I'll be posting some links on the Focusing process originated by Eugene Gendlin, since the issue of body awareness is often acknowledged intellectually without much guidance on how to engage it as a way of dealing with both ordinary emotional conflict and the stirrings of the subconscious when kundalini is aroused after periods of prayer or meditation.

I've found it quite frustrating that with the implicitly wholesome psychology of Catholic spiritual formation there has yet to be strong recommendations by most spiritual directors on how to manage these affects, beyond simply recommeding psychotherapy. Focusing is one means for self-care at a level often only briefly and vaguely recognized in the interactions between client and therapist, and can strengthen the bodily receptivity/containment for devotion as well.

Some good first places to look for descriptions of Focusing are:

http://www.biospiritual.org/

www.focusing.org

www.focusingresources.com

Here are a few links to papers:

http://www.focusing.org/biospirit.htm

http://www.focusing.org/spirit..._for_truth_rome.html

Here are some short forms for the process itself:

http://www.focusing.org/short_awcbmg.html

http://www.focusing.org/short_gendlin.html

http://www.focusing.org/short_friedman.html

And after familiarizing yourself with the basic process, you might consider this guided meditation where you can't get more of sense of your own experience of it:


http://www.biospiritual.org/pa...fection-teacher.html

Excellent! Thank you for compiling these for us, w.c. Now we can simply point people to this thread when we recommend focusing.

Phil and I have discussed how Christian theologians, particularly those dealing with concepts of healthy formative spirituality (such as Adrian Van Kam), have yet to suggest a satisfactory working model that includes the body in an experential way. At least I'm not aware of any such developments, and would therefore like to offer Focusing as at least a partial answer to this need.

What do you think of in reference to the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit? Usually this is taken to mean that the body isn't to be devalued in spiritual practice, but then we are left with little further support in how to, literally, incorporate it as an intimate aspect of devotion. Some folks whose devotional tendencies are more affective can identify how the will, disposed to the gift of contemplation, often resonates with the presence of the HS in sensate, creaturely ways. Dilations in the heart chakra in response to the Holy Spirit are just one sort, since many of us also struggle with intensifications of sexual desire in the lower chakras as well. What can one do with these awakened cravings, other than surrender them to God?

I personally haven't found God involved in satiating these cravings entirely on His own, and in my reading of the saints, it appears this wounding is left for us creatures to wonder about. My contacts with monastics also don't leave me with any confidence that God removes or suspends the passions during the course of spiritual development, inspite of all the talk of the Night of Senses. There is certainly faith that in the process God reorders the sense faculties in harmony with a transformed will, but with as many contemplatives as I've met, the question regarding our creaturely responsibilities for increased self-awareness remains.

St. Teresa of Avila appeared to be more friendly with the bodily terrain than St. John of the Cross, and according to Truman Dicken, author of "Crucible of Love," had a gentler experience of the night of the senses than did John. Whether this was due to a woman's more natural disposition to inverting the sexual energy is difficult to say. Nevertheless, both doctors of the church spend a lot of time treating the passions as though they are devices of Satan. It would be easy to dismiss this as simply a poorly developed psychology of their century, but we should be cautious, since their spiritually evolved sensitivities may have acquainted them with struggles that aren't best understood in this modern way. Without being able to evaluate their struggle, let's suppose, just for discussion, that much of what they viewed as Satan's exploitations of sense desires could have involved the sense faculties seeking, according to their own inherent longing, a place in the heart of devotion. John's poetry suggests this, as do the writings of Jan Van Rusbroek and Teresa's favorite, Francisco De Osuna.

When sense desires have been exiled for some time, especially in relation to trauma, shame, etc . . . their reappearance in conscious awareness can be disturbing. One way of understanding this is, having been left in the shadows for so long, they need to communicate their woundedness as well.

