Immediate recognition here. You describe roughly the right hemispheric way of being in the world, being part of the place. Your six observations ring very true to me. This stood out: Endless complexity of thought seems grounded in a more stable configuration of feeling spaces. I don't think it is proto in the sense of primitive though. To me it is the embracing, larger communication that permeates the place.
The word precise leaps at me as too easily translated as a form of focus. I feel the opposite is happening; a relaxing of focus that allows to come closer, allows more intimacy through large surface openness, not narrow, precise attention. In practice, precision is about proximation, not the theory of exactness. Hope this doesn't sound as a total paradox. Words are not suited for this.....
One more thing, I wondered if you have experimented with people drawing, painting, expressing their feeling in other ways than words? Colour, texture, sound, size, shape, movement....
Thank you for your reflections, Bertus! Responding from the bottom up…
Very definitely, various forms of artistic expression do express feeling in ways that go beyond words. One way I support that in fieldwork is for people to draw the state spaces they have described, and when they go into the drawing, more is revealed about the nature of that state. Another process I enjoy is improvising movement, sound & music, and theater. The key in both of these is to relinquish the hold of the thought processing and to enter the space of being the state, allowing it to express itself through your full embodiment of the drawing, the sound, the movement. I’m guessing in some ways this is what you are facilitating when you teach art, yes?
Now, about precision. Interesting how you became quite precise in your description, “a relaxing of focus that allows to come closer, allows more intimacy through large surface openness.” Here you have brought a clarity to describing a particular state of being that is very different from the state that comes to your mind with the word “precise.” Fieldwork is about bringing a precision to the reflexive observation of states of being such that these distinctions can be made more easily. We can observe with high resolution those states that are infinitely expansive just as easily as those that confine themselves to a grain of sand. This precision supports us in becoming aware of those grains of sand, for example, and inviting them to reveal their broader identities as well. Any state can be included in the process, all states are welcome, and it is this giving “voice” to a state that supports its restoration to a way of being that integrates with our whole self.
(And yes, words are ridiculously inadequate for the job of describing all of this. <sigh>)
Now, about right brain and proto. In fieldwork, we very definitely are shifting right-brain awareness to the foreground and employing left-brain precision as its servant, as Iain McGilchrist so thoroughly advocates in his books. As for what we are revealing when we inquire into the virtual materiality of our experience of feeling, I suspect this may be a feature of consciousness that far precedes the neocortex. Your articulation of the “embracing, larger communication that permeates the place” speaks to a fundamental being-ness that we modern humans have largely become distracted from. Robert Wolff’s Original Wisdom describes it well as it lives in the aboriginal peoples of Malaysia.
What fieldwork does and psychotopology integrates is to examine the inner structures of all ways of being including the full spectrum from the most cerebral to the most mystical and beyond in all directions. In examining how these experiences take shape, we get to learn more about how to be more skilled in moving toward those ways of being that call most provocatively to our souls. Lots more coming here about all of that. Thanks for being here!
WOW this is so fascinating, and also exciting. I can’t wait to hear more, especially about the process of bypassing the swamp of stories and judgments and connecting with the raw feeling hidden inside them.
I don’t have any suggestions for improvements on your writing–your ideas were clear, straightforward, and well explained, and my brain was happy to read them.
Thank you so much for your feedback, Faith. I hope I can uphold that "clear, straightforward, and well explained" standard. It's darned hard work sometimes, and it really helps to hear that it lands well for you.
And yes, lots more coming about connecting with the raw feeling hidden inside the endless networks of thought.
This is THE article I've been longing for for as long as I've known your work. I love this specific example, because of how badly the client wished to change the color right away, and found it wouldn't budge.
I had a similar experience, where you, Joe, were asking me the shifting questions, and the part in question responded that the color that it would like to be, "the color that would feel best" was yellow (sheer coincidence -- nothing to do with the example above -- an otherwise completely different feeling) and I noticed that you had, in a way, asked me for a "correct" response: the "best" color.
I'd never been a big fan of yellow, and I was incredulous that invisible feelings have colors of any nature, AND I have a resistant streak: I dislike playing into the idea of right and wrong.
So I lied.
I thought: let's see if Joe even notices. How would he know? What would he do if he found out I'm lying?
(I'm sure it had everything to do with the function of the part, or some part related to it, that I would want to lie. I'm usually compulsively honest.)
Joe didn't realize it, and faithfully took down what I'd said, repeating it back to me. The feeling itself, however, responded immediately: not only did it flash red (the color I had lied it was), it felt red! It literally showed me that red was not the most comfortable color, not what felt best. It felt horrible.
"Yellow! It's actually yellow!" I corrected myself. You, Joe, didn't bat an eye, and took that down instead.
It was a liberation. No shaming, no punishment, no guilt keeps me honest. Honesty with myself is just what feels best. And that's what matters.
I love this story! So right on about the magic of being honest with ourselves, and the support you give when trusting someone to do that. Thanks for being here, Briana.
