The Felt Sense

 By Don Shetterly

By far, we under-utilize this part of human biology and healing.  The felt sense is critical and powerful to changing the direction of our lives, increasing awareness, and consciousness and helping us heal the experiences of our day.

I've learned about the felt sense through the work of Dr. Paul Canali, known as Unified Therapy.  Felt sense, in my understanding, is about feeling the emotions and what is going on in life in the body.  It is the connection between those emotions and the body, including the mind.

All too often we only focus on what we feel, or that emotions are present.  We tend to focus on it from a mind approach where we are in our heads, but not in our bodies.

Emotions are outward manifestations of what is going on in life.  They are our reaction to events and experiences, originating from deep within us.

Felt sense takes us into the moment where we feel the experiences and emotions in our body, not just observe them in our reactions.  When we stop and allow ourselves to go in and feel them, it is then that we have the power to change them.

Most of us will feel the emotions, and feel pain in our bodies, but we don't connect the two together.  The felt sense is where we are able to do this.

Being aware of how these things connect to our body and our mind is the key to working with them.  The more we can work with the experiences and emotions we face, from a connected mind and body interface, the more we can make major changes in life.

These changes are not limited to physical only, but our increased consciousness and awareness.

A good quote from Eugene Gendlin's book, Focusing, puts this in perspective.

"The change process we have discovered is natural to the body, and it feels that way in the body.  The crucial move goes beneath the usual painful places to a bodily sensing that is at first unclear.  From this new vantage point, the traditional methods of working on oneself are seen to have been mostly pain-centered.  People get into and repeat over and over their painful emotions, without knowing how to use the body's own life-centered and inherently positive direction and force." (Focusing)

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Being Human Is More Than Thoughts

Far too many shortchange the human experience.  Everyone wants to focus on the mental side of living - what the mind thinks, believes, and experiences.  Being human is more than thoughts and unfortunately this is a foreign concept in the world.

Even as I try to explain, teach and show through my own life's examples, it doesn't sink in most of the time.  There is too much parsing of words and thoughts that really keep humans off track and running down paths that just circle around.

There is more than just living in the "now".  There is more than what is in this moment.  Yes, those are great concepts, but if you only focus on these concepts, you've dismissed the possibility of what else there is.  There is far more than we know and far more than we really allow ourselves to know.

Being human is more than thoughts.  It is about going deep within your body and feeling the intricate layers while allowing your mind to connect in ways that are almost unimaginable.  Sure, we say we do this, but the vast majority of people that do, don't fully comprehend all that this entails and all that exists when you do this.

We've just limited ourselves...

There is so much more and if we boil life down to some thoughts and beliefs and opinions, we're just putting limits on ourselves.  It may feel good.  It may feel safe.  It may give us a moment of feeling like we know more than others.  However, we've just limited ourselves from truly experiencing that which we don't see.

Until I went through the work I have, I thought I knew a lot.  I thought I was aware.  I thought I was conscious.  It was not until I connected deep within my body and felt every pain, every experience, every feeling and every thought, that I found I was no where near consciousness.

We can't dismiss consciousness because we choose to stay unconscious and disconnected.  We can't be aware if we don't fully go in and feel through the felt sense every facet of life that we have not yet seen or understood.

Living from the inside out...

Being human is more than thoughts.  It is about living from the inside out, being aware physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally of what there is that we cannot see.  It is not about what we cannot see, but the fact of allowing ourselves to tiptoe into that which we are not aware of in this moment.

It is through awareness that we become more conscious and the more conscious we become, the more aware we become.  Life is not about philosophy and belief and opinion.  It is about living in the body to the fullest extent we can in this moment, recognizing that we've only just begun our journey.

Living in a human body is the key to connecting so much more than we know today.  Disconnecting from our body is something we all do to a great extent.  We don't feel as much of our body as we think we do, but until you experience this felt sense - you are limiting yourself with thoughts that are not serving you well.