This is a founding assumption of Focusing i.e, that exiled parts of the self need to be heard from their own point-of-view before they can open from the inside-out and resonate with a more heartfelt, virtuous awareness. Without hearing them from their point-of-view, they have no other option but to intensify to get our attention. This would be one explanation for how folks in 12 Step programs experience their sexual longings even more intensely, and take this as a sign of failure, only to resist further, shame themselves even more, and develop an ever more adversarial relationship with passoins that are inherently life-giving, not requiring acting out or projections like we fear we'd collapse into if we really payed them direct attention. And so along with these passions submerged in shadow are other parts of the self that protect us from their intensity and come into awareness as shame or fear once sexual desire, or anger, threaten to come into awareness. As Ann Cornell points out, we are usually so over-identified with these censoring parts of the self that they too are seldom heard and allowed to unfold.

Having practiced Buddhist meditation for a few years, I would also suggest that Focusing offers something more friendly than the rather stark, naked awareness that one attempts to maintain in response to passion or distracting thoughts. Thoughts are usually labeled "thinking," with attention brought back to the breath or sensation, although the persistance of a thought pattern may be an indication that a part of the self is yearning to be heard in a listening dialogue, something usually treated in Buddhist meditation as simply a further distraction/aversion/craving.

And so Buddhism never helped me venture very far into friendliness with the body that it advocated, even among western teachers like Pema Chodron, whom I recommend as one of the more imaginative teachers of mindfulness practice.

As I was led back to Christian prayer, and discovered the grace of contemplation, I found a simplicity and passive receptivity that was truly and deeply replenishing, something that has made Buddhist meditation seem much more active than it first appeared. But in this affective, simplified prayer that disposes one to contemplation, there was still a period of recovery, where the faculties had to absorb the effects of the Holy Spirit, something they all keenly desire; this brought me to the dilemma of how to manage the release of kundalini, and so far Focusing, and the Sedona Release Method (see related thread), have been adequate means for this integration process, even where self-awareness engages the forminable task of healing developmental deficits.

From a Christian formative spiritual point-of-view, Focusing helps strengthen the will so that one can be more lenient with the intellect's tendency to harbor many incongruent notions and conflicting emotions. Thomist rendering of sin finds it not to occur in the emotions, but in the will, and so developing a more resilient will capable of containing painful affects and desires without externalizing them seems advantageous.

One primary assumption of Focusing is that we are quite prone to over-identify with our emotions, and this would be one disposing condition wherein the will fosters distortion and sin. Being able to hold our emotions in awareness until they unfold according to their deeper longings serves the spiritual path.

I read the book Biospirituality years ago, which is based on Gendlin's focusing method. At that time, what was most interesting to me was what this all implied concering the body-soul connection, and I'm afraid I didn't give the practice much of a try. The philosophical implications continue to intrigue me -- the body as a trustworthy source of wisdom and guidance! How can that be? As yes, there it is again -- the idea of body as temple of the Spirit.

My own practice, thus far, has relied on the Spirit creating Its own appropriate dwelling place, making use of the kundalini process, and leading me through an intuitive sense of what's good or not good for me. I can see how focusing would be a practice to deepen the consents I am already making re. embodiment. Sometimes, during prayer, a quasi-focusing exploration seems to happen on its own, always with benefit.

Thanks for the links, w.c.

I've had a brief look at a couple of them and plan to give the others more attention when I have time. You raise many interesting points.

It's a strange thing that the body as temple of the Holy Spirit has had such negative ramifications: keep the body pure by abstaining - don't do this, don't do that! In actual fact it is such a positive experience and should lead us in the way of peace and joy within the bodily temple. I think that's why I enjoy physical expression in worship: dance, prayerful hands etc, and why, in the context of group worship, it is a great blessing to be aware of the body's reaction as it seems to channel the Holy Spirit's energies and filter them out as worship to God. To have the same dynamic going on in a more contemplative scenario is worth exploring.

On a more philosophical note, it might also be interesting to explore what Paul refers to as the "body of sin/death"(the flesh) and "the body of glory" and how one passes from one to the other through identification with Christ's death and resurrection(particularly in baptism), then to compare the theory/doctrine with the methods you discuss. Is kundalini involved in the purification process as one moves from the flesh into a state where the whole body is a body of light? How then can one fall back into experiencing the body as a body of sin?

