Come down from the head into the body

Bring attention down to the physical felt sense of what is happening, instead of staying with ideas about it.

Perché funziona

Welwood calls grounding "the earth principle" and writes that grounding is "the very essence of psychological work". In Focusing, he notes, it is essential to "come down out of the thinking mind" into the body, and many systems share an understanding that real change happens as "an energy shift in the body, not through talk or intellectual insight alone." Masters describes sitting with an emotion rather than "on" it: holding it close, noticing the sensations in the body and the quality of mind it generates, and watching it move.

Come farlo

1. When you notice you are thinking about a feeling in spiritual or abstract terms, drop your attention to your body below the neck.
2. Find where the situation is felt: a tight throat, a heavy chest, a knot in the belly. Describe the sensation in a few plain words.
3. Stay with the sensation for a minute or two, noticing whether it shifts, without trying to make it go away.
4. Ask the sensation, not your ideas, what this is about, and wait for a word or image that fits.

Prove scientifiche

Grounding is one of Welwood's three principles of inner work, along with letting go and awakening the heart, and he links it to Focusing (Gendlin, 1979; Welwood, 1982). Masters' book includes a chapter titled "Disembodied spirituality & embodied being", and in his BatGap interview he describes holding a feeling close and noticing its body sensations. Both are practitioner accounts drawn from clinical work; neither has been tested as a remedy for spiritual bypass. (anecdotal)

Turning toward body sensations can bring up strong feelings. Masters warns that going into a limitation too quickly "may just get overwhelmed", and suggests doing it with really good help. If you feel flooded or lose track of where you are, stop, open your eyes and orient to the room, and do this work with a trained therapist.

Fonti

• Welwood, J. (1984). Principles of inner work: Psychological and spiritual. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 16(1), 63-73.
• Masters, R. A. (2010). Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters. North Atlantic Books.
• Masters, R. A. (n.d.). Interview on spiritual bypassing, Buddha at the Gas Pump, episode 081 (transcript). BatGap.

Errore comune

Turning the body scan into another way of rising above: observing sensations from a cool distance so as not to feel them. Masters describes holding the feeling close; watching it from a cool distance would be the same avoidance in a new form.