Try It #3: Fieldwork Moving

Start learning psychotopology fieldwork by giving it a try. This audio will take you through the moving process for one feeling state.

Make sure to listen to Try It #1: Fieldwork Preparation to learn how best to prepare for mapping and select a good feeling state to work with. Then work your way through Try It #2: Fieldwork Mapping to map one feeling state to work on here.

Here are the posts with audio for the preparation and mapping phases of fieldwork:

Try It #1: Fieldwork Preparation

Try It #2: Fieldwork Mapping

Below is a PDF with outlines for drawing, and here is a link to a ZIP file with PNG outlines for adding to a drawing program.

1bodyoutlines(all)ptf

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Transcript:

(In case you prefer to read instead of listen)

Okay, now you're ready for the fun part. You've mapped your feeling state, you have your drawing, you've got your notes.

Hopefully, you had the experience of having a more tangible sense of the feeling, while at the same time having a sense of being detached from it, as if the feeling was something that you're able to look at from the outside. Like, the feeling is something that you have, rather than something you are. And the you who's looking at it is connected to some witness part of yourself.

It's a very helpful distinction to notice, and it's a very helpful practice to develop as well. So, fieldwork does naturally develop this capacity to witness your own feeling and choose to be in it or step outside of it when you need more resourcefulness to be able to make choices about how you're going to manage or respond to what you're feeling.

So, in this next process, you're actually going to be shifting this feeling state. It's going to become something different. It's going to feel different in you. So before we start, there are three things I want to cover.

Number one, no matter how uncomfortable this feeling that you've mapped is for you right now, or how uncomfortable it has been in the past, it took this form at some point in your life to serve you.

I want to acknowledge that and thank it for serving you in that way when it needed to. So, we are going to shift this, but I want to reassure this part of you that if it ever needs to serve you in this way again, you can always put it back. We're not taking away the option for this part to express this particular feeling state.

So, you'll notice that I'm referring to it as This part of you. This part of you has a repertoire of potential feeling states that's available to it. It may have gotten stuck in a particular expression in this issue that you're dealing with, in that context, stuck in that particular feeling state, but we're going to reopen it to its full range of expression in this moving process.

So, because you can always put it back, it's safe to move. And because it's safe to move, the second part of this that I want to cover is, I want to invite you to go for it, to imagine what could this part of you be in an absolutely perfect world? Where a perfect world is your perfect world, where all of your needs are met exactly the way you want them, fully and completely, always have been, always will be, and you know how to keep them that way.

So this is a hypothetical. It's an ideal. It's a way of taking on, what would this part of me get to feel if everything were the way it's supposed to be? If everything were the way I want it to be? Then, you get to give this part of you permission to remind itself, Oh yeah, that's my home base, that's my north star.

That's what we're gaining access to. The idea is not that it's going to shift into this ideal state and you're going to live in bliss for the rest of your life. No. You are way too complex for that. There are many, many parts of you. This is one part that we're working with. What we're doing is we're giving it access to its ideal so that it has a sense of its own North Star.

So that as you move through life and it responds to the situations in life inside of you and around you, there's a compass there. So that when it goes out of balance, you feel it, you notice it, and you know what it's meaning to tell you about where you want to get back to. So, perfect world. Go for it.

The third thing I want to say is, like I mentioned, this is one part of many, and this is one part of several that are very closely interconnected with it. You've made a list of three to five. Maybe there are a few more that you didn't identify yet. But this part is connected very intimately with other parts of you that have other feeling states.

As you go through this process, if another feeling state jumps into the foreground and takes over, takes priority, you have two options of what to do.

One, you can go back and map that new feeling state and take it through the process. Or you can have a little conversation with it. Invite it to just step aside for the moment, recognizing that this process is available to all the parts of you. And that this part that is jumping into the foreground will have its own opportunity to go through this process as well. And then, just stay on track with moving the state that you're working with. Okay?

So, if you're ready, in this moment, in the spirit of exploration of what's possible for you in a perfect world, if this part of you were free to become warmer or cooler, what would it prefer?

Now, we're following the compass of this part of you. I want you to set your mind aside, along with your ideas about what you think it should be. Instead, trust what feels good, and trust that what feels good is what's right here. Okay?