Like Phil, I have probably, at times, hit upon a quasi focusing method, as my prayer often begins with body awareness, then leads into an awareness
of what I can only describe as a subtle body, before going into a contemplation of Christ and the Holy Spirit's presence within that subtle body. (At other times I seem to have an awareness of God in heaven, but close to me, touching upon my body). We've talked about the creaturely response before and the problems that it brings.

Anyway, I should probably look into focusing more extensively before I comment on it any further.

Thanks for those reflections, Stephen and Phil. Above all, IMO, any technique for linking self-awareness to the devotion in which we consent to God should be examined both intellectually and intuitively, as you both point out. I'm reading Francisco De Osuna's "Third Spiritual Alphabet," and it is rich with insight on the heart as the locus of the Holy Spirit's infusion bodily. De Osuna was Franciscan, and a contemporary of St. Teresa of Avila, and informed both her work and St. John of the Cross'. There is a basis for real friendliness with the body, along the lines Stephen mentions as distinction between untransformed flesh and the body of glory, the latter seeming to be given after death, although intimations of it are suggested in this earthly spiritual journey.

One thing is for certain, we seem to agree upon the vital difference between the Holy Spirit, and the created energy, kundalini, and so any discussion about their relationship will have relevance for an understanding of Focusing and how it may benefit the psychology of spiritual formation. On a practical level, I've never mixed prayer and Focusing, even though I've tried. Prayer is mostly, for me, a consenting relationship of creature to the Trinity, whereas Focusing is bringing compassionate attention to emerging parts of the psyche that seek union with God in a more clarified longing. Perhaps this serves the process St. Paul describes as the creation moaning in expectation of the revelation of the Sons of God. I'm sure what he meant was something more theologically profound, but I relate devotionally to the passage in such a way, where passions arise from the need for Christ, and so tending them with patience and curiosity, as one might contain and soothe a child's yearnings, honors their basic nature, or what they were intended to be before the fall. And so Focusing doesn't redeem them, but gives them more space so that in prayer they are more in conscious consent, participating more directly within the affective mode of devotion.

And probably the best way to get acquainted with the Focusing process, short of calling somebody like Ann Cornell and having a phone session, would be to buy her little book "The Power of Focusing." Her descriptions are clear as a bell, very well written (she's a linguist by education) and easy to follow, such that in the reading you will probably get a taste of this simple process.

I understand the distinction you make, w.c. Quite an important one! and quite beautiful!

I wonder, in relation to the attention given to those parts of the psyche you mention, how they manifest themselves while, at the same time, on another level, we are, at this present time, "complete in Him".(Colossians 2:10) This is quite mysterious and paradoxical, but nonetheless inspires us to a practical union with Christ, and the working out and participation of those unredeemed parts of us which find their full completion in eternity.

Practically, an awareness of the body before prayer is also quite important to me, as I often find it hard to pray due to fatigue( no doubt resulting from my bad sleeping patterns and messed up body clock) and the presence of unwanted occult energies affecting my body.

Stephen:

I believe Phil has a description of where your question may lead regarding how we inhere in Christ all-the-while these creaturely devotions/expressions of attention take place, in varying degrees of order/disorder. Phil, hope it's o.k. to transplant some of your dissertation that you've offered on another thread . . .

____________________________________

"So, what is Self and Ego?"

"Put simply, it is "I".

"But this ineffable experience we know to be "I" has two aspects: potentiality and actuality. The "I" of potentiality is the larger, more universal aspect; the individual actualization of this potential is more unique and personal. Hence, Self can be considered the subject of the unconscious, and Ego the subject of desire,
intellectual activity, and conscious experience. These are not two different subjects, but they are two different experiences of "I". Self is "I" as the human spirit, who is present in desire and all manner of experiences, while Ego is the conscious and active dimension of "I" in this embodied state. When one consciously
realizes this connection between Self and Ego, then the Ego loses its sense of alienation and isolation and begins to experience the social, cosmic, transcendent and holistic qualities of Self."

