...
Summary:
The TAE process has been described as one that can help articulate "something in your field, something you already know about, something you have experience with."
As if that alone were not enough of a gift, TAE can be easily adapted to help people bring into being things that do not yet exist, that they may have never experienced - and that this can be achieved with a simple shift in the order of the two main TAE movements.
Standard TAE instructions advise people to work with something that one has experience in, so that a workable felt sense can come and be worked with in Step 1.
Yet, by simply 'reversing the order' of the first two TAE movements, we can allow TAE processes to help manifest dreams of a future that wants to come into being!
This offers roles for TAE in personal and institutional coaching, and wherever one wishes to help desired futures emerge.
When one wants to work on something that they don't have experience with, a felt sense can be evoked by beginning with TAE Step 6, going through Step 9, and then returning to Step 1 and moving forward.
This webpage then offers a rationale for why this works, and outlines a process for this.
If you just want the process without the ideas behind it, click here to go to the algorithm.
If you would like to see where these ideas came from, click here
A) We are familiar with felt-sensing from Focusing. Yet perhaps, (suggests this hypothesis) the felt sense is only one of several 'levels' of knowing and relating to the Implicit.B) There seem to be somewhat distinct 'levels' of cognitive and bodily felt relationship towards the more-than-we-know-now in our beings. Some of these seem to be 'less embodied' than traditional felt-sense-based knowing.
(These 'levels' are abstracted from Gene Gendlin's work.)1) "I know that there is an answer in the Universe" (often motivated by "There has got to be a better way than this!')
2) "I am in touch with what has it, even if I can't get a felt sense of it directly" (I can't contact a felt sense directly, but I would know if something I run across feels that it connects with 'it' in some way.)
3) "I have a felt sense of something that is more than I know in my head." (classical felt sense that we are familiar with in Focusing and TAE.)C) Perhaps there are different processes or different 'structures' that can encourage the unfolding of each of these levels of knowing and connecting and opening to the More..
The approach used to assist in the unfolding and manifestation of the Implicit may depend, to some extent, on which 'level' or which 'signal strength' our knowing is at (each number below corresponds to the number above in section B):1) [This area is still under development. I am collecting facets still. I do know that A Course in Miracles is based on pausing, recognizing that "There is a another way to be with this" and making the intention to be open to that]
3) Focusing and TAE in the ways that they are traditionally taught
2) EVOKING a felt sense that does not yet have enough energy to be fully formed. At this level, rather than 'a felt sense OF something', it may be more 'a felt sense THAT something exists that wants to take form in the world.'
One aspect of this is to sense into 'What facets/what container does this need so that it will grow and make itself more known?"
This may require some 'checking outside' in the environment, some 'external searching' and checking for resonance.D) Finding ways to evoke a felt sense (level 2) and allow it to expand in our being might allow Focusing and TAE processes to support and birth "what we wish to bring forward into the world" and "dreams" - areas with which we may not have much DIRECT experience, as they do not yet exist in this world.
E) Steps 6-9 of TAE are exactly designed to evoke and strengthen our felt experiencing. When one begins with steps 6-9, it may allow them to get a stronger felt sense of what they wish to create. They can THEN go to Steps 1-5 to gain further articulation of the felt sense that has been amplified and expanded
Algorithm:
[Step 0 - TAE Step 0 can be useful for any branch that is taken in TAE, and may often help if done before beginning this algorithm.]
Question I. Is this something that you have experience with, something in a field you know and want to speak from?
Yes (go to Question II) ...............No (go to Question III) (One is more likely to be able to allow a felt sense to develop around something that they have experience in.)
Question II Can you let a felt sense of this form in your body?
Yes -start at TAE Step 1................................... No -Start at TAE Step 6
Question III. Is this something that you wish to create freshly? Is this something that you wish to create in the world, something that may not yet exist, but is something you have dreamed about, or have had 'whispers of' in your life?
(Here, the implicit sense is often fainter than a felt sense in the usual sense. It may be hard to contact clearly.This may be experienced as "I am in touch with what has it, even if I can't get a felt sense of it directly" A fuller, more definite felt sense may need to be evoked by a process of working with things we already know that 'taste' or 'hint' of this, or by 'searching for' things that might do so - finding instances or facets that have something to do with this vague "pre-felt sense".)
Yes (start at TAE step 6) .................... No (start at TAE Step 1)
That is it! All that is needed to expand TAE to realms of 'not yet experienced'!
If a felt sense is present, then can work TAE as traditionally taught:
.
-Steps 1-5 "What do you want those words to mean?"
-Steps 6-9 Collecting instances, facets, patterns, and articulating from there
(steps 10-14 Theory building)
If a felt sense is not clear, start at Step 6, and move through to Step 9 to amplify and clarify and evoke it. Then go to Step 1 - getting a felt sense of it, and follow forward through Steps 1-9 again.
I would be interested in your expreriences of the process. Future links include some ideas about 'why' this happens, its connection to spiritual traditions and democratic process, and some of my experiences with this process:"If we build it, they will come."
Focusing Shareware - We offer this material for you to use freely in leading workshops, teaching Focusing, or working with clients. Please contact us with regard to any other uses of this material.
Created on ... November 11, 2004