds naturally. It’s not forced. And the few times I have tried to make it be something I thought it should be, Joe stopped me, to focus on just experiencing, unfolding the next piece, to see what it is. I could tell when I was getting off track, but it’s hard not to have ideas. I’ve been working on that. This work really can’t be forced.

“I can start to feel it coming into place. Last week I felt really disoriented. As more things get mapped and shifted, there’s this real feeling of peace and acceptance. I was just sitting here watching the seagulls and clouds, and I was in this feeling of timelessness.”

I love the way Louise’s description here captures the experience of a natural unfolding in the process of fieldwork. As she says, you can’t force it. Mapping and moving is a process of discovery of something innately you.

Louise’s description of her experience before and after shifting Crumbling and Isolated Outside is typical of many people doing the work. Isolated Outside was central to the experience of the entire set of feeling states, playing a role I call a pivot.

Shifting a pivot state can sometimes result in the entire set letting go of its reactive configuration and becoming free to find a new way of being. When I work with people who have limited time, we generally strive to identify and shift a pivot state. It’s preferable, though, to do more thorough work, identifying the full set of parts in their reactive states, and moving each one to its ideal, then supporting the ideal states in integrating. In our work together, Louise and I did a fairly complete job of that, contributing to the significance of her overall shift.

Longer Term Integration

Louise and I worked over a period of several months. She describes her experience as “hitting the reset button” on her life. Here’s what she has to say about the impact of the work a few months after we finished.

“Each area of my life has changed in some way. I find new opportunities to develop my business and my skills daily and I have the confidence to pursue the opportunities. I enjoy meeting new people professionally and socially. I enjoy participating in conversations and adding my voice to the world around me. Instead of destroying me, I find that criticism gives me the chance to clarify my thoughts on a specific subject. The many little fears that used to limit me in the world have all but fallen away.

“When I do feel resistance or discomfort now, I take the time to look at the situation and at my reaction to it. I can use my emotional response to guide me towards rewarding work and experiences and away from useless, limiting or damaging situations. I enjoy starting new projects and solving problems in existing projects and this leads to that wonderful feeling of satisfaction when the job is done and I know it is the best work I can produce.

“The rebuilding is an ongoing process. It is exciting and challenging. Life feels fresher, newer, and the possibilities seem more possible and more numerous. I can see the threads of my life up to this point, and I see how I can shape my future at every step along the way.”

This kind of expansion of perspective is common in this work. When we are trapped in a reactive compensation pattern, our awareness is often locked into very limited ways of experiencing our world. When we release the hold these patterns have on our awareness, it expands to include more of the resources that naturally lie within ourselves. We can see any given situation from multiple points of view, and we bring much more of ourselves to the task of responsively navigating any given situation that arises.

A Reflection on Physical Awareness

Before closing, I want to share Louise’s description of her experience of shifting states with fieldwork and how that intersects strongly with her somatic experience.

“One of the most surprising and intense parts of this process is the physical feeling that accompanies the emotional states. It feels like a real realignment is happening within, not only your mind and your emotional state, but in your physical being as well. Shifting a strong emotion was commonly accompanied by a feeling of tingling all through my body, lightness, and excitement.”

This example highlights the relationship between the field dimension (particularly that of affect fields — see Introducing Inner Fields in SO-11:Getting Real About Inner Experience) and the body. For most people, the relationship is very tight, and changes in one influence changes in the other.

This relationship between affect fields and somatic experience represents a prime opportunity for future research for those researchers and labs set up to pursue it. Just a suggestion…

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Now let’s move to the next example, a dynamic transformation that led to an exciting career shift. This is the story of three sessions in which Gail (not her real name) transforms a core terror that was keeping her from pursuing her dreams. In the first session, she enters her inner space to get an idea of what’s there and create some first steps toward possibility. In the second, she transforms the terror into what she describes as a “bridge to a higher power,” and begins to change the direction of her life toward becoming a filmmaker. In the third session, she addresses a lingering anxiety that arose as she was nearing success. You can listen to Gail’s reflections here:

The interview was recorded about eight months after the work was done, and she discusses how her life has changed. I’ve broken this into three sections below, each dealing with the effects of one of the three sessions, each with a complete transcript (slightly edited for readability).

Session One

I came out of this session feeling very differently and … absolutely positive that the life ahead of me could be as amazing as I wanted it to be.

Gail: Our first session, when you tried to explain to me what your work was, you said, It’s really hard to explain in words because it’s dealing with feelings or the feeling body. And that the best way for me to understand it would be to experience it.

So I met with you and had a session and… what was so amazing about your work is that — the first time that I did it — is that it completely went right to what I call the right brain, the creative mind, which is so different from like psychoanalysis that I’ve been to in the past, which is all, just like your past and your history and like what happened in your life to shape you where you are now and you have to kind of go back through all these facts that are just like stored in your brain.