There is so much more.  I had to find out the hard way when I was paralyzed, but it led me to a discovery that when we travel deep within our body through the painful experiences we have encountered, the peace and joy and healing beyond that is more than I can find words to say.  For it is not a thought process, but one of truly connecting the mind with the felt sense of the body.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Resperate and Deep Autonomic Breathing

This is one of the tools I use to help keep my mind and body connected.  It is called the Resperate.  While it is approved by the FDA for helping to lower blood pressure, that is not the way I use it.

Please refer to the owner manual and precautions that may affect how you use this product.  I am not giving medical treatment advice in this blog post.  It is merely how I use this product for my own personal way.  Please adjust it to meet your life's situation.


The Resperate is a great way to help work not only on the Mind Body Connection, but to help deepen the autonomic nervous system breathing.  Autonomic nervous system breathing has to do with allowing your body to go deep into rest and repair healing.  It is where you truly connect with your mind and body using the breath to help you become more aware of the felt sense.

Using the Resperate and pulse meter together, I can fully evaluate on my own, the health of my nervous system.  I am one of those people that sometimes struggles with a high pulse rate due to daily stress and triggers.  It is one area that I continually work on with the Pulse Meter.

The pulse meter not only shows the pulse rate at that moment, but it gives you a reading for the oxygen level of your blood.  For me personally, I try to get my pulse rate down to a consistent rate in the 60's or 70's when I am laying on the table in a rested state.  I watch the pulse waves that I can see on the pulse meter and I'm looking for a gentle flow of waves that are consistent from one to the next.  The waves should have some substance to them, but be gentle rolling waves is how I picture it.

Here are a few tips that have helped me use the Resperate more effectively.  One of the things that I have found is that it is better if I use it in a quiet room where I won't be disturbed.  Since I have a massage table, I often lie down when I'm working with the Resperate.  One of the best things I've found is that I use a pillow under my head because if I am propped up a little, it is easier for me to let go and get into the deeper breathing.  The pillow helps me feel more in control.

I've found that instead of placing the band on my chest, that I place it on the upper side of my belly and it feels like it works better.  I was struggling to get the thing to work if I put it too high on my chest.  I'm sure with each person, it is different and you'll have to explore what location works best for you. It most likely depends upon your breathing pattern.

Before I turn the machine on, I have it all ready to go and then I just lie on the table for a few moments.  I take a "before" reading with the pulse meter and just allow my breathing to quiet down a little.  If I don't do this, it seems like the machine starts out with too many quick inhalations and exhalations which sort of frustrates me more than it helps me to start relaxing.

In the early days, 5 minutes was a lot for me to do on the Resperate.  It took me time to acclimate to the constant breathing inhalations and exhalations.  As I've gone, I find that the full 15 minutes is really ideal.  It helps me to go deep into the process.  If I use less time than that, it is like I'm startled out of the relaxation process before I get that deep and then I wake up with results that are not as good.

I will usually monitor the breath rate on the Resperate in the middle of the time I am using it to see how well I'm doing and how far my body is dropping down.  I'll check the pulse meter to also measure just how far my body is dropping into the rest and repair mode.


Another thing I do is that I hold my hands on my stomach, free and clear of the sensor band.  When I do this, I am holding the thought in my mind that I want to feel and sense every part of the movement in my body as I breathe.  I want to feel the rise and fall of my abdomen and lungs.  This can be very therapeutic and healing once you start to connect it with your mind and body.

Some days I can do better with using the Resperate than other days.  Sometimes I use it every other day and other times I go several days without using it.  It all depends and you just have to listen to your body on what works for you.  You will have to find the frequency of how often you use it.

My overall goal is to work on deep autonomic nervous system breathing so I can connect my mind and body with the felt sense.  I know that the more I do this, the more I can go into rest and repair and physically alter the stress, anxiety and triggers on my life.  The pulse meter is essential in my view to help monitor this because if things are working, the pulse rate should drop down.

