The stories connect to the Observer Effect in some way. They are also connected to being able to trust that there is some knowledge beyond our thoughts that can guide us if we let it.
Photo Credit: Marty Correia, Kate Sitting with Rothko
In physics, the Observer Effect is the idea that the mere act of observing a phenomenon inevitably changes it.
The Observer Effect
I am not a scientist, and I will take the words above for face value while letting you know that scientists and mathematicians have observed, documented, and proven this concept to be true. The combination of the Observer Effect and the belief that our bodies know what they need to heal can help us find our authentic selves. The stories below are connected to the Observer Effect in some way. They are also connected to trusting that there is knowledge beyond our thoughts that can guide us if we let it.
Searching for Peace Amidst the Spiritual Energy of the Holocaust
I recently read a book by Ellen Korman Mains, Buried Rivers: A Spiritual Journey into the Holocaust. It is an excellent book in which Ellen recounts her journeys to Europe to connect with the residual energies of the Holocaust. Ellen sensed them while traveling on a train in Germany. She felt these energies as a combination of grief, revulsion, and much more. Ellen eventually made finding a way of relating to these energies her life’s work and has written this book to describe her journey.
What Ellen found when she came in contact with these unresolved energies or spirits was that she eventually was able to hold space for them by dropping the habitual tendencies to judge them (thereby fearing or rejecting them) or to identify with them (thus feeling shame). As she learned to hold space for them in this neutral way, a natural state of compassion emerged.
From Observation, Grief, to Compassion
As Ellen held space for them, they also held space for her own healing. The process that both she and the suffering spirits shared provided mutual benefit. Because of her capacity to observe and sense energies that others might not recognize, she was able to hold a space of compassionate presence for them. With her support, these spirits were able to experience their own capacity to heal. At the same time, her connection to the Holocaust, as the daughter of an Auschwitz survivor, also improved.
In doing this work, Ellen was supported in her lifelong quest to live deeply in the present. Her Buddhism and Focusing practices helped her find basic goodness even in the aftermath of the Holocaust by observing and accepting exactly what was already there. This helped her bring an attitude of steady, quiet attention and open curiosity. In the end, she found she could heal herself while helping others by holding space for what was there, allowing the energies she encountered to be witnessed, and giving them the time and space they needed to heal.
Ellen continues this work by sharing her book with audiences around the world.
A friend, Kate, told me about an experience at the Whitney Museum in New York City. She was interested in having a more meditative experience in the museum rather than walking by one painting after another. She asked the staff to provide her with a small stool that some museums offer patrons. The stool gave her a chance to sit and be with a painting or other art object.
The first law of spiritual energy: energy follows attention! In other words, wherever I focus my attention, the energy in my body, mind, and spirit follows. It is as simple as that!
The power of heartfelt loving is beyond any expectation we can imagine. It is the essence of the practice of Heartfelt Connection in Wholebody Focusing as we know it.
HeartFelt Loving
I start by inviting a connection between me, a part of me, a part of something outside myself, and especially a sense of you over there as I hold the whole of that in my consciousness. I pause, to just notice what is there, and accept what comes beyond what I might expect.
This feels proactive in some way—like an opportunity to notice that seems to want my attention, and to do so. Often something totally unexpected or even uninvited appears out of the blue! It is an opportunity to turn my attention towards something there with an open heart and wait there. I just notice…that is all…and allow a felt sense to emerge…as though it seems to notice itself and notice me too…with mutual affection.
Beyond Expectation
Something very powerful seems to be present at the same time; something not of my own making. I can feel it there and it feels powerful. If I am able to hold a space for such an experience, something more begins to happen. Something happening that couldn’t happen without this kind of heartfelt participation!
We could call this the first law of spiritual energy: energy follows attention! In other words, wherever I focus my attention, the energy in my body, mind, and spirit follows. It is as simple as that!
In this blog, I offer two concrete examples of situations where Heartfelt Presence is activated; first, my own experience happening now, and next an event that happened 25 years ago to a man who suffered a very debilitating crisis called carpal syndrome. (See a previous blog entitled: When Love Pays Attention to a Deep Wound.) Today I fill in the empty pieces that unfolded over all these many years and updated that event with some very surprising results.
These two ‘happenings’ speak for themselves. What more can I say except to appreciate the power explored in Participatory Spirituality in this series.
You can connect to one’s raw desire which awakens your power to hold space with equal positive regard to the wanting and not wanting to acknowledge the desire.