"Because of our false self conditioning, however, our awareness of this connection between Self in Ego can be so terribly distorted that the Egoic "I" does not know from whence it comes, and so it attaches to all manner of things within and without the person in an attempt to complete itself. "I" can then become lost in the
convoluted activities of the mind and emotions, becoming, instead, a "me," or object of my own mental activity. In such cases (and they are legion), then "I" am not merely shaped by my experiences, but determined by them. They are not "mine," but "me." Excessive self-
definition and judgmentalism follow from the creation of this mind-self, which is not-"I".

"And what of God? Is God "I"?

"No, God is not "I". Rather, God is the "Am" in which "I" affirm the fact of my existence: "I Am." This "Am", or pure Being, is utterly distinct from "I", for "I" cannot, of its own accord, know anything more about It than the fact that "It Is." And yet Being is also the source of "I"; apart from It, "I" has no existence, no "Am." Something of Existence must therefore be present within "I", for It is the means by which "I" has its own being. "I" cannot extract Existence from itself, however, so "I" can never know what it is apart from Existence. Through the "I" in every person, then, something of the glory and numinosity of Existence Itself shines forth. Those who are awake to their own "I" know this truth, but those who have lost themselves in the disordered mental activity
stirred up by the false self are asleep to the wonder of Existence."

_______________________________

I'll post below how I think this maps much of the Focusing process, and where that process leaves off, and prayer begins.

In the Focusing process, I like the idea that cultivating conscious presence activates hidden presence (I use the lower case "p" to differentiate created presence vs. uncreated Presence). This hidden presence relates to Phil's description of the potentiality of the Self, where the Being of "Am" radiates, however indirectly. The Ego, or the subject of conscious awareness, can, if aligned with the radiant aspects of Self, partake of presence as well, as Phil alludes. In the Focusing process, we learn to notice when we are overidentified with affects/conflicts/stories of trauma, etc . . . which Phil describes in general as the distortion of the Self-Ego relationship. We get entangled in both conscious and subconscious mental-emotional states, and so the mere idea that we can be present to these seems a forminable task indeed. All the while, however, the "I," or capacity for unbiased attention/presence, is embedded in these distortions at all levels.

I would plug Ann Cornell's book here, as she is quite successful in showing the simple steps toward cultivating conscious presence. As we do this, we activate hidden presence, and this of itself begins to harmonize the connections between Self and Ego. The Ego becomes much less dependent upon craving/aversion responses to external stimuli for its sense of identity, and can drop projections, as it is being nourished from the inside-out, rather than struggling to squeeze out morsels from the outside-in.

The wonder Phil speaks of, I think, is largely these created faculties intuiting that they abide within an uncreated Presence (upper case!). These creaturely faculties are stunned in the awe of not being able to apprehend the nature of this Presence, but smitten with gratitude for being know by It/Thou. As such, I have found that Focusing can generate in the faculties an enhanced dispostion for prayer.

It's nice to see a convergence between the experience you arrive at through focusing, w.c., and the more philosophical inquiry that my thesis charted.

Thanks w.c. and Phil for breaking this down. It's quite an interesting way of expressing our being in Christ, while other parts of our being are still developing. I particularly like the idea of "Self is 'I' as the human spirit."

A couple of questions though. Completeness in Christ would seem from scripture to be a direct result of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, and, if, as Phil, says:

"Through the "I" in every person, then, something of the glory and numinosity of Existence Itself shines forth. Those who are awake to their own 'I' know this truth",

how then is that shining forth of existence fully realised without a conscious belief in the sacrifice of Christ? And is any process not superfluous to belief in order to realise that existence? Is that shining forth of existence not only fully realised in an eternal setting, in God, while we only engage in, if you like, a mirror image of that glory, and can only reflect God's presence? I refer particularly to the idea that belief/faith is, perhaps, the only recipient factor of God's grace.

Stephen, I am going to reply to your questions on this thread to try to keep the discussion of that manuscript from propagating over too much of the forum.

