Love Has Radar

My Love has Radar. This felt sense recently showed up in my WBF meditation. My husband’s hospitalization had upset my world. I needed to spend more time in Grounded Presence to be with what was showing up. What came for me is that I have Love Radar for him—an ability to sense his essence, location, and needs.

When I was a young girl my cousin Barbara, who was seven years older than me, was my anchor. She was the person who loved me most, while the rest of my family made me feel as if they wished I didn’t exist. She was living through her own family difficulties, and I think we buoyed each other through tough times. Because of her family issues, Barbara often spent time with my family when school was not in session.

When Love Radar Shows Up

We shared a room, groomed each other, and read books together. We could depend on each other more than anyone else in our lives. When Barbara was away from me, I knew when she would be calling (before electronic phones, no caller ID.) The phone would ring, and I would answer, “Hi, Barbara!” And she would be baffled how I could know it was her. I didn’t know either. It was our secret.

I’ve always had a question for my body. How do I know what love feels like in me? One way is when I think of someone I love, I might cry for no reason. I would also cry when I thought about my torturers. So crying was immediate, but I am not so sure it was about love. It also seemed to feel like love when I wanted to help someone. I could “show” love to someone but sometimes wondered if that was what my family trained me to do—take care of others. So how do I identify my deepest love?

After I left my husband in the hands of the doctors in the Emergency Room last week, I went home to process what was happening. I was alone in our apartment. I needed to eat and relax and check in with my body about my fears, hopes, and complete exhaustion. As I was holding space for all this, something emerged. I was sending out energy signals to locate Michael and not receiving his location.

At first, I thought it was natural for our situation. However, the feeling of sending out a signal kept showing up over and over again. My energy was running a check and coming up empty. No Michael was near. It made me think about how I could read Barbara’s intention to call whenever she was away. Why was I able to predict when she would call? Why is my body searching for Michael’s body? It occurred to me these are two people who I love deeply. What is love for me? It is to have a self-guiding connection to those I love no matter where they are.

Love is Forever

Cousin Barbara and Diana
Celebrating my elementary school Graduation with Barbara.

Barbara passed away in 2001 but she will reach out to me in dreams and emotions. When her son was in danger because his bosses put him in the line of fire at the beginning of COVID. I knew what she would say, “NO F!!??1G WAY IS MY SON IS DOING THAT!” I cried for days. They were not my tears.  Only when that threat disappeared did the crying stop. It felt like her tears of  anger and fear were passing through me.

Fortunately, my husband has returned from the hospital heartier. I have become aware of how this need to know his location is a continuous flow of energy that searches for him. My Love Radar reassures me that this love is real and exists no matter what else happens.

How do you know when your love for someone is genuine?

Peace in Me / Rauha minussa

Photo Credit: Cerro Santa Lucia in Santiago, Chile by Maria Hakasalo

I sit in a subway in Santiago, Chile. My husband sits at the other end of the full car. I am worried. The next day we go in different directions. He will leave by himself for a backpacking trip to Paraguay, to Iguazu Falls in Brazil and later to Argentina, while I will spend a week in Punta de Tralca, Chile. I will be safe–his experience is an unknown. Who knows, it may even be a bit dangerous. Something in me is absolutely scared.

A man gets on the subway car with another man. They are  standing near the door. The man holds on to an adjacent bar. Noticing him, I suddenly start to feel my feet firmly against the floor of the car. Peace begins to rise up all over my body. I look at the man when he speaks to his companion.  Just an ordinary man about sixty years old carrying a briefcase in his hand. He’s taller than other men in the car.

I look at people around me curiously: could I find someone else with the same peace in their face and in their whole appearance? Not a soul.

After a while, the man leaves the subway. Deep peace in me does not disappear.

This experience reminds me of focusing, when I am with issues, thoughts or feelings that can arise, there is resistance, fear, and hardening in me. When I pay attention to the support of the floor, the chair, the environment, the listener, I start to feel my grounded presence and me here that is completely safe and peaceful.

Later, I realize that the peace of that man resonated with the peace that was just hidden somewhere in me at that moment. There is a peace in me, and I can find it even in a painful moment.