I can feel it in my body that I want to say something; it is like an energy—the energy of desire wanting to say something. At the same time, I am aware I don’t know the nature of that desire; it feels like a raw energy. That immediately brings an almost equal response of resistance that seems to say, “I can’t” or maybe, “I won’t!”
Power
It also feels like I have been here before, possibly in the Intunement Series describing the steps of Wholebody Focusing. I can hear myself saying “I know this place; I know that step.” Thinking—as I pause—it is about holding both with equal positive regard, all about wanting and not wanting.
But this is a different experience; similar—but not the same. What is familiar is the ability to describe this step as a WholeBody focusing experience. What is different is that I am fully immersed in this activity. A desire standing alone on its own power without specific content. I am also aware of the resistance—the mustn’t!—but without the familiar intensity. I am full of desire and at the same time I don’t know! They seem to come from very different places in me.
Raw Desire Awakens Power
Here I choose to pause and stay with the desire. I make room for whatever comes directly out of that power: desire! I wait for more to come from that core sense of wanting and desiring. Raw desire feels neutral at first, but as my awareness connects with the desire, something more happens between us that is rich and surprising.
They feel almost independent of one another, enough to be able to say “hi!” The whole bodily experience seems to expand the whole of me that actually feels palpable! Yes, there is an engagement happening that is remarkably palpable! A feeling of mutual connection with one another that feels not only mutual, but also fulfilling—with appreciation and respect. It is happening and it is good and we know it.
These are movements of active participation with one another, powerful forces activated by this connection. It is for me to just hold the space!
I invite you to share with me what comes; starting with desire, the resistance and the not-knowing. Notice how more seems to be activated and stimulated by this raw energy as we pause and wait with an attitude of curious wondering!
“Every bad feeling is potential energy toward a more right way of being if you give it space to move toward its rightness…”.
Have you ever wondered how something as precious as a pearl is created? It starts with something gritty, like a grain of sand or a parasite, entering the soft, sensitive tissues of the oyster. To deal with the discomfort of this ‘irritant’, the oyster generates a natural substance (aragonite) which it normally uses to produce and maintain its hard and shiny shell. It is this substance that the oyster then coats over the irritant to protect itself from the discomfort. And thus a pearl is formed…
To me there is such a profound analogy here. Sometimes life can get a bit gritty and I may get “triggered” by an “irritant”, i.e. someone or a situation that is getting under my sensitive skin. What I hear the oyster is saying here to me, is that instead of reacting adversely to the irritation and upset that it has triggered inside me, I can bring my own “aragonite” into the equation – an embodied sense of the ground and aliveness of “Me Here”, which then can be felt beside or around the inner disturbance.
Of course, every analogy breaks down somewhere and the oyster analogy cracks its shell here: unlike the oyster coating over the irritant with its aragonite, so it doesn’t have to feel the gritty discomfort anymore, there is no smoothing over of what has been triggered in me, as that wouldn’t be Focusing. Instead, I can let both the physically felt sense of “all that about being triggered” and the embodied sense of ‘Me Here’ be there “with equal positive regard” and kindly and curiously listen to what wants to happen.
That may initially feel strange and somewhat counter intuitive, but it does make inner space for the energy of the triggered turbulence to move forward towards “its rightness”, as Gendlin would describe it in his well-known quote: “Every bad feeling is potential energy toward a more right way of being if you give it space to move toward its rightness…”.
And as it moves forward, I often feel the energy pent up in the inner disturbance begin to unwind, release and re-align with the aliveness of “Being Here” in this moment. I feel more alive and present, more Here and Now. And in this alchemical way, Presence deepens and grows in me. What was stirred up in me by the grit of Life, has now been transformed into a pearl of Presence.
It feels freeing to realise that each time I am “triggered”, there is an opportunity here to let the pearl of the Presence that I am grow stronger. Life is becoming a win-win experience!
From this perspective, every gritty moment in my life is grist to the mill for everdeepening Presence. Those people or situations, those “irritants” that trigger me, do not need to be my enemies or antagonists; instead, I can allow them to be my teachers of Presence!
Diana and Ellen discuss how both spirituality and focusing live in their bodies and how they support their struggles with the “Little Monsters” with a sense of befriending what’s there by holding both with equal regard.