And it seems like it was such a drudgery to do that, and anytime I felt like I needed to deal with an issue or something that was limiting me in my life or an emotion that felt really scary or something, the thought of going to regular therapy, again, was just, like, too much. Just, I don’t want to do it, I don’t want to go back there, I don’t want to go back to those places and talk about the same old things. And, so I was looking for a new approach to dealing with my emotions and stuff that were coming up in my life.

I think the first time I had a session with you, I was, had already been out of my marriage, was already separated, but there was a lot of stuff that needed to be cleaned up and addressed.

And so when, when I met with you and… going right to those areas of feeling and imagery and expression, it addressed everything right now, like, my state of being now. Which is really where the work needed to be done. It doesn’t need to be done in the past, it needs to be done right here.

I really appreciated that, and I felt that was very powerful, because dealing in now meant that we could change things now or shift things now.

It’s, to me it’s really simple because we all want to feel empowered and joyful and alive and positive and all those things. And so I felt my, my first experience with you was very much that. I was able to go into where I was at the time, which if I remember correctly, was kind of hopeless with what I was feeling, and that some of the dreams that I had for myself were not possible, that I was a failure in some way for my marriage and being a single mom and, and moving this new path in my life. And so I had these fears that some of the dreams that I still had from before I was married were maybe not possible.

And I came out of this session feeling very differently and very, I don’t want to say hopeful, but just absolutely positive that the life ahead of me could be as amazing as I wanted it to be.

Joe: And this was about a year ago, right?

Gail: No, this was longer.

Joe: I think it was December of last year.

Gail: Oh, wow, OK.

Joe: Yeah.

Gail: So that’s when we started, yeah.

Joe: So it seems longer because so much has happened.

Gail: So much, yeah, absolutely.

Joe: And we only met for, I think, like an hour and a half. You were fast!

Gail: Well, and what I liked too, is that you had like the pencils and markers there, so I could draw as part of the work. You had just pencil and paper so I could write. Or I could not do any of it. And I, I really appreciated that because I could see how there could be times where it’s hard to find the words for a feeling, but you could draw it and access it that way.

So that was my first experience.

Joe: So, and then what happened after that?

Gail: Oh, okay. So what I, the biggest thing that I remember pulling out of the first experience was we actually created in the session, we created new feelings for me and I remember like giving them names and an identity.

So I had this list, I came home with this list and I remember looking at it for the next couple of weeks. And that just seeing that these feelings were always here and they were always possible and by naming them and giving them an identity, I could go to them right away. And I thought that was really cool.

And that process in itself, just being able to take that home and have those written out, began opening up more stuff for me. Because maybe one day I would look, and want to access one of those parts and, and it was there, but then like something else would come in and, and maybe, you know, make it not so easy to get there. And it was like, Okay, let me take note of that because it’s something I need to work on with Joe. Because there’s so many layers to really getting at the source of who we are.

And so it was that first process, I think actually was more an opening to seeing how many layers of crap, stuff, were blocking my joy from day to day, or from moment to moment, or the possibility of reaching that.

So that’s really amazing to be able to see that.

Session 2

“I can’t even remember what it feels like to have that space of that fear”

Joe: And then, we worked again…

Gail: Yeah, we did.

Joe: Like a month or two later.

Gail: My second session with you completely just blew off the lid of any kind of limitation that I would have in my life. And that session was dealing with all of the fear and… OK, so there was a lot of trauma in my life, regarding some abuse and stuff.

So, in my past, in regular therapy, I learned some coping skills on how to deal with maybe some anxieties that came out around it, and I analyzed all of it that happened, and why it happened and how, you know, I was able to kind of separate everything and see it, and understand that it wasn’t my fault, and make sense of it in a way that it was somewhat manageable.

But there was a feeling that would pop up from time to time, an actual physical, physiological reaction that was created during those times of abuse. And that was still not manageable for me. And it would come up at times when, you know, it was triggered by whatever. And that was something that totally paralyzed me in my life when it occurred.

And it was the scariest feeling I have ever experienced, and it’s like my body would just get trapped in that terror. And that was what we addressed in the second session. And when going into that, instead of trying to manage it, your technique took me into it and asked it what it needed to heal.

Why was it still there? And what did it need? Or what did I need? Or whatever the process is, but the feeling was given a chance to be completely transformed.

And that’s what we did. And that particular moment when we transformed that feeling was, I totally remember, that it was like, I just created a bridge to a higher power that some people would call God or whatever.