I can feel the same when listening to Kevin’s attunement at:

Looking for the Life Support to Move Forward the Complexity of a Growing Me?

Istun metrovaunussa Santiagossa, Chilessä. Puolisoni istuu toisessa päässä täyttä vaunua. Olen huolissani. Seuraavana päivänä me menemme eri suuntiin. Hän lähtee yksin reppureissailemaan Paraguayhin, ja Iguassun putouksille sekä Brasilian että Argentiinan puolelle samaan aikaan, kun minä vietän viikon Punta de Tralcassa, Chilessä. Minä olen turvassa, hän tuntemattomassa, kuka tietää, jopa vaarallisessa paikassa. Joku minussa on todella peloissaan.

Metrovaunuun nousee mies toisen miehen kanssa. He jäävät seisomaan oven suulle. Mies ottaa tukea viereisestä tangosta. Kun näen hänet, alan yhtäkkiä tuntea jalkapohjani tukevasti vaunun lattiaa vasten. Rauha alkaa nousta ylöspäin koko kehooni. Katson miestä, kun hän puhuu toiselle. Aivan tavallinen mies, noin kuudenkymmenen ikäinen salkku kädessään. Pidempi kuin moni mies ympärillään.

Katson ihmisiä ympärilläni uteliaana: löytyisikö joku toinenkin, jonka kasvoista ja koko olemuksesta huokuisi sama rauha kuin miehestä vierelläni. Ei ketään.

Jonkun ajan päästä mies poistuu metrosta. Minussa asuva syvä rauha ei häviä.

Tämä kokemus muistuttaa fokusointia. Sitä, kuinka olen asioiden, ajatusten tai tunteiden kansssa, jotka voivat herättää minussa vastustusta, pelkoa, jähmettymistä. Kun vien huomion lattian, tuolin, ympäristön ja kuuntelijani antamaan tukeen, alan tuntea, kuinka jalkani juurtuvat maahan ja löydän sen osan minusta, joka on täysin turvassa, jolla on täysi rauha vain olla.

Myöhemmin oivallan, että miehen rauha resonoi minussa itsessäni sillä hetkellä piiloutuneena olleen rauhan kanssa. Minussakin on se rauha, ja voin löytää sen kipeälläkin hetkellä.

Kevinin harjoitus vie minut tähän samaan tunnelmaan. Löydät sen täältä

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Stop, Wait for More!

Something shifts right now, as I put words to it! A new clarity comes now, not the panicked hurried feeling I know so well. And it feels new, I can feel space inside. I have some room, room to pause, to breath, wait and see with a kind of curiosity…

By Kevin McEvenue

These preambles are all about inviting a direct experience—in words, as they are sounded out, then explored, as you listen to me. This is a mutual, bodily-felt event happening as an experience of me and then a sense of you.

It starts with feeling something inside myself. I pause and I wait for the words to come. For your part, you hear the sound of them. Maybe notice that.

This is an opportunity to create a mutual experiencing with each other in this kind of direct experience. Direct—you and me—two different worlds awaken to one another each in our own way as we speak and listen together.

So, let’s see what comes in this next podcast. It came suddenly in the early morning. I wrote it down immediately, because it needed to be precise: “I know something before I know what it is.”

Those were the very words that excited me. I knew I wanted to spend time with it, companion it as I share this experience with you. Speaking out—aware you are there too. To include another beyond myself seems to benefit the whole experience in its possibilities of revelations.

Again, the podcast speaks for itself. It offers surprises, twists and turns that happen. Full stop!……. it brought me right back to an earliest moment of life. Freshly remembered now; perhaps the first experience of awakening to human consciousness, noticing, something is not right! Followed by an instantaneous response, a loud scream that seems to say, get the fuck off me. That is what it felt like then and now—right now—I feel the force of it!

I was in a baby crib—a few months old—left outside in the early spring. A cat jumped on me, sat on my mouth to feel the warmth from my breath. My response was instantaneous, I can still smell it, its fur on my face. Maybe I felt my breathing blocked. I reacted with force. Get the fuck off me! It got the message and fled. I felt it gone. I felt empowered, it brought relief. In other words, it felt good. It worked and it taught me, I can do it! And I still feel that same powerful reaction inside: Something is not right here!

