Bio-Spirituality: Focusing as a Way to Grow

The body can be connected with emotions, mind, relationships (with other people and with environment) and with spirit. "Focusing," an approach developed by Eugene Gendlin, directs us to attend to the felt sense of what is going on inside our body. This is the intuitive, right-brained way our unconscious mind brings to our attention the rightness and wrongness of what we are doing; the itch that says (my words), "examine what you are experiencing, because there is something out of harmony, out of alignment, misdirecting us from our proper life course." Gendlin teaches that "the direction toward a felt sense is always into and through the feeling, never away from it." Feelings and emotions change only when we identify the felt sense associated with the feeling and seek out the roots behind this - for these are what anchor the feeling in our psyche and prevent its release. Campbell and McMahon take Gendlin's work into spiritual dimensions. Campbell considers prayers that substitute positive feelings for negative ones, such as anger. In a particular prayer he cites, whenever anger is felt, the love of Jesus is substituted for the anger. They warn, however, that spirituality can function in the same way as any addictions, such as intoxicating substances, sex or work. This classic has grown in popularity over time. I cannot recommend it highly enough. My only criticism is that this otherwise excellent book lacks an index.