Do It for Yourself Now! - How to Practice Sensate Focusing

Written by Ilan Shalif, Ph.D.

For instance, we can attend to the sensations of the face and the vocal cords - together with the input coming from the eyes and ears while singing. We can do the same when a muscle is in spasm or a painful contraction.

While we emit sounds: speak, moan, etc. we can attend simultaneously to the natural biofeedback embedded in the quality of the voice, and to the one supplied by the feelings and sensations in the throat. While shaving or putting on make-up, we can attend to the sensations of the face (or to the subliminal ones there), and simultaneously, look in the mirror at the target we are focusing on, etc.

In these cases and their like, in which the natural biofeedback comes through two or more channels, the expedition of the mending process is much more than doubling the regular rate.

Experienced focusers can devote a large part of their attention to this focusing, in parallel to most other activities. Many of the focusers find this the best remedy for intensely boring situations.

Some of the focusers (especially those who previously practiced certain methods of "Meditation") reported the benefit and even pleasure derived from a "general tour" of the body - especially before going to sleep or just after getting up. They observed that among the more beneficial places were those which usually receive the unpleasant "announcements and summons" of the emotional trash-programs. The most beneficial results were derived from scanning the facial muscles and the vocal cords.

Very often, while we are scanning the body and focusing at a point or place, the sensation there weakens and recedes very fast to a subliminal level of intensity, or to one only slightly above the threshold.

The habit of focusing on a specific region which is frequently troubled - in spite of the disappearance of that sensation from our awareness, i.e. "returning to the crime area" whenever the time permits, is also most profitable. It hastens the improvement of the trash-programs which cause the problem.

The habit of focusing on subliminal sensations and those slightly above the threshold of awareness, can be applied to other places and points in the body. Among those, of special importance is the focusing on points and places where you usually feel the strongest sensations and those related to specific harmful trash-programs.

It is worthwhile to continue focusing there for a few seconds more before changing the point of focus, especially if the said sensation was very short-lived and connected to a very trashy program. Even the focusing on the place of a sensation that just faded (or shifted), still enhance the impact of the natural biofeedback it send to the center. This "residual" focusing has great value as it has a special quality - it signals to the involved supra-programs that they have changed for the better.

Thus, instead of the usual negative messages about the unpleasantness of the situations - which are relatively hard to learn from - there is, for a change, a positive one. It was found through systematic research of learning and concept building, that humans and animals derive more benefit from positive information that says this is right, try it again, than from one which says - it is wrong, do something else.

7. Focusing on the emotional expressions of others

In addition to that which you gain from focusing on your voice and your face you can gain even more when you do the same to the voices and faces of other people. This kind of focusing can, especially when you cannot or do not try too hard to organize your impressions verbally, activate within you specific trash-programs that parallel those of the other person.

These trash-programs that are a kind of echo*, are related to the emotional climate of the other, as expressed by the melody of his voice and his facial expression. The activated trashy programs create in you a felt sensation that is directly relevant to the said trashy programs. Thus, by the added focusing on your emerging felt sensation you can catch them, as if you grip them by the hairs or a handle, and force on them the processes and programs that are in charge of updating trash-programs.

*This can (and does happen) because of the perceptual components of the emotional system, that deal with the task of perceiving the emotional expressions of the other. These components are very thrifty. They use the same brain processes and subsystems as those which create our own subjective experience of emotions and help sensations feelings, moods, etc. enter the awareness. Thus, the natural non verbal intuitive perception of the natural expressions of the other, creates in us a felt sensation which is like an echo of that of the other.

This process is the main channel for the automatic interpersonal (and inter- animal) communication of emotion. It is used for the immediate and prompt transfer of huge quantities of information that is extremely difficult, and even impossible, to verbalize. This kind of communication can bypass most of the trash-programs of ours and of others, which hinder voluntary emotional communication. Consequently, listening to and looking at the other person creates in us a kind of "emotional echo" usually called "Empathy".

This kind of focusing opens an important channel that enables us to get in touch with contents that are seldom, if ever, available to intensive processing. Sometimes it makes us "stumble" on crucial trash-programs that were not available for focusing on before.

This is so as much of information and emotionally loaded contents are prevented from becoming available to our awareness. They cannot break through and become available to the awareness (or pre-awareness) processes freely on their own merit. Many of them cannot pass through the channel of the more conscious deliberate and intentional cognitive processes because of our "defenses". It seems that a large amount of emotional information can bypass the reluctant gate-keepers (the cover-programs), only by "hitchhiking" on the back of the emotional expression of the other.

These intrusions enrich the diversity of trash-programs that are subject to the amendment processes of updating, adaptation and accommodation. As a result of the above perceptual processes, whenever we perceive the facial expressions or the intonation and other qualities of the voice of the other person, the perceptual processes "take us on a short trip". However, if the circumstances are ripe, it can even take us on a long one - to the emotional whereabouts of the other and beyond.