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Illustration of a Neanderthal Woman: John Sibbick (with permission from the artist)
Ellen Korman Mains came up with “Holding Our Strengths and “Little Monsters” as she reflected on her week. It included how she’d been relating with a disturbing part of herself. Diana Scalera and Ellen talked about being with difficult experiences of ourselves. We focused on how we were helped by our spiritual and focusing practices.
Holding our Strengths
Diana Scalera went to Catholic school until the 8th grade. She gave up on Catholicism and religion in general. Her experiences were mosty demeaning retoric, punishments. Not until she began focusing did she find a onnection to spirit. In one of her first sessions with Kevin McEvenue, a Neanderthal woman became present in her body. She was there to support Diana in a situation in which she felt weak and powerless. She experienced the strength in these bones and how the Neanderthal woman was offering them to guide her and make her strong. From then on, From that point on, Diana let go of a traditional idea of spirituality and became open to her innate connection to helpful spirits. Neanderthals
Ellen Korman Mains grew up in a hom with Holocaust survivors where ties to previous generations seemed cut entirely. At 19, she met a Tibetan Buddhist teacher who emphasized trusting direct experience over dogma or wishful thinking, and this began her spiritual journey.
Holding our “Little Monsters…”
Twenty years later, illness and energy work broadened her sense of connection to the invisible world and to the “larger system” that Gene Gendlin refers. Later, traveling to Poland to embrace her family’s past led to extraordinary openings described in her book Buried Rivers: A Spiritual Journey into the Holocaust, as ancestors began showing up to support her. Since 2011, Focusing and meditation have been important venues for trusting her direction and spiritual connection and helping others trust theirs.
How does WBF Help?
In the video below, Diana and Ellen discuss how spirituality and Focusing live in their bodies. Through the years, spiritual experiences show up to support their struggles with the “Little Monsters” by offering their strength and a sense of a sense of being befriended to hold both the “monsters” and our strength equally.
Five WBFTrainers aretalking about WBF. They are from Spain, Canada, Italy, and the United States. They were celebrating the preparation for the First Anual Whole Body Focusing Gathering in Italy. The Gathering took place in August 2014. . Each brings their own experience of WBF from their work in their countries
People Talking about Wholebody Focusing
We want to highlight that Wholeblody Focusing is not a particular series of actions but a dynamic practice that responds to cultural differences, languages, and needs of practitioners. Our five Wholebody Focusing trainers talk to each other about how they practice Wholebody focusing. It includes practice samples and commentary on how different practices suit different cultures. Americans, for example, tend to read theory and apply it. Italians live at the edge of their emotions and find interaction with a partner or a group lively. Our Spanish practitioner uses tennis as a structure that helps the practitioner(s) connect to whatever is needed.
What do People Say about Wholebody Focusing
Wholebody Focusing isn’t an organization but rather a community of people who have learned Wholebody Focusing and love to share what they have learned.We have resources that help that bond in the absence of a company or organization that does that.This blog plays a considerablerole int keeping international practitioners up to date on how others practice. You may also be interested in another website of Kevin McEvenu’s work https://wholebodyfocusing.com/
Focusing Initiatives International has a monthly Wholbody gathering it is is open to anyone interested in Wholebody Focusing. Kevin McEvenue often participates in these gathering.The gathering happens on the second Saturday of the month at 11AM to 12:30. Wholebody Focusing isn’t an organization but rather a community of people who have learned Wholebody Focusing and love to share what they have learned. Wholebody focusing Gatherings
When Iwas a young girl, my mother and I had a battle for “Whose body is this?”Mother felt the need to control all aspects of my life: what I ate, how I ate it, what clothes I wore, and how much space I deserved in family interactions.She decided my body was her body and controlled me based on how her parents raised her.Her behavior led to regularbattles for control.
Leave my Body Alone!
This story showed up a few months ago when I was facing some medical issues. Questions of “whose body is this” emerged when I needed to have someone else decide whether some part of me needed to be removed or not. I woke up and started preparing for my upcoming visit with my surgeon. I had oral macular cancer in 2017. One of the side effects of the radiation was cancer of the tongue from these harsh treatments. A few months earlier, I had a lesion removed from my tongue where the radiation was strongest.
I quickly took a look at my tongue to do a check like the surgeon told me to do. Unfortunately, I saw something new where the cancer was removed from my tongue. I contacted my surgeon, made an appointment, and went on with my day.There was a black dot in that space.It looked like a poppy seed was stuck in the area where the surgery was performed.It’s a poppy seed until I hear otherwise.I’ve learned from my three bouts with cancer, “It isn’t cancer until the biopsy says so”.