What was your first reaction to something like that in your life? A moment when it felt life-threatening. What did you perceive? What was your reaction?

For me, I acted with anger and yelled like hell. It was over in a second. But the pattern stuck, maybe because I felt I could! It worked! And I liked it, it felt empowering. I got noticed!

And that is what I want to explore now. It is a pattern that is still there, feels good, but it also causes trouble; it feels conflicted with other parts of me. I seem to react too quickly before taking action! For example, to type a message: so much confusion happens right there as I type. As though I am too much in a hurry. Almost like a panic; I have to do something—do something now!

Back to those opening words that excited me; “I know something before I know what it is.” This time, I pause; I wait for the feel of it to come again. Suddenly I hear Gene’s words—Gene Gendlin saying, with a tone of gentle curiosity: “Oh, so you don’t know! (pause) You don’t know yet!” This feels like heartfelt listening at its best.

Something shifts right now, as I put words to it! A new clarity comes now, not the panicked hurried feeling I know so well. And it feels new, I can feel space inside. I have some room, room to pause, to breath, wait and see with a kind of curiosity…to see what wants to come here. What wants to come next. The pull to act quickly is also here, but the desire to wait and see is even more compelling!

The Olympic diver comes to mind again. How he practices that perfect dive, enjoying the whole event slowly in his wonderful imagining, feeling it all, the whole of it. Waiting for the right moment to happen and then it does. Effortlessly it just flows.

The crowd cheers and so do I. I can do this too. And I want to…….

Photo Credit: McEvenue Archives

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Me and Planet Earth

A critical block can be the emotional pain of the fear of not being loved or wanted. This type of despair might be a compelling presence in our lives.

Me & planet Earth sustain me. Out of nothing, something new emerges. Kevin connects us to one of his influences, Pierre de Chardin, who believed that we have a role to play in the expanding universe. We are a part of planet Earth, and it sustains life–even our lives. For example, we can sense the laws of gravity that help us function at every moment of our lives. This intunement is about the experience of our sense of self-connected to the Earth in grounded presence. More importantly, we need to know what might get in the way.

Not Planet Earth

A critical block can be the emotional pain of the fear of not being loved or wanted. This type of despair might be a compelling presence in our lives. If we make room for fear of nothingness, more comes. We need to endure the sense of nothing to allow something not of our own making to emerge.

Me and Plant Earth

In this intunement, Kevin takes us through how these ideas have an inherent connection to our Wholebody Focusing practice and how Kevin uses them to take what he learns about these connections to a new level. These nuances can enrich your practice of Wholebody Focusing.

Enjoy what emerges today listening to Kevin’s journey in connecting to planet Earth.

Photo Credit: Mohonk Mountain, NY at sunset Diana Scalera

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Why Heartfelt Conversation?/ Perché Conversazione del Cuore?

When Rosa and I found Wholebody Focusing for the first time, both of us were seasoned Focusers. We had our own way to enter the Focusing process, which worked well. Still, we both realized immediately how Wholebody Focusing grounding was bringing us into a deeper and broader state of presence, in a very natural and straightforward way.
Whenever we engage in a partnered focusing session, we always start with a deep grounding through Heartfelt Conversation. We use this practice to facilitate a session with a client or student. We also enter into a Heartfelt Conversation with each other this way.

We could not start a Heartfelt Conversation without a slow, detailed grounding. First, each of us talks aloud to guide ourselves into a grounded presence. We describe everything we notice and feel to each other; then, we switch and, afterward, we still spend at least five minutes, or even more, exploring our “We Space.” It is a prolonged, natural process that opens both of us to a broader consciousness in which we both resonate with the space around us and experience more abundant wisdom coming from inside and outside ourselves. We feel we are in a vast field of energies and information, more fertile than both our fields alone.
This process helps us to very naturally step into grounded presence, and we experience something that is very wise–more profound, and love guides us as we interact with each other.

This is Heartfelt Conversation at its best for us!

Not all Conversations are so deep. Some of them are a very creative process, and others are full of lightness and sharing. We have also experienced healing process during this process.

