Do It for Yourself Now! - Focusing on Feelings and Sensations

Written by Ilan Shalif, Ph.D.

The third precaution is taken when the "opening of the nape" brings too strong feelings or other sensations and they do not recede when you decrease the relaxation or stop it altogether: Whenever you open the nape, be ready for the need to use the emergency act of "rubbing the hands together while focusing". Preparing for this measure beforehand, you will not forget it when flooded by intense felt sense.

The focusing on the nape of the neck - with or without opening it, can be used for other purposes than the search for a felt sense to focus on. Even when a suitable felt sensation or any other sensation appropriate for focusing is available - there are sometimes good reasons or potential benefits for focusing on something else. It is mostly so when the prolonged focusing on the original ones does not bring the wished for results fast enough.

One may also want to change the targets of focusing whenever their unpleasantness increases or is prolonged, when they become boring, or because they cause unwanted reactions like tears, sobbing, and coughing. The focusing on the nape of the neck or its opening usually makes other feelings and sensations available for focusing. In both cases, the focusing on the newly invited ones usually cause the old unwanted ones to recede or to disappear.

The focusing for about half a minute on the nape of the neck - with or without opening it - as an introduction to each sensate focusing session and before any other serious activity of focusing, is recommended.

Many trainees have found that when one dedicates time to focusing on a "longer than a few seconds felt sensation" (of other locations than the nape) or when one is engaged in a "project" of focusing on a specific content, this introduction makes the mission easier and improves the results.

2. The facial muscles and the vocal chords

The facial muscles and the vocal chords are, in essence, the outer extensions of the system of the basic emotions and are directly connected to them. All through one's life, the muscles of the face and vocal chords are continuously fed by the basic emotions. In return, they supply them and the other parts of the emotional system with a continuous and indispensable natural biofeedback, related to the emotional supra-programs active at the time.

Usually, those reciprocal relations are active at the margin of awareness and we do not attention to them for more than a very short period from time to time. One can always pay special attention to the facial muscles and the vocal chords if one wants, and get in return the awareness of felt sensations there. The facial muscles respond quickly and easily, but those of the vocal chords do not. This is so because the base line of the natural biofeedback of the vocal chords is weaker when one is silent. When the initial focusing of attention on those two sources does not bring results, there is no room for despair, one can still get the right results if one only focuses on a point there. Even the most protected trash-programs are affected by this act. Usually, after a while, the cover-programs yield to the pressure and some felt sensations other than that of the normal tension of the muscles emerge from them - there or elsewhere.

The focusing on the marginal sensations of face and vocal chords contributes mainly to the improvement of the active ad hoc supra-programs. However, in the long run, diligent focusing on them brings huge profits for the whole emotional system.

3. The mouth

Despite the fact that the mouth is a part of the face, a special section is dedicated to its care. It acquired this honor as it was established scientifically by cross-cultural studies all over the world, that people use it more than any other part of the face in order to modulate, inhibit, control, or restrain their subjective feelings and to disguise their nonverbal expressions. The most common of these activities is the pressure applied by the lips against each other.

Sometimes, we manipulate the muscles spontaneously, other times, deliberately. Part of the time we observe this activity, but mostly it is done unaware.

Very early in life we learn to use the mouth to lie about our emotions and feelings. (False crying is the earliest, denials and lies come not much later.) Later, we learn by imitation or by trial and error additional ways to manipulate the muscles of the lips and those around the mouth in order to influence deliberately our emotional processes and those of the people observing us.

We use this knowledge "generously" in order to attract the attention of those around us and get assistance and consideration from them; also as a means of adapting to the emotional behavior rules of our culture; and as a tool for the regulation of our own emotional processes. In time, the ad hoc programs built for the activation of those behaviors, consolidate as trashy supra-programs.

As happens with other activities often executed they become habits and we tend to activate them automatically. Most of the time we are not even aware that we are activating these programs. Frequently we are only dimly aware of the temporary or permanent furrows resulting from this.

Consequently, the muscles of the mouth are very active even when we are silent or asleep, generating many chronic and semi-chronic constrictions of the muscles of the mouth, even when one cannot observe any significant effect on the lips or the adjoining skin. Sometimes, we can reverse the process and get rid of these habits, and furrows too, by deliberately activating the automatic habits and by consciously manipulating these chronic or semi-chronic expressions. As those activities summon felt sensations related to the trash-program involved, we can focus on them and enable the mending processes to work on them intensively. Other times, we can just focus on the mouth passively. Both ways we contribute immensely to the improvement of our emotional system.

We can focus there while attending to other assignments or even when we are focusing elsewhere. We can concentrate on feelings and sensations there. We can also focus on the various points of the mouth in order to capture and "domesticate" emotional supra-programs the natural biofeedback of which is very weak - even if only slightly above the threshold of the awareness or only subliminal.

During the last few years I have examined the effects of placing the tongue between the upper and lower front teeth. Originally it was tested as a measure to be taken in order to break the habit of pressing the jaws firmly against each other. (This habit is usually a part of trash-programs that unwittingly inhibit anger or just fail to regulate it. Sometimes it is even expressed as grinding the teeth.)