- - -

This morning was one of those times when a quasi-focusing experience happened. During a time of prayerful resting, I became aware of a kind of painful, knotted-up place in my right ribs. I was spontaneously moved to be present to this place, to open myself to God from there, inviting the Spirit to move in that disorder. Slowly, the pain subsided and I felt more energy moving along my neck into my right brain. This has continued through the day.

Experiences such as these and what people who do formal focusing practice suggest to me that the body is intrinsically oriented toward spirit and has become disordered, in large part, because of spiritual disorder. I'm not saying all physical disorder is a consequence of spiritual disorientation (i.e., sin), but that a large part of it is. These experiences confirm for me the traditional teachings about how death and sickness came into the world because of sin, and how the soul informs the body and its functioning. Pretty amazing!

. . . "the body is intrinsically oriented towards the spirit . . . ".

That's a wonderful observation Phil, and the conclusion that a lot of physical disorder is a result of spiritual disorientation is also spot on!

"I was spontaneously moved to be present to this place, to open myself to God from there, inviting the Spirit to move in that disorder."


This shows how the body longs to actualize itself as the temple of the Holy Spirit. Stephen alluded to it when describing how his body is moved in devotion, and in Focusing, or in the more spontaneous variety Phil is describing, the body is already predisposed to the Self and its deeper receptivity to God. Just today, not unlike Phil's experience, I was aware of certain organs longing to pray, or to be received into the conscious intent of devotion; this came after some initial prayer/recollection, which led to being with them and listening in those areas, which was Focusing, and then discovering how attracted they are to God's presence and relaxing into that, which led back to prayer. And so Focusing doesn't mix or confuse prayer, or substitute for it, but allows more organismic participation.

Here's some more reflections that came today, and are informed by Phil's metaphors in his dissertation:

Being offended/slighted by another person wakes us up to the Ego's need for alignment with the Self's intelligence, wherein our wounds are understood from the inside-out, as in what one of my meditation teachers used to say: "Every closed place used to be an opening." As Phil describes, the Self's intelligence is not only managed bodily by the kundalini, but is an opening to the Holy Spirit. In this way, the Self knows not only its orginal, more wholistic condition (still fallen), but how to recover that as the temple, participating in our santification through the HS by the deeper, more receptive aspect of its will. The distortions of longing experienced by the Ego are understood for their primary intent in the Self.

Some even suggest disease can be understood in this way, whether physical healing occurs or not, via a connection to Christ's understanding of His own Passion. The worst, most feared sufferings can release our wills to Him even more deeply, and so prayer and meditation, which establish/reinforce patterns of Self-Ego alignment serves this end. My sense of things from hospice work supports this, although most of what we see on the surface are people suffering as unhealed contents of the subconscious come into awareness. But the body itself is unafraid, and so the more we can receive its intelligence through the Self, perhaps the more friendly that process can be (just a hopeful, provisional impression).

How interesting. Just yesterday my therapist gave me a set of tapes to listen to about healing trauma, by Peter Levine. It is all about the felt sense and how trauma can immobilze us if not allowed to naturally complete it's "cycle". The fight/flight energy gets stuck and can remain in the body for years until we are able to feel the sensations, allow them to happen and thus be discharged after which healing occurs.


Katy

Katy:

Peter Levine is one of several researchers/clinicians developing these new models that recover a more intimate and capable body awareness. If you feel drawn to it, after listening to his tapes, you might take a look at Ann Cornell's book, "The Power of Focusing." She was one Gendlin's early students at the University of Chicago, and her method, IMO, is on of the easiest to follow for engaging and listening to body awareness, especially when traumas and developmental deficits are involved. Hakomi, a body-centered psychotherapy borrowing and elaborating upon Buddhist mindfulness, also has a large following. It's not uncommon to find Levine's bunch, Hakomi people, and Focusers aware of each others contributions (I worked briefly with one of Levine's senior students about 6 years ago).

. . . And so Focusing doesn't mix or confuse prayer, or substitute for it, but allows more organismic participation.

And that, in a nutshell, is its primary value, imo. Well-said, w.c. I would add that no healing interventions (energy work, psychotherapy, etc.) will have any lasting effect if one is not also doing spiritual work as well.