I don’t use the word God, but higher power, source, whatever that created us, me here. And it was a just a total bridge to that, “Wow, that this is on the other side of that fear, is this amazing unconditional love and safety. And just, everything is okay.” And to this day, it’s been a year, but I haven’t, I can’t even remember what it feels like to have that space of that fear and that paralyzing feeling, like I couldn’t even get there. I don’t, I just, I don’t feel like it’s even possible to go there. It was there. It was a part of me, but it’s… the other is so much more powerful. And that was the biggest stepping stone for me to where I’m headed now. I truly believe that that was the biggest limitation that I’ve had in my entire life that kept me stuck in patterns and not really accessing who I really am.

Joe: So where are you headed now?

Gail: So, it’s very exciting. I am headed… I’m now a budding film director and producer and writer. That is really where I’ve always wanted to go since I was a little kid. And although I took lots of little steps to get there, there was always something that would just knock me down.

And there was no way I could do it. I couldn’t, no way. “I can’t do that. I can’t live up to that. That’s… absolutely not.”

Now it’s like, “Well, yeah, of course, absolutely. That’s just who I am. I mean, this is so stupid. Like, why wouldn’t I do that?” So there’s, that’s really cool.

And everything else is just like, I don’t know. Everything else is just falling into place around that.

Session 3

“From that day on, I’ve been resting easy and in excitement about my project and my future.”

Joe: So then the third time we worked was when you were having a nightmare or something.

Gail: Yeah. So the third time was another real biggie because I was experiencing this as I chose to move forward as a filmmaker again. And I started working on my project, this short film that I wrote. And so I started taking the steps to pull everybody together for that and get the project rolling. And literally, at night, when I would lay down to go to sleep, I would get, like, stricken with this incredible anxiety.

And all of these reasons and stories in my own head, kinda like voices in a way, that were telling me, “You can’t do this. It’s not gonna work. You’re not important enough. Nobody’s gonna take you seriously. You’re not talented enough. Who do you think you are? I mean, you’re just, you know… “

And it was like the mental experience that I have is, like, I felt like I was sitting in my bed one night, and these demonic hands were just, like, reaching out and grabbing me. That’s what it felt like. “No! You can’t do it! You can’t do it!”

And then I was, but I was kinda like this {curling up, protecting head with arms}, you know, and I didn’t wanna hear them. But the emotions that came up inside of me were… It was just fear because I didn’t know where to go. Here they were trying to grab me, and if I peeked out, they would get me.

And we did some work on that feeling. I can’t remember the things at the moment that we identified, but the result was incredible. And from that day on, I’ve been resting easy and in excitement about my project and my future, and it’s done, pretty much. I mean, we’re editing, but, like, the all the stuff that I was afraid of that I thought I couldn’t do, is done.

And I think the biggest piece of it is that, before that moment, I was still hiding myself from the world a little bit. I was very particular about who I would tell that I was doing this project. Because I thought, well, I kinda chose who would believe in me and who wouldn’t.

And then after our session, it was like, well, it doesn’t matter who believes in me and who doesn’t, this is who I am. This is just who I am. It would be like taking my body and trying to turn it into something other than it is. Now everybody in my life, in the world, knows me as a budding film director, and that’s the way it should be.

That’s really cool. So, yeah, that was… I’ve not had another anxiety attack around that. Around anything, actually.

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Lots of us experience anxiety at various times. Much anxiety is appropriate and serves the purpose of activating our awareness to avoid or minimize a potential threat of some kind. For many people, though, anxiety can become more chronic, disrupting our lives in major ways.

What’s going on in the actual experience of anxiety? By bringing our awareness to the field dimension of the anxiety experience, fieldwork illuminates the dynamic that can set anxiety up for longer-term persistence. It also gives us the means to undo that dynamic and relieve the anxiety, restoring access to greater resourcefulness and more appropriate responses to the actual realities of our lives. Let’s take a look at how this works.

From Black Hole to Love Is Everywhere

I worked with Kelly over a period of about a week, perhaps four or five long sessions. Here’s an image she drew of a state she called Black Hole:

In addition to Black Hole, here are the other states she worked with, with illustrations following.

• Anxiety / Panic

• Despicable

• Angry Teenager

• Shame

• Parental Judge

• Tears of Sadness

• Needs Not Met

• Not Seen

The names of the states give you a sense of what this entire experience of what she referred to in summary as “anxiety” was like for her, and some hints about its origins. Read through this list and sense into the images. Try to imagine the experience of what it was like to be her, holding those reactive states as a set of distinct parts of her experience, all combining into this “weight of anxiety” as she describes it in her reflections below.

From this, it becomes clear that her anxiety does not exist in isolation. It is not a thing in and of itself, but a relationship among a family of parts, each carrying some portion of her history and her response to it. When we can break things down at this level of detail, we get to peer into the complex dynamic that makes the anxiety a persistent dynamic in her life.