So, if imagining it being warmer makes you cringe, it's probably not wanting to be warmer. If imagining it being warmer makes you feel more expansive, a little more relaxed, where the feeling itself feels better to itself, if you prefer it, go in that direction.

So, warmer or cooler, what feels better? And, in moving in that direction, if this part of you were free to take on any temperature at all, what would be the perfect temperature?

And, as I suggested in the mapping process, make sure to keep notes as you go here. You're developing a map of how to get to the ideal state from where it was.

So, what's the perfect temperature?

And, having taken on that new temperature, if this part of you were free to become harder or softer, heavier or lighter, more or less dense, what would feel better? We're looking at substance here. And in shifting a little bit in one of those directions, if this part of you were free to take on qualities of any substance at all, would it prefer?

To be more like some kind of a solid, or a liquid, or a gas, or some kind of pure light, or energy, or something else. Again, don't worry about physics here, this gets to be however it wants to define itself. And in taking on that new substance, notice more of the detail. Does it want to be heavy or light, hard or soft, thick or thin, more or less dense?

Make some notes about what you notice about these qualities of substance.

So in taking on this new substance and this new temperature, if this part of you were free to become brighter or darker, what would it prefer? And, going in that direction, if it were free to take on any color at all, any color or colors of the rainbow and beyond, what color or colors would it most want to be?

And in taking on that new color, would this part of you want to be transparent, or translucent, or opaque? And would it want to have any qualities of being luminous, sparkling, shimmering, iridescent, anything like that? What else do you notice about the qualities of the appearance of this new feeling state?

And in taking on these new qualities of temperature and substance and color, if this part of you were free to locate itself anywhere in or around your body, or in and around your body, where would it most want to be? Notice here that feeling is not confined to the body, so give yourself the latitude, the freedom to allow this feeling state to occupy any space at all.

It's likely to be localized, centered in the space of your body, but it does not have to occupy only your body. So, what kind of size and shape does it want to occupy? If it could be as big or as little as it wants to be, what's the perfect size, shape, and location for this part of you?

And in taking on this new location, if this part of you were free to move in any way, does it want to have any qualities of being flowing, pulsing, or vibrating? Does there want to be any kind of wave or ripple, any circulating or radiating or undulating? What quality of movement wants to be there? Or does it want to be perfectly still?

And in taking on this new movement and all these other qualities, if you listen internally, does there want to be any kind of inner sound as a way of more fully expressing this part's nature? And would that sound be a sound from nature? Or a voice? Some kind of vocal sound? Or some kind of instrument? Or music?

Or something else? Describe the qualities of that sound and any patterns or fluctuations that come with it.

Now just review what you've got so far and notice if there are any further adjustments you want to make. Do you want to go back and update the substance after discovering the color, for example? Or is there anything else you want to notice about what this part of you wants to be?

And so, now let's take a look at how beliefs, thoughts, and perceptions have changed. And sometimes, it's going to feel so new at this point that you're not quite sure where it is yet. And it might take you some time to get to that. So let me just ask this question. If you were able to express in words what seems most true, or real, or important to this part of you, if you could give it a voice, and if it could say to you what it most wants you to know, what would that be?

Perhaps starting a sentence with something like I am, or I have, or I can, or my world is, or can. Those are just suggestions. You find whatever statement is most potent for you. And take a minute or two and just write the first things that come to your mind and run from there.

And now, this is no longer the same feeling state that you started with, so it deserves a new name. What new name would you like to give this feeling? Or what name does this feeling want to be called? And write that down.

And so take some time to draw this new feeling state in the same way that you drew the original one. Put as much effort and detail as you want into it. This is your map, the ideal state for this part of you.

So, I hope you've had an opportunity to take one feeling state through the process of mapping it and moving it, to have a better idea from your own experience what fieldwork is like and how it might work for you.

I'll be making available different ways that you can go deeper with that, whether here on the website, or in the Engage community, or other possibilities that will come soon.

So, thank you for going on this journey with me. Feel free to run through this again as many times as you want. You've got what you need to be able to take this work to some really exciting places. Alright?

I hope to meet you along the way at some point. We've got lots to look forward to.