Started reading Gendlin’s Focusing and I am glad I chose not to read it until after I shipped Introspect because we really independently converged on several of the same things. Focusing is- well- as you should expect it to be, a more focused Introspect, which is relatively janky
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about 1/4 thru it, gonna write some thoughts from memory before revisiting the book itself
First of all, specific, detailed case studies of people’s personal transformations are so powerful. And it really is always about an internal reconceptualizing + recontextualing
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Also I think Gendlin has a kinder way of making this point - something like “you can’t think your way out of the absence of felt sense”
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you can’t think your way out of a courage deficit
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scolding yourself doesn’t work, denying the problem doesn’t work, dismissing or diminishing the problem doesn’t work…
only really sitting with the problem (pain), facing the truth of the problem, aligning with the problem, being curious about the problem, really works
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interesting thing is - and I’ve noticed this talking with people too - repeatedly, an accurate full-stack diagnosis that emerges from within the body is something that people find *revelatory*, delightful, hilarious, even when the diagnosis is *horrible*
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which is very counter-intuitive to some of our commonplace norms about fear, bad news, etc. All of those norms I think apply at the… shall we say, crust and mantle layers. But deep deep down in the molten core, people want the truth, and it is *there* that the truth sets u free
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I’m pretty excited to draw a “focusing line” or thread *through* a subsequent edition of Introspect, bc I think both books are v aligned. Drama of Gifted Child too. My long game / end game for Introspect version 7 or 8 is to be an interface for all of these psychotechnologies
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very hype to hear this! i don't talk about it much but focusing is still in some sense my "primary" practice, a lot of other stuff i do amounts to variations and elaborations on it. gendlin was a real one
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it's extremely significant to understand that there's a specific way it feels to tell the truth about your life. once you get a real taste for that there's no going back really
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I felt a version of this ever since I was a teenager in the domain of self-expression, writing music, talking about my feelings etc, and in retrospect I think it’s part of why ppl have always been drawn to me. And even then there are domains for me where this is blocked bc fear
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we can hope to work through the fear one domain at a time 😅
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