As we work to support our clients, students, and focusing partners, we enter Heartfelt Conversation many times with outstanding outcomes. For example, we used HFC when we started working together to explore our differences, their most unclear and hidden parts, and also our different experiences in life. We touched our fears about this new collaboration, and we explored what could interfere, stopping or blocking the flow of energy between us and any chance at having an authentic, open connection.

We explored our discordant aspects in a careful, respectful, and authentic way through HFC. This in-depth process allowed us to open up to an appreciation of our mutual qualities. What did we like about each other? What was moving us to work together, and what was attracting one towards the other?

HFC showed itself as the most touching, positive, and transforming part of our process: any doubt or difficulty disappeared. Spontaneously, almost without becoming aware of what was happening between us, we shared a mutual appreciation for our qualities and positive aspects.  We brought out a whole series of qualities that had remained silent until we began having Heartfelt Conversations. The result of these interactions was that confidence was strengthened not only in our collaborative projects but also in our self-esteem.

Perché iniziare con un buon Radicamento

Quando abbiamo incontrato l’Wholebody Focusing cinque anni fa eravamo entrambe focalizzatrici ormai da tempo. Avevamo sviluppato ognuna il proprio modo di entrare nel processo di Focusing ma, fin da subito, ci siamo rese conto dell’efficacia del radicamento. Come previsto dal primo dei cinque spazi corporei dell’Wholebody, iniziando con un buon Radicamento, il processo andava molto più in profondità e il nostro Stato di Presenza risultava ampliato. Così è diventato il nostro modo di iniziare una sessione o una Conversazione col Cuore.

Iniziare una Conversazione col Cuore con un buon Radicamento per noi è fondamentale: ognuno a turno guida se stesso, descrivendo ad alta voce al compagno, in maniera semplice ed autentica, tutto ciò che percepisce. Così facendo si apre in modo naturale ad uno stato di coscienza più ampio, entra in un ritmo più lento e il pensiero va a servizio della percezione. Le informazioni giungono ai due partner dal Tutto in cui ci si radica, un luogo interiore ed esteriore allo stesso tempo.

I corpi fisici, emozionali ed energetici entrano in risonanza e si aprono all’esplorazione consapevole dello “Spazio del Noi”, quel campo di energie ed informazioni più vasto e ricco di contenuti dei reciproci campi. Si entra naturalmente in uno Stato di presenza Radicata che, nella Conversazione col Cuore, è ancora più vasto e profondo perché è formato dal campo fisico, energetico e spirituale di entrambi e, molto spesso, viene esperito come un qualcosa di molto più intelligente, saggio, amorevole di ciò che potrebbe emergere da una sessione individuale.

Sono molti i casi in cui la Conversazione col Cuore può essere utilizzata con evidenti benefici. Ad esempio all’inizio della nostra collaborazione è stato molto utile per noi esplorare quali erano gli aspetti più diversi, difficili, oscuri dei nostri caratteri e delle nostre esperienze. Quali erano le nostre paure rispetto ad una possibile collaborazione. Cosa avrebbe potuto mettersi in mezzo tra di noi ed impedire l’autenticità, l’apertura, l’accoglienza o semplicemente lo scorrere di una buona energia?

Dopo aver esplorato con discrezione, rispetto e autenticità questi aspetti più spigolosi, ci siamo naturalmente aperte, in maniera sincera, a quelle che erano le nostre reciproche qualità. Cosa apprezzavamo veramente l’una dell’altra, cosa ci aveva attratto e cosa ci aveva spinto a quella collaborazione? Quest’ultima parte si è rivelata la parte più commovente e costruttiva del processo, la parte che ha sciolto ogni nodo e dubbio. Senza neanche rendercene conto, in una spinta naturale di spontaneità, ci siamo confidate la nostra reciproca ammirazione e apprezzamento per alcuni degli aspetti che avevamo colto nell’altra e abbiamo fatto emergere tutta una serie di qualità rimaste in silenzio fino a quel momento. Questo ha sicuramente rafforzato la nostra fiducia non solo nel nostro progetto di collaborazione ma anche nella nostra autostima.