The Shift

In working with these reactive states, one at a time, Kelly’s experience shifted dramatically. For example, Black Hole turned into a state she called Love Is Everywhere.

Overall, we worked about fifteen hours total. Here are the names of each of the ideal states that emerged, paired with their original, reactive version.

• Anxiety / Panic ⟹ Divine Innocence

• Despicable ⟹ I Exist, Therefore I Am Loved

• Angry Teenager ⟹ At Choice

• Shame ⟹ Inherently Lovable

• Parental Judge ⟹ Supportive Wisdom

• Tears of Sadness ⟹ Radiant Love

• Needs Not Met ⟹ Full, Warm, & Comfortable

• Not Seen ⟹ Standing in the Flow of Grace

• Black Hole ⟹ Love Is Everywhere

As before, we have nine states, but this time they are working together to give her a very stable experience of comfort and aliveness in her life.

“A profound shift in my being”

Here is what Kelly wrote as a testimonial a few months later:

“Since working with Joe, I have felt a profound shift in my being – physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. I feel like the weight of anxiety (big, dark, gray and black) has been lifted off of my shoulders. This weight that I have felt for a majority of my life has been replaced by a sense of lightness, vitality, and a deeper sense of compassion for myself and others. I feel a sense of calm, centeredness, joy, profound love, and positive energy.

“In my past, my pattern has been to be very fearful of conflict, as I quickly would go to a place of shame and blame. I would be engulfed so entirely by my own feelings (anger at myself, shame, worthlessness, projections of how the other person might be viewing me negatively, etc.) that there would be no room for the other person to have their feelings too. I experienced what effects this had on my relationships, as they were never sustainable within this pattern of relating. It was so frustrating for me, because I knew what I was capable of! I knew I had emotional intelligence and strong abilities to communicate.

“But why couldn’t I get over this pattern? It just seemed more powerful than me…beyond my own ability to control it. I wanted to get rid of it so that I could be ‘normal’. I have spent years in talk therapy, trying different forms of energy work, workshops, meditation, etc. These were all helpful, but the patterns were hanging on for dear life.

“What I have been experiencing since working with Joe is an ability to more easily speak my truth and express my needs, even my anger, without feeling the shame, blame, or worthlessness. There is a spaciousness for the anger or frustration and there is space for the other person’s feelings as well. I can have my feelings, express my needs clearly, and still have the love inside for myself and this other person all at the same time. I can more easily see and experience our humanness, our mutual need to feel loved and worthy, our fear of rejection, etc. It feels so much more encompassing. Perhaps the lightness I feel, and the joy and the love, is about feeling more of a sense of Oneness with others, having more awareness that we are really the same inside, having similar wants, needs and desires that are basic to our humanness.

“Words cannot express my gratitude for what Joe (and the process he has developed) has helped me to open myself to. I do believe it was there all along, just waiting to come out and be expressed. The weight is not necessarily something that has left me, but instead there is a lightness that has come over me and embraced me. And in that, it has lifted me up! The lightness of my being is ‘embracing’ the shadow parts of me, so that I can experience all parts of me with compassion and love. By embracing this in myself, I am more able to embrace the shadow and light in others too. What a relief this is, to know that nothing really needed to be ‘fixed’ or changed, just seen and experienced from a different perspective. I am able to see that these shadow and light parts just wanted to help me survive, to have my basic needs met, to feel loved, and to feel safe.

“Thank you so much, Joe. I feel my life has been forever changed as a result of our work together. It will be interesting to see how this continues to play out in my life. I am excited to be creating my life from this new way of being. How fun is that?”

Accessing What Is Possible

I want to call your attention especially to that next-to-last paragraph. Here, Kelly describes the experience of restoring a set of parts to its natural functioning. The fact is, the shape of Kelly’s life still most likely has a residue from the way she assembled it while under the influence of her early life experiences, including those held in other sets we did not explicitly explore.

At the same time, she now has access to the ideal states for each of these parts. These serve as a compass, pointing the way to what is possible, helping her see the purpose of the “shadow parts” of this set, and to respond to life situations in ways that support her highest well-being. But it goes even further than this one-to-one state shift.

It is apparent from Kelly’s description that she has learned something more fundamental about the role of difficult feeling states. She has established a far more generative and healthy relationship to all reactive feeling states in both herself and in others. She recognizes that they all hold a deeper, positive intention, and she is able to carry a core curiosity about that intention, and a respect for it, as she moves through the challenges of life and relationship.

This enables her to “embrace the shadow and light in others, too.” She ends with, “I am able to see that these shadow and light parts just wanted to help me survive, to have my basic needs met, to feel loved, and to feel safe.”

