I have been so fascinated by this field for a long time and am doing my own private research to better understand the whole phenomenon. Things are crossing in me big time! It includes all of these, but goes beyond - listening and being heard (Ricki)- apparent paradox between autonomy and connectedness (Mia), the "in between" (Christiane), "we are all different and it is o.k." (Josine), beautiful exchange and recognition that THERE IS such a thing as being heard and it makes significant difference .
There is a way of being when all of these are integrated - I know that because I experienced it - as focuser and as a listener. I want to explore the state of being, a mode, an environment ... none of the words are adequate - I'll call it for now "a Bigger Picture". I find a very strong support from Gene's work. It also brings many crossings with Ed's and Pete's work. I want to identify more of - when, where, how - it operates, to get just a bit closer to it.
The observer's kind of attitude - in listening or any other attempt for connection with the other person, happens when we view the other from our point of view and our standards. I think this is what we "normally" do - we tend to absorb through the bottleneck of our own perceptive evaluation the other person's meaning - we listen to it, react, respond, manage it, ignore it, contradict .... in any way BUT according to our own understanding of somebody's else's meaning. If we depend on such way of communicating and relating only, we stay autonomous and we connect to our own understanding of that other person. This is the good part. But this kind of mode might also accommodate the formation of "dependency" - and - of not being fully understood, being listened to but not heard and so on.
What I am recognizing,
by deeply absorbing Gene's description of Environment #2 from his Process Model,
is that we are already inherently connected, yet autonomous. A simple sentence
from Gene "THE AIR IS OUR LUNGS" might give you the sense of what
I am talking about. The air and lungs don't make much sense as separate entities,
because they function, if they function, together. Yet each is autonomous otherwise
they couldn't INTERACT with the other. They don't enmesh or become same as ....When
I say that, I just have this feeling of "rush" in my whole being -
because when I take this
understanding into human relationships - it just fills me with WOW! This is
where "the Bigger Picture" starts making sense. People actually already
HAVE other potentials to communicate and feel connected to each other.
The potential is in inherent and already implied interaction and crossing. And it is constantly in motion ......
Let me explain a bit
this notion. When I read Mia's and Ricki's posts something important, something
new, fresh possibility got triggered in me. It was triggered, because I already
detect the "edge" of it in me. I started to write, but it just didn't
go - I couldn't say what I wanted to say. So I stopped. Then there was Josine's,
Paul's, Tom's reflections - then there were others - I started to experience
this "functioning whole" - "the bigger picture" it is like
the - air- is - our - lungs - experience. We are all in it, yet we are all separate
beings. If I take what you and you and you and you said from an observers point
of view - I can agree, disagree, correct what I don't like or just shut up.
But if I am coming from en#2, something different happens. I become observer
and the observed, or even better - a part and a participant in the "bigger
picture". To explain it a bit better: Something that you said, felt as
if it found an affinity in me and because it correlated - I am able to go with
my own thing forward. This is my territory and is not identical with yours at
all, the two for a moment interacted, and it gave me a new impulse and vigor
to grow in my own direction. This is what I understand about and call "crossing".
(Crossing is actually Gene's term from PM and I am not sure that I am using
it in the same way as he means, but this is what I will call
"crossing" for this particular purpose.)
In the "bigger picture" there are millions of such "functioning wholes" operating all the time - sometimes crossing and interacting with each other and sometimes just doing something that is not part or need for me to be aware of at a particular time. And there is lot more available that hasn't formed yet.
Ever since I learned focusing, this kind of "insights" happened to me. As I lived with focusing long enough, this is becoming my life style and one of the choices to approach living in this way - (along the other including an observers point of view). I think that many of us who have been living with focusing for a while came to this observation independently from each other. Something happens when we enter or recognize via felt sensing a "bigger picture" of a kind. Gene's description of environment # 2 from the Process Model resonates in me so deeply with this experience; Ed McMahon has arrived to a point of "dwelling in the Habit of Felt Sensing"; in a short TAE partnership with another Coordinator at the Irish Conference, she shared that she teaches focusing by first entering into such environment herself, then she invites the new focuser into it. This is the way they learn how to discover and recognize their own felt sense.... just a few facets of this observation.
This kind of awareness at first used to just happen through Focusing, rather than me intentionally choosing to be in that way. Then I noticed that it is possible for me to chose to be that way or "IT reminded me" - like a mature felt sense - of the choice I have. I know it is possible, I know it happens, but where my interest goes is to gather more of data to describe it and to communicate it better to others in a language that speaks to them.
So far all of these are little bits and pieces, fragments of what is so fascinating for me to observe. I am slowly realizing that it is huge - a lot more than my own autonomous world and a lot more than my need to be connected and understood. It is a holographic experience from the inside. In order to protect it and not to mislead, I don't want to call it by any familiar word - so I call it "a Bigger Picture".