Difusión y Comunicación

The movement in the felt-sensing body is not always explicit as an external phenomenon, requiring the explicit description by the participant during the Focusing session. However, the use of props makes evident how the felt-senses move around the body, as participants manipulate props in accordance to how and where they feel the emergence of sensations. Figure 31 illustrates the patterns of explorations with the prop related to the types of descriptions emerging from the felt-sensing sessions.

Distal

Areas that when activated with prop draw attention towards the

outside

Felt-Sensing The core of meaning-

generation.

Somatic

The experience of memory enhances awareness of body area.

Figure 31 - Experiential content and body areas

7.3.3.1 Distal area: Head, neck and hands

The way participants approached the upper area of the body was generally exploratory, and rarely was content described when this area was activated with the prop. Most participants spent little time here, except for one specific case where the participant engaged in a detailed description of his happy experience while placing the prop on the forehead. It is not evident, however whether the impact of heat was important in allowing consciousness to flow, or rather the head was simply indicated as a statement and metaphor of thinking.

In some cases, placing the prop on the head might be understood as a metaphor of bringing memories to mind, or as a representation of creative thought. One participant was asked to place the device on the area where she was feeling the happiness generated by her specific memory. She asked the facilitator to wait for a moment to allow the sensations to set, then took the vibratory prop and placed it with decision on the forehead. After some seconds in silence, she described “somewhere here, and then it goes there”, while moving the prop down

to the chest. Immediately after this brief interaction and leaving the prop on the table, she started describing her memories in detail, for instance, the sunset she was painting, her enjoyment, the colours she was using and specific details about her room. Although the prop seemed useful to pinpoint the area where the felt-sense moved, in some cases the stimuli seemed too rough to be sustained.

As an important consideration to take into account, it was noted that the feeling of heat or vibration on the hands tends to remove the attention from the inner dimension during the exercises, possibly due to the active role of the hands in the perception of the outside world. For that reason, our prototypes contained materials insulating the hands from unwanted sensations.

7.3.3.2 Felt-sensing area: Upper torso

The upper torso is also what is identified as the felt-sensing area by Gendlin (1978), particularly the chest, abdomen and throat. This is not strange, as it is in the core of our body where we experience familiar ways of relating with the perception of various emotions. For instance, the metaphor of sensing butterflies in the tummy, or a tight throat after keeping our opinions unexpressed, or the feeling of tenderness irradiating from the heart are examples of how the body experiences felt-senses on a daily basis. However, it is important to point out that the sensitiveness of the throat did not go well with the explored stimuli, as they felt too disruptive and unpleasant to encourage further exploration, as I will further explain later in the chapter. As a result, the majority of participants associated blissful memories with the chest and abdomen area.

In terms of the role of wearable props during the articulation of experiences, most participants held the prop firmly towards the core and kept it there while describing their happy experiences. Some participants allowed the prop to carefully drift around the felt-sensing area, as they were following the movement of their sensations. In the following example (illustrated in Table 41 and Figure 32), one of the participants who kept the heat prop close to the chest, describes his happy experience of mind silence as appropriating the stimulus, which was integrated into his narrative:

Table 41 - Participant's narration - Heat prop

In this session, I saw myself in third person perspective on the train with my headphones on and wanted to revisit the moment of silence in my memory. Instantly, I was sucked into my mind (…) and it opened up to the infinite universe with countless stars. All time has stopped and I was right in the middle of everything. In the middle of the universe and the planets circling around me. At the moment of "time-stop" and silence, all energy was gathered to me and I felt heat. I felt fire. I felt energy and passion. My chest burst out in flames and I saw the sun. I was the sun. And the core heat in my chest was the source of all power. It was reignited.

Having the heat device created an association of energy, warmth and orange-based visuals for me. Furthermore, as compared to felt-sensing experiences without the device I was able to concentrate my energy and create more vivid visuals in my mind

Figure 32 - Participant bodymap, showing the centrality of the chest area. Keywords: Passion, powerful, sun, heat, energy

7.3.3.3 Somatic area: Limbs, back, neck, core

One of the most interesting findings of this study is how our physical body is able to capture and re-live memories through sensing. The use of the wearable prop on certain areas gave a physical quality to the explored memories, as described in Table 42. In other words, memories can be sensed directly through the part of the body that was involved in the experience. It is

important to note that physical memory can go beyond the bodily areas described in Figure 31, however in our studies most people experienced memories in those areas.

Table 42 - Physical memory of touching rocks. Happiness perceived through different body parts when using the heat prop

After feeling my body through the scanning session, I was "transported" to the island. I was in a desert-like landscape, surrounded by rocks, feeling the sun. My feet felt the rocks and my forehead was hot. The sky was intensely blue. There was a pleasant breeze. I felt my shoulders and back, I touched them with the device and the feeling intensified. I felt my arms and hands, and I touched them as well, moving all the way to my left- hand palm. My hands were happy; my whole body was happy amongst rocks. The rocks were warm, they were "basking" all day in the sun and when I was touching them it was like touching the sun. The sun represents for me everything great and good in life - life itself. I touched my abdomen with the warm object. This amplified the sense of being alive, being happy, being embodied, being grounded.