For Christmas, my boyfriend bought me a workbook called Thinking at the Edge because he knows I want to write a book and I’m having trouble figuring out where to start or how to even articulate the core concept. The workbook is based off the work of Dr. Gendlin, an American philosopher who, in the 1950’s and 60’s, found that,
“… a client’s ability to realize lasting positive change in psychotherapy depended on their ability to access a nonverbal, bodily feel of the issues that brought them into therapy. Gendlin gave the name “felt sense” to this intuitive body-feel for unresolved issues.”
Wikipedia, Eugene Gendlin
North America doesn’t really give Gendlin his due because the concept of mindfulness and its inherent connection to the body’s senses, landed on the shores of the United States around the 1970’s, which eventually unseated him; however, he did enjoy some popularity in the 80’s with his book Focusing. Some people really connected with his work. His second wife, Mary N. Hendricks, developed the concept into a workshop to help people give birth to their creative projects by getting in touch with their “felt sense”. My boyfriend was able to track down one of those workshop leaders, Nada Lou from Montreal, who still had workbook copies from 2004.
The underlying principle of the exercises is to get in touch with how your idea “feels” in the body. To work around finding its edges in this manner is holy work. I took a mindfulness class in about 2016, and it was a great course, it really solidified what mindfulness should feel like in the body, but it didn’t teach us about this level of application. I’m excited to get started. The first exercise is just a general feet-wetting exercise where I imagine the workshop leader saying something like, “Close your eyes and listen to this guided meditation. Envision what it will feel like to package up this product and help people find its relevant audience.”
“You already sense that there is something at the Edge of your “knowing” and “not knowing yet”. This often happens in the area of your expertise: your job, hobby, or keen interest of any kind. There is a deliberate sense of excitement about it. You want it to be said so you try to articulate it. It may be disorganized; words that don’t say what you mean. You may gesture with your hands [and] people misunderstand. Yet you felt sense that it needs to be said and it has value for you and potentially for many others. You may become discouraged wishing you could describe it better. Sometimes you just give up on talking about it.
“What you sense has tremendous value because it has not been said or experienced the same way by anyone else. …
“…[these] steps will help you to work through a process that will engage you for some time- it might be a few days, weeks or even years. What you get at the end is a powerful little machine: a concept for saying what you now know- a theory that became bigger, stronger and more potent than you realized before you fostered its development…”
Lou, Nada, Thinking at the Edge: Grassroots Introduction to the TAE Manual Book One, pg. 7.
Her visualization about how this process is going to work goes on for the next couple pages. Then she asks you to reflect on what you’re about to embark on:
“Take a few moments now to absorb what stirred in you about this explanation. In a workshop setting, this is the time to ask questions and clarify vague points. Take time to write some notes for yourself. This is only preparation for you to scan inside yourself for something that might have an exciting edge. Maybe there is more than one topic. Write them all down. We want to take this along when you start on your own project. These notes may help you to connect to your own reality from the inside. Keep this page for yourself and for further use.
Lou, Nada, Thinking at the Edge: Grassroots Introduction to the TAE Manual Book One, pg. 10.
I don’t want to write in my book because I don’t want to ruin the pretty empty pages, so maybe I’ll just write it on printer paper and collect them all in a binder. Either way, if this prompted you to think about an idea lingering in the back of your mind, and it made you want to look it squarely in the eyes, post it in the comments and tell me about it, and visit Nada Lou’s webpage to support her large body of work!