Immediate recognition here. You describe roughly the right hemispheric way of being in the world, being part of the place. Your six observations ring very true to me. This stood out: Endless complexity of thought seems grounded in a more stable configuration of feeling spaces. I don't think it is proto in the sense of primitive though. To me it is the embracing, larger communication that permeates the place.
The word precise leaps at me as too easily translated as a form of focus. I feel the opposite is happening; a relaxing of focus that allows to come closer, allows more intimacy through large surface openness, not narrow, precise attention. In practice, precision is about proximation, not the theory of exactness. Hope this doesn't sound as a total paradox. Words are not suited for this.....
One more thing, I wondered if you have experimented with people drawing, painting, expressing their feeling in other ways than words? Colour, texture, sound, size, shape, movement....
Thank you for your reflections, Bertus! Responding from the bottom up…
Very definitely, various forms of artistic expression do express feeling in ways that go beyond words. One way I support that in fieldwork is for people to draw the state spaces they have described, and when they go into the drawing, more is revealed about the nature of that state. Another process I enjoy is improvising movement, sound & music, and theater. The key in both of these is to relinquish the hold of the thought processing and to enter the space of being the state, allowing it to express itself through your full embodiment of the drawing, the sound, the movement. I’m guessing in some ways this is what you are facilitating when you teach art, yes?
Now, about precision. Interesting how you became quite precise in your description, “a relaxing of focus that allows to come closer, allows more intimacy through large surface openness.” Here you have brought a clarity to describing a particular state of being that is very different from the state that comes to your mind with the word “precise.” Fieldwork is about bringing a precision to the reflexive observation of states of being such that these distinctions can be made more easily. We can observe with high resolution those states that are infinitely expansive just as easily as those that confine themselves to a grain of sand. This precision supports us in becoming aware of those grains of sand, for example, and inviting them to reveal their broader identities as well. Any state can be included in the process, all states are welcome, and it is this giving “voice” to a state that supports its restoration to a way of being that integrates with our whole self.
(And yes, words are ridiculously inadequate for the job of describing all of this. <sigh>)
Now, about right brain and proto. In fieldwork, we very definitely are shifting right-brain awareness to the foreground and employing left-brain precision as its servant, as Iain McGilchrist so thoroughly advocates in his books. As for what we are revealing when we inquire into the virtual materiality of our experience of feeling, I suspect this may be a feature of consciousness that far precedes the neocortex. Your articulation of the “embracing, larger communication that permeates the place” speaks to a fundamental being-ness that we modern humans have largely become distracted from. Robert Wolff’s Original Wisdom describes it well as it lives in the aboriginal peoples of Malaysia.
What fieldwork does and psychotopology integrates is to examine the inner structures of all ways of being including the full spectrum from the most cerebral to the most mystical and beyond in all directions. In examining how these experiences take shape, we get to learn more about how to be more skilled in moving toward those ways of being that call most provocatively to our souls. Lots more coming here about all of that. Thanks for being here!
WOW this is so fascinating, and also exciting. I can’t wait to hear more, especially about the process of bypassing the swamp of stories and judgments and connecting with the raw feeling hidden inside them.
I don’t have any suggestions for improvements on your writing–your ideas were clear, straightforward, and well explained, and my brain was happy to read them.
Thank you so much for your feedback, Faith. I hope I can uphold that "clear, straightforward, and well explained" standard. It's darned hard work sometimes, and it really helps to hear that it lands well for you.
And yes, lots more coming about connecting with the raw feeling hidden inside the endless networks of thought.
This is THE article I've been longing for for as long as I've known your work. I love this specific example, because of how badly the client wished to change the color right away, and found it wouldn't budge.
I had a similar experience, where you, Joe, were asking me the shifting questions, and the part in question responded that the color that it would like to be, "the color that would feel best" was yellow (sheer coincidence -- nothing to do with the example above -- an otherwise completely different feeling) and I noticed that you had, in a way, asked me for a "correct" response: the "best" color.
I'd never been a big fan of yellow, and I was incredulous that invisible feelings have colors of any nature, AND I have a resistant streak: I dislike playing into the idea of right and wrong.
So I lied.
I thought: let's see if Joe even notices. How would he know? What would he do if he found out I'm lying?
(I'm sure it had everything to do with the function of the part, or some part related to it, that I would want to lie. I'm usually compulsively honest.)
Joe didn't realize it, and faithfully took down what I'd said, repeating it back to me. The feeling itself, however, responded immediately: not only did it flash red (the color I had lied it was), it felt red! It literally showed me that red was not the most comfortable color, not what felt best. It felt horrible.
"Yellow! It's actually yellow!" I corrected myself. You, Joe, didn't bat an eye, and took that down instead.
It was a liberation. No shaming, no punishment, no guilt keeps me honest. Honesty with myself is just what feels best. And that's what matters.
This work keeps me honest.
Thank you, Joe.
I love this story! So right on about the magic of being honest with ourselves, and the support you give when trusting someone to do that. Thanks for being here, Briana.