Sublime

In order to develop self-trust and self-confidence, we all need to go through this same process. We need to learn to self-reference, that is, to reference the core of our body and our own feelings.

But the most effective self-talk of all doesn’t merely shift emotions. It shifts linguistic categories.

“Focusing is this very deliberate thing where an ‘I’ is attending to an ‘it’” (Gendlin, 1990, p. 222). “The client and I, we are going to keep it, in there, company” (p. 216).

call this process of awareness, recognition, and remembrance driving a nail into the wall.

There is a simple way to become conscious of the underlying emotional goal behind any activity through use of the question, “What for?” With each answer, “What for?” is asked again and again until the basic feeling is uncovered.

Lou Andreas-Salomé

So speech can be thought of as a sense that facilitates discovery. When you understand it in that way, the whole of your being is invited to be present to your act of speaking.

Without understanding how our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors work together, it’s almost impossible to find our way back to ourselves and each other. When we don’t understand how our emotions shape our thoughts and decisions, we become disembodied from our own experiences and disconnected from each other.