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Holding Space for the Suffering of the Holocaust

Presentation by Ellen Korman Mains

As part of the commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Kevin McEvenue’s Wholebody Focusing Blog helped sponsor an online gathering, attended by people from at least 6 countries. Author, Holocaust activist, and Focusing Teacher Ellen Korman Mains led a discussion on ways to hold space for and participate in the healing that needs to happen around the devastation of the Holocaust.

This post has an abridged version of Ellen’s presentation to the participants that supported small group Heart Conversation on this topic. Ellen starts her comments with a discussion of time itself. How are the past, present, and future connected? Can we relate to trauma in the past? Do these past actions relate to what is happening now? And, most importantly, how can holding space for the past carry us forward?

Ellen talks about the history of witnessing the Holocaust—how it was avoided by many at first. It is challenging to hold such horrors in our consciousness. She describes the process of becoming a witness and why witnessing matters. What is the impact on the person who is a witness? Can it change the energy of those spirits who lived through this tragedy?

Ellen draws on her work and the work of other healers for inspiration. She describes the process of being a witness at Auschwitz as “shattering” initially; however, if one is able and willing to stay present to the energy of the experience, a peacefulness emerges and extends into a sense of spaciousness and well-being.

This video is about 18 minutes long but well worth the effort to watch. For me, it is a convincing explanation of how we can heal ourselves, the past, and the future through this type of energy work. This kind of holding of space for suffering can also be helpful in many other circumstances in which unattended suffering still has us in its grip.

Sit back and take your time being with Ellen and her wisdom.

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My Prayer Hears Your Prayer

That was the awakening:  My prayer hears your prayer. Perhaps for you, too. And then something in me said that’s enough! That’s all I need to do—holding a sense of me and being aware of a sense of you. And you’re different!

Painting; Riverdale Park in Cabbagetown by Kevin McEvenue

This is in response to Elizabeth’s  “It Is for This.” It is the power of her voice, the tone of the sound that is so healing to my soul.  My body instantly awakens to her tone of voice even before the words are felt.

I am just allowing Elizabeth’s prayer to be heard and to be felt inside of me. And the words that seem to awaken something deeper in me is this expression that she keeps repeating:  it is for this. It is for this. It is for this.
And each time I hear that repetition, it touches me even more deeply because I know that sound.  I can feel that sound and I can feel me.
That is what Elizabeth has awakened in me too—that sense of me that knows who I am.  What I am.
And I love the feel of it.  I love being awakened when I hear someone else is there too. It gives me a sense of myself that feels totally satisfying.  It is a feeling of love.
I am Love.
I live love in my body as a whole.
It is me.
This is who I am.
Amen.

Something more came for me listening to Elizabeth saying what was there for her and how deeply that awakened something in myself about me. It is as though her sound, her voice, her expression, awakened a sense of myself from inside–like awakening a tuning fork of who I am.

My Prayer Hears your Prayer

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Mr. Deer and Me

Mr Deer

I offer a moment-to-moment description of a grounded presence experience that I had with a deer as we both walked through the woods. This example highlights an important Wholebody Focusing practice–holding a “we” space for partners.  It also shows how we can have a “we” space with any other sentient being and how both of us are impacted by the relational space they create together.

There he was, Mr. Deer, quietly but unexpectedly just over there. In fact, he was just beyond the clearing of the forest as I began my own walk. I was taking a break from a training that wasn’t going well for me. I wanted to enjoy a walk in the forest to find a grounded sense of myself again.

That is when it happened, that encounter with Mr. Deer. It seemed to startle both of us so unexpectedly. It was a surprise, yes, and startling? Maybe for a split second we both knew that something felt different here and so we seemed to pause and take in the moment with curiosity. It was that pause that seemed to change everything because we both took some space to take in what might be happening that felt so different from what we were used to. What was that? What made us stop and take a moment to become aware of the something that felt new here?

I can’t speak for Mr. Deer. He has his own sense of what was happening in him. For me, as a reflective human creature that I am, I realized I was in a good place. Usually I walk through a forest without really taking much in. But this time I felt differently. I was enjoying this moment of peace and enjoying myself in this wooded environment.

Continue reading “Mr. Deer and Me”

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