This is something we learn over and over again as we do fieldwork. Every part of us, no matter how deeply burdened, no matter how dark the shadow, is actually striving to serve us, fully and completely. Every part is doing the best it possibly can. What separates us from the truth of wholeness are the experiences that suggest that our needs cannot be met, that we are in essence separated from our world in some way. Restoring these parts through fieldwork heals that separation and revives our natural wholeness.

Dynamic Sets of Interrelated Parts of Being

I also want to come back to this confining idea of anxiety as a thing-in-itself. When we think of anxiety as a thing, as the problem to be solved or the disorder to be corrected, we miss the bigger essential picture.

Yes, there is the experience of anxiety. But anxiety — and any other state we choose to name — does not exist in isolation. Ever. And when we privilege what we have named (for whatever reason) and push the rest of our experience into the background, we set ourselves up for difficulty no matter how we attempt to address the “problem.”

Here are Kelly’s words again: “I have spent years in talk therapy, trying different forms of energy work, workshops, meditation, etc. And although these were all helpful, the patterns were still hanging on for dear life.” The patterns were hanging on, and those patterns included far more than the anxiety itself.

Psychotopology lays this bare, and calls us to step up in our work to support others’ well-being. If we are to be effective in helping people relieve suffering of any kind, we absolutely must open our field of attention to include the full dynamic of not just the focal state but all the other interrelated components that hold the pattern in place. Fieldwork gives us a straightforward, systematic, and efficient method for doing that.

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Many of us are familiar with being trapped between a seemingly intractable pressure from expectations on the outside and our desires and truths on the inside. This common dynamic shows up in many forms in the individuals impacted by it.

Here are a few examples of unpacking the fear and anxiety that often acts as the paralyzing force, showing what can happen when we release it.

“A Refreshing Transformation”

Mike worked with me for just one hour over the phone, focusing on a fear of public speaking which was affecting his professional success. Here are his words, including a description of how he experienced our work together:

“We talked about some physical distress I exhibited each time I presented a seminar or hosted an event. Through a series of guided imagery questions Joe had me actually visually place the feelings that came up during presentations in a specific place in my body. He prompted me to describe, locate, and get very acquainted with those feelings. He asked me to allow those feelings to transform into a different shape, space, and place.

“I immediately received a sense of lightening up, a refreshing transformation that freed me up and left me very, very energized. He left me with specific instructions as to how I can re-create that transformation and recall the image I created prior to my presentations. I now cue myself before every presentation, client meeting, and networking opportunity to fortify myself with that powerful image of who I am and what I offer those I connect with.

“I found the experience of my session with Joe invaluable. I easily connected with the model of creating visual images and descriptions for the questions he used to guide my learning experience. I am a very visual and creative person. Though we did talk of some very intimate things that lead me to a fairly vulnerable place, I always felt safe with his guidance and support. One of the best things is that he took notes and had a way of recording our session so whenever I want to go back through a reminder or refresher on my discovery, I can. I was completely free to do the work necessary.

“Being freed from the focus on how I’m being perceived, or how am I doing, or what am I going to say next is invaluable. It has allowed me to truly listen and be present while presenting, whether to a group or just one person.”

Mike’s experience was brief and focused. We did not work a full set or go deep into the structure that held his fear of public speaking in place. He is describing our session in the conversational terms in which he understands it. We focused on a simple strategy of shifting the fear itself, and anchoring that new state in a tangible, easily-accessible form.

From there, Mike simply activated that state whenever he needed it. Psychotopology fieldwork makes this strategy practical and straightforward.

“I felt good. I felt victory!”

One more client, Peter, had this to say two weeks after working over two long days with me, maybe 12 hours total, where he transformed a fear of public speaking that was so bad it had put him in the emergency room a few times before he sought my help. He’s describing a recent sales presentation he did:

“If I would have walked in there before I met you, I know I would have been sweating, stuttering, and probably left the room five, ten times, because I just would not be able to stay in there because of fear.

“Yesterday I sat in the middle, spoke to everybody, looked everybody in the eye, and talked to them like I had something to offer. I felt like I wanted to feel, the whole time, without feeling fear. Just like I’m talking to you here.

“It didn’t matter if it was one person or ten people, I was me, all the way through, and not out of whack, not too scared, not nervous. And I felt good. I felt victory!”

A couple years after I worked with Peter, he sent me this note:

“Your work has truly changed my life. I now look at my life as before meeting with you and after. I am now more of the person I have always wanted to be because of our sessions. Thank you so much.”

