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Listening to the felt sense

In every moment of human life there is an immense complexity, which is an unclear sensory quality. Therefore, when we enter into the sensory quality of the moment – there is a whole world of immense and precise complexity. When we say something, anything, it stems from this immense complexity (implicit intricacy), therefore we know only the edge of what we mean. Focusing opens up for us the most.
(From: Gendlin's conversation with Anne)
Although such a physical sensation (for example, about a person you know) comes as a single feeling, we can feel that it contains complexity. I want to explain this statement.
Your body's sense of the person you know contains all your history with that person and what you hope for with that person. It also contains what that person arouses in you and some of your unresolved problems. It also contains the exact way you like and dislike that person, and much more. Let me put all of these things together and call it "complexity." You might be able to think of three or four of these things, but most of them remain hidden inside. Such a body sense contains implicit intricacy.
The encapsulating complexity does not yet have separate threads or parts. However, later, when they appear separately, we say that they were already there within the single sensation we had at the beginning.
You can sense that there is an enclave of complexity even if you can't uncover it, even if you can't open it and go inside. I use the terms "opening and going in." This kind of physical sensation is a gate. If we open it and if we go in, we can take many steps inside.
Many people today have complex experiences for which language has no words or expressions. We are refining and refining new expressions for these experiences. It is something that only poets once did. For most people, the ability to do this is an exciting development of the human being. It is a new stage. Of course, it is not so easy to deal with, but in one area after another of life one begins to see that the trouble is worthwhile.
The complexity of human experience is revealed in every human domain. Behind every broken, fragmented social routine, there is a new field of experiential complexity. We learn how to navigate these new territories, not by enforcing a new set of rules and habits but by entering into and speaking from experiential complexity. (From: Fitting in, Pouring out and Relating)


Translation – Dana Ganihar

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