At times, I have had headaches and other tension in my body, but after 15 minutes working with the Resperate in the manner described above, I notice that things ease up.  Maybe it isn't 100% better by the time I get off the table, but as the hours go on, I physically feel better.

When  you do the deep autonomic breathing where you slowly exhale, you invoke the vagus nerve.  The vagus nerve is one of the largest nerves in the body and it helps relax you, find balance in your mind and body, and gets you into the rest and repair mode especially if you feel and sense through the felt sense mechanism.

There is a great deal of physical and emotional healing that we can do on our own.  Unfortunately we numb and disconnect with a million reasons of why we don't engage the mind body connection or we keep ourselves so busy that we don't take part in our own healing the way we should.  This is one tool that I've been playing with for some time and the more I experiment with it, the more healing and effective it is for me.

The more we keep our body and mind tuned up, the greater our life will be and we will be able to more effectively connect with peace and healing.  The more we do this on a regular basis, the more life becomes one that we have greater control over in our physical and emotional moments.

The items I use can be purchased on Amazon and I have listed them on my page, Health Products I Love.

Please feel free to ask me questions on how I use this.  I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences if you are using the Resperate.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Catastrophizing And Pain

In a published article in 2001 by The Clinical Journal Of Pain (Vol. 17, No. 1, 2001), an overview of research was summarized.  In this published article, the authors were showing the relationship between catastrophizing and pain.  Overall catastrophizing accounts for 7% to 31% of the variance in pain ratings.

Someone that catastrophizes has a tendency to make a much bigger deal out of the pain they are feeling, than it most likely is.  Generally this person is consumed with worry, fear, and hardly no method to divert their attention away from the pain they were experiencing.

Pain and catastrophizing appears to start early in life.  It often has impacted the duration of hospital stays and the frequency.  In addition, there are generally more frequent visits to health care providers.  It often increases the amount of pain medication that is required to treat a person after situations such as surgery.  It has also been reported that catastrophizing can actually increase the degree of disability one may experience.

In some studies, women actually score higher  with women more likely than men to report high levels of intense pain.  Women also show an increased usage of healthcare and exhibit more pain behavior.

Emotional Pain Is Physical Pain

According to a recent study conducted at the University Of Michigan, researchers discovered that the same regions of the brain that become active in response during pain are activated when there are experiences of social rejection or hurt (i.e. relationship breakups).

According to Ethan Kross, lead researcher of the study stated, that on the surface, spilling a hot cup of coffee on yourself and thinking about how rejected you feel when you look at the picture of a person you broke up with, may seem to elicit very different types of pain. According to Kross, his research shows that may be more similar than initially thought.

Through two tasks that induced the feelings from a relationship breakup in 40 participants, they found that regions of the brain were activated that are the same regions of the brain which are involved in physical pain sensation. All tasks were performed while participants went through a functional MRI scan.

In addition, they compared the results of this study to a database of more than 500 previous studies which again showed the brain response to physical pain, emotion, memory and resolution. The research team hopes that these findings will lead to new insights into how, intense social loss, may lead to various physical pain symptoms and disorders.

Personally, I am grateful to see studies such as this being conducted. Although, I have went through some very physical ordeals related to emotions, the more credible scientific research that backs up this normal part of life, the further we advance ourselves.

Pain is a direct result of what is going on in the mind and body of a person. All too often, we try to ignore it, numb it, avoid it or think happy thoughts hoping it will just go away. The part that matters though is not just recognizing that a connection between pain in the body and the emotions of the mind exist, but that we take proactive steps to learn from this and evolve ourselves in awareness.

When you connect the "felt sense" of the body to the what is going on in the person's life (or your own life) at that particular moment, that realization starts the process of healing. It is a powerful realization that may take us into moments of hidden fear and unknown spaces of our lives. If we allow ourselves to travel into these moments, than we can transform ourselves beyond just the pain. There is no greater gift we can give our self then to awaken and evolve and we do that by going into the pain, not by avoiding it.