The Difference Between Moving a State and Moving a Set

The example of Mike’s leaping forward out of a single hour of working specifically on the fear shows us that yes, it is straightforward to narrow our focus to releasing a single state. When we do, we gain wonderful agency for being able to cultivate that specific new state and deliberately return ourselves to that state when it serves us.

But that can take significant effort. In contrast, Peter’s example shows what is possible when we take the time to also work the interconnected parts of the entire set in which the anxiety is situated. When we do that, the shift is more comprehensive, and requires far less effort to maintain.

Let’s see how this works with Sam, who worked on a set that had to do with feeling thwarted and overwhelmed trying to go to school full time while supporting her two children. We worked together weekly over a period of about three months.

To give you a glimpse of Sam’s experience of this set, here is a composite drawing of all nine of its states. At the center of the belly is Vulnerable, a cold, churning liquid surrounded by Anxiety, like a tense anemone. On the outside of the body we have Overwhelm, “like radial explosions all over my borders.”

Really, really doesn’t look fun, does it? And finally, here is the composite drawing of the set after it was moved to its ideal state of natural wholeness:

This is how Sam described the shift she experienced after completing that first set:

“So the first set of feelings that I moved with Joe had to do with feeling really unsupported in my work. Feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, and just alone with it all. And within weeks, I felt a spaciousness in my life. I did not feel stressed out any more. I wasn’t getting overwhelmed. All of that just kind of stopped happening. Without any conscious effort, I was just living differently, naturally, without even having to think about it.”

So, this is what I’m talking about. This is what it feels like to thoroughly excavate the complete set of parts that governs a pattern of distress in your life, and to fully restore its natural functioning.

Some Context

Before we take a look at another example, let me share a further thought. We are large, we contain multitudes (to use the Whitman phrase). This set that Sam worked was one of many that participated in her experience of being. But this one was at the center of her drive to raise her children while pursuing her vocation, and when it was released, it stayed at the center for a time.

Within a few weeks, though, another part of her, another self with all its complexity, stepped forward and captured her attention. So we worked on that one next. I wrote about that one in chapter SO-6: Multiple Coexisting Feeling States.

Most of us have this external container to our lives — the responsibilities, relationships, and physical environments — that somewhat constrains our freedom to foreground the various selves that constitute our full being. And so working those key selves by using fieldwork to restore the natural functioning of the full set of parts can go a long way toward greater ease and effectiveness in pursuing our goals. Peter is a great example of this.

Some people, though, have either more spaciousness in that life container, or at least give themselves more freedom to wander internally. For those people, restoring the functionality of one self/set is likely to open the door for another to surface. This process of working one set after another can go on indefinitely, at least from a practical perspective. There is a limit to how many selves we contain, but it’s large enough to keep us busy for a very long time.

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I would like to wrap up this series on the science of first-level observation in psychotopology and set things in motion for the next phase. Here are the key discoveries from each chapter so far:

1. Validity - Establishes a foundational relationship between feeling states and their corresponding virtual material properties, along with methods to ensure our observations are accurate and reliable through validation techniques like the slider test.

2. Difference - Challenges our initial hypothesis that people experience emotions like sadness in similar ways, revealing instead a surprising diversity of virtual material properties across different individuals mapping the same named emotion.

3. Context - Overturns our tentative hypothesis of consistent “emotion signatures” within individuals, showing instead that context deeply influences how a person experiences the same named emotion across different situations.

4. Not Somatic - Reveals that feeling states frequently extend beyond the boundaries of the physical body, challenging the dominant theories that emotions are fundamentally bodily processes confined to physiological systems.

5. Body Schema - Explores how the virtual materiality of feeling states connects to our body schema and embodied cognition, suggesting our capacity to model extended embodiment may underlie our ability to experience feeling states.

6. Multiples - Demonstrates that feeling states exist not in isolation but as complex networks of coexisting states that interact in dynamic patterns, forming intricate structures in our inner landscape.

7. Beyond Emotion - Shows that virtual materiality extends beyond conventional emotions to include experiences typically categorized differently (like identity, awareness, or conceptual states), suggesting feeling is the foundation of all conscious experience.

8. Witness - Examines the actual experience of the self who observes feeling states, revealing that the witness function itself has virtual material properties and is subject to mapping and transformation.

9. Spiritual Teachings - Uncovers how transcendent experiences accessed through fieldwork correspond closely with states described in various spiritual traditions, suggesting these traditions reference a shared inner architecture accessible through observation.

10. Hell - Reveals the profound depths of human suffering typically hidden from awareness, showing how networks of painful feeling states underlie many aspects of personality and behavior, while suggesting this suffering is normal but perhaps not natural to human experience.

To summarize further, it seems that as far as our nascent science goes, we have broken new ground, but to be honest, we have no clear idea where we have arrived. All we can say for sure from our observations so far is that they do not match well with existing maps.