A few years ago, the phrase "embodiment of constricted states of attention" came to me while trying to understand some of the kundalini ordeals I was struggling with. The way I've come to understand this is that, granting the fact that the body can be directly physically injured, it is much more often wounded through our own constricted states of attention/intention. This places undue stress on certain organs, contributes to disordered thinking (which influences the cells via peptides) and perpetuates itself through acts attempting to compensate for the constrictions.

What I am talking about, here, is another way of understanding sin. From whence come these constricted states of attention? From the non-love perpetuated against us, and which we consent to within ourselves-- sometimes long after we have been sinned against.

It is not until we reverse this attentional contraction/constriction through a spirituality focused on agapaic love that lasting healing can happen at the bodily level. This doesn't preclude the value of various therapies, perhaps even as stepping-stones en route to spiritual commitment, but it does predict the limited successes of therapies apart from a spiritual context.

I think the following parable by Jesus speaks to this dynamic:

quote:

When an unclean spirit goes out of a person it wanders through waterless coountry looking for a place to rest, and not finding one it says, "I will go back to the home I came from." But on arrival, finding it swept and tidied, it then goes off and brings seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and set up house there, so that the person ends up by being worse than he was before.

I think this has literally happened to several people I know who got into various kinds of energy work, "metaphysical healing," and Eastern forms of meditation. They ended up being less open to truth and far more judgmental of anyone who disagreed with them than when they started.

In short, we cannot really "fix ourselves," as our woundedness is beyond the healing capacity of our natural human resources. It is not simply personal, but opens into cosmic realms, participating in the woundedness of the entire race on some very deep, fundamental level. This is how I understand "Original Sin," and why Christianity teaches that it was imperative that a new humanity be created into which our wounded souls can be grafted, healed, ennobled, and properly directed to their true destiny. As we grow in this manner, our physical bodies are renewed as well, although the damage already done to them will surely bring about an eventual death. Nevertheless, the soul, now drawing its life primarily from a new Body, will participate in the destiny of the Risen One beginning even in this life, and through eternity.

Phil:

This is an interesting and essential view you describe. Christians are just beginning to recognize the need for various therapies in order to experience the body as a habitable place for awareness and devotion. Over the years, the limits of the mind-body processes have only become clearer for me, as the creaturely faculties are innately drawn to their uncreated source. For those who travel a Buddhist path, or something non-theistic, this dilemma may easily open them to a starkness which such faculties aren't designed to manage in the first place. The creature needs, and wants, an intimate relationship with God, but the continual efforts of mind-body techniques, and the spiritual paths of the New Age, and even of Buddhism, never allow the mind to rest in something other than itself. Since within this constant struggle the idea of surrender is mainly just an idea, the path of simple prayer/recollection, besides the intellectual problem with God, can hardly become apparent.

One other problem that many Christians face in considering the body as a domain in which God dwells and can be worshiped is the presence of polarized emotions. In the conscious mind we are constantly exiling one pole or the other, but the body always presents the entire field of sense perception, and with it all the emotions that seen so contradictory and even threatening. Until the felt sensing aspect of body awareness can be experienced and trusted, the idea of releasing attention into the body will carry the defensive habits of conscious awareness that suggest the visceral energies to be ominous.

The subconscious material wants to become conscious so it can enter the field of devotion within the heart. Once in the heart, it all makes sense, but prior to that it can seem quite trecherous. I'm referring here to an alchemical process the body/heart already knows how to do, since the intelligence for it arises from the Self which is always disposed to its transcendental source, wherein all opposites are healed. This isn't to equate alchemical processes to true evil, which is an external invasion to the human psyche. But until the alchemical healing is experienced, so much else that isn't evil is exiled from awareness.

w.c.,

Finally got around to the links. This is something to look into for-sure. Remember Walter Mitty who lived "a short distance from his body." I think I'm him.

waltermitty.com

Here's an interview with Ann Cornell which describes the Focusing process:

http://www.seekerscircle.com/I...ews/InterviewAWC.htm