Creating a Space of Comfort and Wholeness
We’re just beginning to invite a space of comfort—a place where we can restore and heal, a place that welcomes wholeness. This is a place of refuge, if you like—somewhere safe, meaningful, peaceful. These are not things we always find in the world, necessarily. But here, we are beginning to sense a safe haven, a home—a place of ease.
Something in us already knows about these qualities. Something deep, dependable, faithful. A place where we can stand our ground. Where we can rest. A sense of coming home. Whatever the world is offering us right now, we can still come home.
The Universal Home
And of course, the universe is also a home. We sense outward, beyond the room, into the space, into our universal home—the sky, the stars. A trillion stars keeping us company as well. It’s a home for the birds, the animals, and the fish, the whales, and the dolphins. The plants and the trees. And all the other human animals, too.
We’re sharing the richness of life with each precious breath, being breezed. Being breathed by the universe—even the universe breathes.
Settling Into the Body and Earth
We’re just beginning to settle, landing in the company of life. Sensing the earth beneath the body, and maybe finding rest, comfort in the touch and contact. Comforting. Soothing. Calming, even—maybe.
The whole shape of the body can begin to emerge, and all the sensations present can offer themselves in their own unique way. Inviting a quality of presence—a whole sense of the body, sensing, breathing.
Welcoming Inner Life
And in all of this, something within—some life there, some life here, some mood, feeling tone in the chest or tummy or throat, or elsewhere. It's making room for all of that. Maybe inviting a quality of warmth and care in the receiving, and just saying, "Hello."
Dang! Hello! Saying hello from all the stars! From the animals. Saying hello from the birds, from the sky. Saying hello—from care and compassion.
Companioning What’s Here
Keeping company with whatever’s here in this way. Just taking your time to emerge.


The Exquisite Creation You Are Trilogy Attunements

Creating a Space of Comfort and Wholeness

We begin with the felt sense and the quality of safety in the body.
So just landing... pausing... and landing again.
Taking space, arriving here in this context to explore Gene Gendlin's Focusing.
The felt sense is at the heart of Focusing.
That sense is, of course, more than a feeling.
It's a whole bodily sense of something.
Generally, it lies around and behind the feelings—so the feelings are included.
But that’s not where the buck ends.
There’s a whole lot more going on.
All in good time around exploring that.
Perhaps most significantly, there’s the sensing through which the felt sense permeates.
So just pausing into some availability around the body.
Maybe just sensing what’s on your skin—clothing, or temperature, or pressure, or touch.
A very felt experience.
Very nuanced as well—very often, feet on the ground.
And there’s more.
A kaleidoscope of experience.
A whole matrix of experience.
Sensing the space around the body, extending out into your room.
Letting it rest in itself... and beyond the room, of course—into the evening, maybe into the blue sky.
Extending infinitely.
To include a trillion universes and diamonds.
Sensing each other... and perhaps sensing the sentience of the field, animals...
...whole life.
The web of life. The web of living felt sensing.
And in all of this, there’ll be something inside of you—some mood, emotion, something alive.
What’s that like from the sensing’s perspective?
Making space for that there in you—something contracted, something spacious.
Or maybe neither... or both.
Approaching with care and warmth—maybe.
If you like, offering a little hello to that there in you.
Coming alongside whatever’s there.
Maybe saying hello to a door.
I’m keeping you company in this way.
Grounded, aware presence.

The Web of Living Felt Sensing Invitation

So I just invite you to close your eyes for a moment. Here, we could just call this contemplating the felt sense—or even befriending the felt sense. Getting to know the felt sense.

And from the get-go, I would say we’re not just talking about feelings. But without a feeling, we don’t have a felt sense. Normally, in our culture, we’ll either stick our head in the feeling and get overwhelmed—whether that's with joy and pleasure or with grief or sadness—or we’ll push it away, try to mask it, or freeze. Those are the three default settings in our relationship to feeling. It’s just the way we’ve been brought up. We haven’t been taught to relate to the complexity of our inner world. It’s just too much. It's too complicated. And so it’s easy—so easy—to rely on those default settings.

As we entertain this process of getting to know the felt sense, it initially means getting to know the sensing. Getting to know the sensing is really pausing. Pausing, and being available in a very gentle, soft, open way—a gentle, soft, open way.

It’s a bit like opening your hand, and there are butterflies around. They are very beautiful—these butterflies—purple ones, swallowtail ones, small ones, big ones. If you look at the wings of a butterfly, with those very beautiful scales on them—exquisite design, exquisite colours—it's like a fine Persian carpet on the wings. It doesn’t take much to smudge them. So very delicate. It’s a work of creation to the highest degree. And there it is, on your hand, slowly opening and closing its wings.

And as it does that, sensing your body on the chair, feet on the ground, sensing the sounds around you. And something inside of you—is there some dull ache? Some sharp feeling? Something contracted? Something expansive? Some not-knowing? Something bland? So much complexity within. Just being available to it as you would be available to that butterfly—from the whole body. Whole-body sensing. Spacious sensing. Gently inwards.

It’s not a smash and grab. Let it come to you. Let the butterfly come to you. Sometimes it can take five, ten, twenty minutes, right? Sometimes it can take me a whole day just to be available to something in me that wants to settle, to show itself. But sometimes, it happens very quickly.

There are the obvious feeling tones, and then the whole sense of that. And then you have a story—not the story. Come back into the body. Sensing the around, the behind, the not-knowing behind that. There’s the knowing and the not-knowing. The cusp of the knowing into the not-knowing. It’s where we can become available. Availability—I call it. Just sitting and coming alongside whatever’s there. It doesn’t need a label. It doesn’t need a word. It just needs to be the way it is.

Being with ambiguity. That’s not always easy, and there may be parts that reject that—so let them be there too. Or parts that are excited—we let them be there as well. And if you like, at some point you can just say to whatever’s there, if it works for you: a very kind and gentle "Hello. Hello." "It’s like that for you in there, right?" "I’m coming alongside you just as you are." "I’m not trying to change you. I’m not trying to manipulate you, push you away, or make you get bigger." Just as you are—just as that butterfly opens and closes its wings and pirouettes—with appreciation. And maybe gratitude.

When something’s difficult, perhaps those ones are not so available. We nonetheless include whatever is here. One of the core principles in Focusing is letting things be the way they want to be, in their totality, for as long as they want to be here. And I know that may be a challenging principle. It’s highly healing and satisfying to entertain it, though. Because eventually, it will find a home—in its own time and in its own place.

Exquisite Felt Sense Creation Butterfly Attunement

Presence Deep Rest Meditations and Reflections inspired by Focusing, Mindfulness and Nonviolent communication Embodied Relational Presence training and personal coaching.  https://www.living-presence.co.uk/

The Exquisite Creation You Are Trilogy Attunements

Simon McKibbin Presence Meditations & Reflections