• The hypothetical “thingness” of sadness, for example, shows up as having an insufficiently stable pattern when we examine its virtual material properties across different people and even within the same person. We cannot say for sure what the “it” is that we are observing beyond a unique inner experience correlated with a unique name.

• Our observations of para-somatic feeling experiences that extend far beyond the body do not correspond with strongly somatic maps of emotion.

• The multiplicity of concurrent but distinct feeling objects is inconsistent with models of emotion grounded in a kind of integrative summation or interpretation of physiological states.

• Our observations of purely “mental” or “abstract” experience as having tangible virtual materiality similar to that of distinctly emotional experience contrasts with our current understanding of feeling as limited to emotion-centered phenomena.

At the same time, we can see a few possible bridges to existing maps.

• It seems there may be an overlap between our virtual material basis for feeling experience and models of embodied/extended cognition.

• There arise some intriguing overlaps with longstanding spiritual and esoteric traditions, validating our work through its connection to millennia of earnest efforts to master our complex inner lives.

• The complexity and depth of suffering we are able to observe resonates with our intuitions about the gravity and significance of human pain.

• The descriptions of connections between earlier life experiences and related states echoes certain theories of psychotherapy.

What should we do with this? Where do we go from here?

Beyond Passive Observation

At this point in our science, we have applied our new observation tool, fieldwork, to a relatively passive exploration of the territory inside. We’ve opened the door and tip-toed around, peering around corners, shining our light into crevices and under overhangs, and noticing further possible portals to the unknown.

What we have been able to observe so far gives us confidence for raising the level of our engagement. Our observations seem to validate both our intuitive sense of what it is to be human and our dissatisfaction with our current maps for navigating our inner landscapes. We have found both a resonance with prior attempts to understand this inner territory and clear divergences which offer intriguing possibilities for further exploration.

We have also established that our slider test for confirming the accuracy of our observations can be expanded into a full-scale interaction with what we are observing. It is time for us to apply this capacity to a more involved engagement with this mysterious territory of the virtual materiality that anchors our felt experiences of being.

As we prepare to do so, I want to establish an overarching principle for our continued investigations.

Prioritizing Structure over Content

Typically in conducting observations of subjective experience in service to scientific investigation, we prioritize collecting information about the contents of what it is we are observing. Data from this measurement, responses on this survey or that button push, reports about this or that memory, correlations between A and B. In the realm of inner human experience, our primary data has focused on the what of our thinking, feeling, sensing and perceiving.

In the realm of subjective experience, the “whats” we are typically able to collect can be made sense of directly. The memory of an experience, reports on a survey, the name of an emotion, the belief about a situation — all of these can be compared to similar phenomena in similar people. But this direct interpretation has its limits. For example, it tends to be culturally bound, which limits the universality of what is discovered. (See, e.g., discussions of WEIRD in psychological research.) Even more important, when we interpret such observations from standard cultural perspectives, we are unable to step outside the limited box we inhabit, complete with filters and blind spots.

When we use fieldwork to observe inner experience, however, we are forced to abandon that standard approach. We don’t get very far when we try to interpret the meaning of a hard, cold, dark lump of clay in the throat, for example, or attempt to compare such a lump to a stream of glowing electrical particles flowing upward through the heart. Oh, we can try. But it’s not terribly satisfying. We have no standing basis for such interpretation, and while in cursory observations we may see connections with lived experience, when we go more deeply in comparing these observations across larger numbers of people, it becomes much more difficult to identify any obvious patterns emerging.

This makes our slider power even more important. Passive observation alone will not move our science quickly enough to answer the many questions that emerge with our observations. The biggest question — what the hell is it that we are observing — begs us to engage with the “it” in order to learn more about it.

At first, we cannot even be sure what is possible. And so it can be difficult even to craft reasonable hypotheses. At the same time, we have been inhabiting our implicit and explicit models of inner experience (which may or may not match one another) for our entire lives. Much of those models remains outside our awareness.

What this means is that our first efforts are likely to be rather clumsy. That’s OK. Our job will be to stay alert for surprises. These startling moments will throw flags for us to pay closer attention. They signal that our implicit assumptions have been violated, and that our observations are revealing something truly new.

I had many such moments in the early years of developing this work. For example, I think I’ve mentioned the shock of facilitating someone mapping their experience of anger and having it show up as a green pair of stomping boots embedded in their feet. The fact that my own anger never looked like that, plus the gigantic stretch I had to make to imagine such a thing was even possible, encouraged me to accept the diverse uniqueness in every feeling experience and to set aside my expectations. As we move forward, we will encounter more such shocks, and they will point the way toward our further investigations and discoveries.