These researchers have the right idea and a good first step. There is much more though to the healing process. It involves more than taking medications or numbing ourselves through alcohol or drugs or anything else that has become our crutch in life. We cannot think these things away because the connection is in the body and in order to heal it, we must feel it. Happy thoughts, religion, spirituality and new age practices may get us closer but until we go in and feel that which we do not want to feel, we'll still be searching for the answers to pain for a long time.


Further Reading:
1) Social Rejection Hurts Like Physical Pain - PsychCentral.com

2) Study Illuminates The Pain Of Social Rejection - University Of Michigan

3) Felt Sense In The Body (Blog Post on Nov 6, 2010)




Blog Post & Images (c) 3/29/11 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
http://www.donshetterly.com

Pre-Frontal Cortex Functions

According to Daniel J. Siegel in "The Mindful Brain", the pre-frontal cortex has nine major functions. This part of the brain does not fully develop until around 25 years of age. It also depends upon how much time we spend working to develop this part of our brain. Like any muscle in our body, if we don't use it, it does not develop fully. While many people do develop and utilize the pre-frontal cortex (PFC) of their brain, there are many who do not and like any muscle in the body, if you don't use it, it doesn't fully reach full capacity.


The ten functions of the pre-frontal cortex according to Daniel Siegel are as follows:

1. Body Regulation
2. Attunement
3. Emotional Balance
4. Response Flexibility
5. Empathy
6. Self-knowing
7. Awareness
8. Fear Extinction
9. Intuition
10. Morality

• Body Regulation - Functions of the body such as heart rate, respiration, and digestion that are controlled by the nervous system.
• Attunement - When we attune to others we allow our own internal state to shift, to come to resonate with the inner world of another.
• Emotional Balance - Even the healthiest person may be temporarily thrown off and feel out of balance but the middle pre-frontal region functions to bring us back to equilibrium. The ability to stay focused on the inside when the storms of life are raging on the outside.
• Response Flexibility - This ability to pause before responding is an important part of emotional and social intelligence.
• Empathy - is the capacity to create mindsight images of other people's minds. These you-maps enable us to sense the internal mental stance of another person, not just to attune to their state of mind.
• Self-Knowing - creates mental time travel in which we connect the past to the present and the anticipated future.
• Fear Extinction - After experiencing a frightening event, we may come to feel fear in the face of a similar situation. But the middle prefrontal region has direct connections that pass down into the limbic area and make it possible to inhibit and modulate the firing of the fear-create amygdala.
• Intuition - Can be seen as how the pre-frontal cortex gives us access to the wisdom of the body. This region receives information from throughout the interior of the body, including the viscera (heart, intestines) and uses this input to give us a "heartfelt sense" of what to do or a "gut feeling" about the right choice.
• Morality - Moral reasoning seems to require the integrative capacity of the pre-frontal cortex to sense the emotional meaning of present challenges and to override immediate impulses in order to create moral action in response to challenges.

I really enjoy reading and learning about the pre-frontal cortex because it is where the new wave of learning is taking place. The more we understand about how this area of our brain affects us, the more we become human. Just because we appear to be human and take the form of a human body, it does not truly mean we are human.

The development of the pre-frontal cortex is at the forefront of becoming a more conscious and aware human being. Through developing our felt sense and our connection to the body, we begin to connect with this portion of our brain and strengthen as well as develop its functions. As we begin to do that, our world which was once filled with turmoil, pain, despair and an overabundance of challenges begins to change. Through the development of the pre-frontal cortex, we become acquainted with areas of life that we were not able to see and a brand new set of experiences begin to open up before our very eyes.

Note: Special thanks goes to Dr. Paul Canali and Evolutionary Healing for the development of some of my understanding in this area and to Daniel Siegel in his book, The Mindful Brain .




Blog Post & Images (c) 12/24/10 Don Shetterly - use by permission only