Asking my Body!
I had a session with my shaman partner, Susan. We held space for what was at the root of this new disturbance.What came to me was something that had shown up before.A focuser partner and Ifound that the dinner table was where we learned to be ourselves. It was a place of constant reinforcement of our roles in the family:This is where we were trained to be who we “should” be.My wholebody sense was directing me to revisit that place; my childhood dinner table experience.I doubted that this had anything to do with my new illness. However, I have learned to trust that my body knows more than I do.
One of the rules in my family was that we had to eat all the food on our plates. My grandmother, mother, and father all lived through the Depression of the 1930’s and had deep wounds from going hungry over a long period of time. My Italian-American family treated food as a gift that could not be wasted. They often ate things that were eaten in Italy but unknown in the US.For example, there were meals ofLamb’s brain and Cow’s stomach offered as a special delight.One needed to eat every mouthful on our plates.
When my Body finds me!
As young as 5 or 6 years old, I developed a fear of these non-American meals. I feared that these meals were poisonous. My mother viewed these thoughts as belligerence.She was incensed that any of her children could reject the food set on the table after the family’s experience during the Depression.There were no alternatives offered. On a particular night when a more normal meal was presented to me, I noticed that I had developed that same fear of poison, even though I might have previously eaten that particular foodsuccessfully.
This time, I felt a definite NO. It seemed like my fear of food was starting to extend to everyday foods.I told my family that I could not eat the food on the plate because it would make me sick. My mother was beside herself.She picked up my plate and dragged me to the stairway that led to the basement, where my family ate dinner in the summertime. I was sitting on the top step, face-to-face with my mother. She held my plate, demanding that I put the food in my mouth and swallow. I told her again I couldn’t because it would make me sick.She demanded that I put the food in my mouth and swallow.
I did what she asked. The result was that my body rejected the food. After a few minutes,I involuntarily vomited the food onto my mother’s face. She was initially really mad, but something shifted in her.Mother realized (maybe) how inappropriate she was being. She never forced me to eat anything again!
My 5-year-old emerged
When I finished describing what happened, Susan suggested I ask my earlier self to tell the story. Susan’s words shifted energy in my body. My arms and hands rose and moved violently, my voice shifting to a deeply disturbed, almost growling sound, and I began the story again from an inner place I had never felt before. In general, my mother was very controlling over many aspects of my life. My younger self let me know this interaction was about ending my mother’s control of my body.
We build on our past to bring us to meet ourselves
The physical depth of the growling sound helped me understand why this moment was so important. This was an act of bravery by my younger self that led to my mother having less control. I was grateful to meet this powerful part of me that knew what it could and could not tolerate, given the lack of adult support.Unfortunately, the fear of food continued to show up deep into adulthood, and once in a while, it shows up again when I feel threatened with a possible new medical diagnosis or other threats. For example, as Trump’s violence against immigrants gets more intense, that fear emerges, and I have to be more patient with myself about what I eat.
Susan told me that when my younger self was present, I was surrounded by an extraordinarily bright white light.I am so inspired by my 5-year-old self that successfully fought against being forced to eat things she feared by a traumatized, out-of-control mother.My five-year-old self’s steadiness, bravery, and body wisdom in that moment changed the course of my life. It limited my mother from trying to control me in all sorts of ways.She may not have wanted to suffer that moment again. While she was never able to treat me with kindness, my mother seldom tried to impose her will on me from that point on. How much to control children?
NB
Many years of Wholebody Focusing and Method Acting training have given my body the capacity to connect physically and emotionally, expressing long-lost experiences.Susan’s words and energetic presence gave my body permission to show me what I experienced in that moment and how it would influence the rest of my life. It also convinced me that I have the power to live more authentically.
NB2 The problem with my tongue was quickly resolved. It was a small suturer placed in my tongue during surgery that broke through: thus the black dot. The Surgeon removed it quickly. The final result is that the black dot was not completely removed. The extraction led to a reduction of pain.
Have you ever wondered how something as precious as a pearl is created? It starts with something gritty, like a grain of sand or a parasite, entering the soft, sensitive tissues of the oyster. To deal with the discomfort of this ‘irritant’, the oyster generates a natural substance (aragonite) which it normally uses to produce and maintain its hard and shiny shell. It is this substance that the oyster then coats over the irritant to protect itself from the discomfort. And thus a pearl is formed…