The shock of the green boots shoved me away from the expectation of a pattern centered on universality of feeling-name-defined configurations of virtual material properties. In place of that, I was forced to embrace a different pattern in which something like “sadness” lives very differently in different people. As I’ve described, over a period of accumulating further experience, I also had to let go of any expectation of similarity patterns even within the same person.

As you will see, as we begin to employ our slider superpower to directly manipulate these whatever-they-are entities we’re encountering that show up as virtual material objects that are free to transform their properties, we will encounter several significant shock moments that open doors to new discoveries. I’m looking forward to sharing those with you.

At the heart of these new discoveries is a very strong shift of our attention from the snapshot observational data — the specific configurations of virtual material properties — to the behavior of the underlying “things” that host these configurations. The patterns of their transformations, and the interactions between the transformations of one of these objects with other related objects, will begin to take shape.

As they do, we will find ourselves shifting from what might be best described as a topographic descriptions — the contents of our observations, the configurations themselves — to topological descriptions capturing a deeper structure of relationships among functional entites. We will shift from the topography of surface contents to the topology of deep structure.

One of the ways these new patterns will take shape has already revealed itself to us in our observations so far. Let’s take a look at the phenomenon of what psychotopology refers to as the field dimension of conscious experience.

Introducing Inner Fields

Throughout our observational examples, we have noted how the virtual material experience of feeling seems to occupy space. There is a distinct region within the total available space in and around the body within which the feeling experience seems to be located, outside of which it seems to not exist. Within that three-dimensional, spatial region, the experience carries distinct qualities that the observation practice illuminates.

We will find it very helpful to think of these feeling spaces as fields, similar to the electromagnetic and gravitational fields we find in physics. In this specific case within psychotopology, we will refer to these experiential spaces of feeling states as affect fields.

Let me acknowledge that this is a bold redefining of the term “affect,” which at this point in the sciences of mind tends to be used to name a very low-resolution, generic physiological activation. Affect is supposed to live on a two-dimensional scale with one axis defined from positive to negative valence from pleasure to distress, and the other from low to high intensity.

Over the course of continuing to roll out my presentation of psychotopology, you will see how it makes sense to separate the somatic dimension of emotion from this experiential field dimension. The two-axis concept of somatic experience might prove to be useful in the long run, but for now, I find it to muddy the waters and diminish the appreciation of the richness of inner experience. Our actual experience of affect, feeling — the experience of being — is vastly more complex than plus/minus, hi/low.

Let me make it clear up front that by assigning the concept of field to these experiences of feeling, I am not intending to infer that these fields are parallel to those of physics and that they objectively do occupy space in the way that a gravitational field does. I am saying merely that we experience feeling as if it occupies space and carries specific properties in a way similar to that of a field. How that actually intersects with the dimensions of physics and physiology, as well as its role in the generation of our personal and interpersonal psychology, must emerge from our continued investigations. I will have much more to reveal about this over time.

Clarifying the Term Fieldwork

In psychotopology, we are working with inner fields of consciousness. At this point, we have entered the domain of affect fields and will limit our focus to these for the moment. In the future, our work will expand beyond affect fields to explore related fields of imagery involved in the generation of thought.

The nascent practice of observing affect fields as we have noted at this point, along with more advanced practices of interacting with affect fields, and observing and interacting with other related fields, I call psychotopology fieldwork. I hope it is clear now where that name comes from and why it applies to this work.

Placing Feeling at the Center

Explaining feeling experience in science and psychotherapy has taken many forms:

• It doesn’t exist and/or is not important (behaviorism, materialism, logical positivism).

• It is a product of unconscious patterns anchored in the past (psycho-dynamic/psychoanalytic).

• It is a product of thoughts and beliefs (cognitive therapies).

• It is a product of neural activity (cognitive science and neuroscience).

• It is a product of interaction between our parts (parts therapies).

• It is a product of physiological activation (somatic therapies).

We are taking a radical new approach here. First, we are not explaining feeling experience in terms of other phenomena. For psychotopology, feeling is a thing in and of itself, not a “product of” something else considered to be more “real” than the actual experience. We are placing the experience of feeling at the center of our science rather than holding it as a secondary epiphenomenon.

Our goal is to create a map of this territory: the felt experience of being. This is an ambitious goal, but we have tools by our side that make this goal achievable. We will do this thing.

A Note of Care

Please do not expect to understand all of this right now. We have not established the basis for genuine understanding. All we have established is that the territory we are choosing to explore is indeed a frontier, and we are best served by continuing to honor the pioneering attitude proposed at the end of the Introducing the Science series, in IS-10: Radical Curiosity.

Also, please do give yourself the benefit of direct experience. It is impossible to understand what I am sharing here without it. Let me know if or how I can support you in that.

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