You'll Know: A Guided Felt Sense Practice
A ~17-minute audio felt-sense practice. I read a poem three times, with gentle prompts between readings, inviting you to listen for your body's quiet knowing.
I'm experimenting with new audio tools, and I've collaged a guided practice. The elements in this post are offered as a whole. What is it like to hold them together?
Remember yourself, dearheart.
Love,
Kirsten
P.S. Here’s the post where I first shared the original poem that’s featured in this practice.
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You'll Know: A Guided Felt Sense Practice — Transcript
In this poem, I invite you to open your whole self. Take a walk, or lie under a tree. Do some work in the yard — pulling weeds, folding clothes, emptying the dishwasher. Take out your journal and transcribe the poem.
First reading
What if losing one's way from time to time is the way?
I'm gesturing around a center core, an absence. Initially it's excruciating, unfamiliar. It is a pearl, but not a pearl of substance.
Hands get it first. They trace the circumference of absence, perceive its vibrancy.
Absence warms, suffusing each cell of each limb with feeling.
This elegant force radiates the tenderest of affections, encircling vivid impulses to banish, to cling. Under the influence of absence, impulses morph into an intimate beloved I wish to protect.
I refuse to close, to crush absence. Yes, it's true: a part of me can't stand an insubstantiality which never fully ebbs.
As the body decontracts into absence, the sensation is barely bearable. How grand, how exquisite, and then waves roll in. Hello, my old friends: the impulse to possess, the impulse to make meaning, the impulse to tell everyone I know, to interpret this so the good news will spread far and wide.
Deeper still, blessed absence.
Hands cup absence, trace its warmth, its depth. I want to guard what I now fear may evaporate, but dare I risk defiling this delicious vapor? Vulnerability surges, then melts into a wish. I wish to remember what the heart sees.
A gesture, a felt sense, an indescribable image. Has anything ever been more clear? Anything more obscure? One by one, each dial on a golden lock turns. I cannot say exactly how. When the tumblers align, you'll know.
Now I'd like you to tune in to feeling. And when I say feeling — there may be emotion. Perhaps you notice sadness, or frustration, or confusion. I'd like you to go deeper. The feeling I'm inviting you to exists in the body. It's the implicit wisdom that is not immediately accessible to the thinking mind.
I've heard this process of listening for a felt sense described as opening to the unclear edge. It takes a willingness to not know at the beginning. So perhaps it starts with a word, a sensation, an image — and it's okay to identify that without attaching to it. Let it be not quite right at the beginning.
Here's an example: perhaps you notice some sort of resistance, or maybe there's a warmth. Maybe that first word is an association, something this poem reminded you of. So the first invitation is just to vocalize what first arises. Patient trust may be required.
Second reading
(Kirsten reads "What if losing one's way from time to time is the way?" a second time — full text above.)
Now, as you begin to have that first sense of what arose, turn again to the body. What do you notice? Does that first image, those sensations, any words that arose — do those still feel like what you're sensing now? Or is there something new? Something else?
Third reading
(Kirsten reads the poem a third time — full text above.)
What does your body know?
A felt sense is always a present-tense experience. And so today, whatever you've tasted is for today. And when you come back again, when you relisten, what you open to is for that day.
Listening for a felt sense like this is a skill, something that takes practice. And this practice you are opening to, this relationship with the wisdom of your body, will not just be a set-apart experience you find in silence and stillness, or in movement and solitude. You'll begin to notice that the body releases wisdom in the context of daily life — when you're listening to music and notice your body is lit up; when a song seems to shift something inside of you; when you're lying in bed at night, as I do sometimes, and that feeling of dread arises; when you leave a conversation and feel your body bracing. Here is the opportunity to draw on this practice, this interior movement you are finding familiarity with. As you listen, as you follow these invitations, it's as if we're preparing here for what you will need.
This work matters. Not only does it increase our capacity to be present; as what's invisible comes above ground, we have a little more access to choice. What has been taking up space in us is now on the outside, and we can respond to it consciously. Our response is simply a noticing. We're not trying to clean ourselves up; we're noticing. And there may be a shift. There may be just the teensiest bit more space inside. And these teensy, tiny shifts add up over time.
As you transition now back into what's next, I'd like you to take one full minute to savor. One minute of tuning in and savoring our positive experiences, those moments where we feel connected. It seems very small, but one minute can help it stick. It's like we can tuck it into our heart. So let's take a full minute right now.
(A full minute of silence.)
Thank you for being here. Thank you for making efforts to connect deeply with your whole self. Bye for now.
“It’s smaller than you think
It’s quiet as a year of listening
It tends to emanate
It’s a horizon stretching past the sight lines and beyond”
—Shannon Lay
Shannon Lay’s album will be released soon. “Horizons” keeps drawing me.
My name is Kirsten. In spiritual direction, I accompany folks as they attune to the inner dimensions of life. This way of being together is grounding and spacious. Together, we anchor into presence and a familiar flow of relating. To read more and book a free exploratory session, click the button below.
