Chapter 5 cont:

II. First stage - beginning steps of guided sensate focusing

First step - know thyself

Sit comfortably, with support for your head so that the nape of your neck is relaxed, the head and the neck are in a relatively straight line with the spinal cord which is straight as well. This will prevents muscular tensions in the neck from interfering in following tasks.

After reading the beginning paragraphs, you will be advised to take a small tour of your body. The starting point may be the place you are usually aware of or feel once you have "decided" (or discovered or discerned) that you are in a bad mood, or that you have unpleasant emotions or feelings or sensations. It is recommended that you choose as the starting point, the place where you are now feeling the worst.

Usually this point is located in the intestines, chest, neck, or the head. Less frequently it is located in the nape of the neck, shoulders, back, feet or hands. Sometimes it is hard to find a more accurate address to those feelings as many of the parts in our body have scientific names which are not part of our daily vocabulary. Another contributor to this difficulty is the common lack of proficiency in focusing attention on feelings and sensations that are of a low or moderate intensity.

After you pay a brief notice to the starting point, start to scan slowly the various regions and organs of your body. Pay attention, for a short while, to the various sensations of each - whether you can define them as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.

It is recommended to start the tour in your body - now
After completing the first tour, it is worth doing again - parallel
to reading the following paragraphs:

The head: One can feel pressure or pain or various unpleasant sensations in different regions of the head or in all of them simultaneously. The most common place for those feelings is in the front of the head - in and around the eyes. A lot of itching of various intensities is also felt there from time to time, mainly on the scalp.

The face: Though it is a part of the head it is entitled to a name of its own. The 23 pairs of muscles of the face are in permanent and close connection with the emotional system. Their connection is specially strong with the active ad hoc programs(4) of the moment - mainly with the "trashy"(10) ones, the parts and procedures of which are emotionally loaded. The most active region of the face is that of the mouth. Most of the problems here are mainly esthetic. The intense ones are expressed as furrows, distortions of the face or a tightened mouth. Less often there are "ticks" or a general hardening of the face muscles and jaws.

The nape: (and especially the root of the head): This is the upper end of the long muscles of the back. These muscles - especially of the upper end, are the source of headaches and other bad feelings or discomfort of the head. Various activation programs(2) use the controlled hardening of the muscles of this region to regulate the intensity of various feelings and emotions, mostly to reduce them.

The throat: Usually, the precise address is the region of the vocal cords. At this point we usually feel the lump which is hard to swallow, the suffocating tears and other kinds of sorrow. The vocal-cords like the muscles of the face - are always in very close touch with the concurrently active "trash-programs".

The chest: In this big bulk there are a lot of addresses and variegated sensations and feelings - distress, pressure, pricks, stubbing pains, sharp and dull pains, shrinking and hammering of the heart, contraction of the diaphragm, etc. The most dramatic occurrence in this region is asthmatic suffocation, triggered by mental stress. The most grave expressions of emotional stress in this area are disturbances that affect the function and health of the heart. These stresses may "donate" an important contribution to death due to heart failure - especially when they are of long duration.

The belly and intestines: The external muscles of the abdomen, the many yards of intestines and the other internal organs, have an abundance of possibilities. Each sub-region has its own characteristic variety of feelings and sensations. The pains of convulsions, nausea, stress, pricks and "butterflies"... are the most common. Diarrhea, constipation and ulcers are the most acute expressions of the effects of emotional stress on this region.

The muscles of the skeleton: These muscles are a major part of the body's weight - and even more so in lean people. These muscles can be tight, stiffened, rigid, slackened, strung, stretched... or simply painful. The majority of adults often feel pain or other bad feelings in their back - usually in the lower part. The common name is "low back pain". When one is out of luck, one learns from the physician its orthopedic name - Lumbago.

Itching, scratching and other irritants: Very often we feel itchiness (or other excitations of the skin) in the region of limbs, head, torso, etc. Sometimes (according to the prevailing code of manners), there are no moral, physical or health restrictions and we touch, rub, scratch or scrape the place absent-minded (or almost so).

Sometimes we have to refrain from doing this due to various restrictions. In these cases we try to distract our attention, and hope for a quick disappearance of the irritation. Sometimes, we are forced to continue paying attention to the discomfort for many long seconds... until we yield to the urge or reach a compromise. The overwhelming majority of these sensations are not of an objective source like a sting, or an insect bite or any other irritant to the skin, but a result of the activity of our emotional system. We shall dwell on this subject later in a section intended for the sensate-focusing for the advanced.

This is the end of step one

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