In his book The Transparency of Things, Rupert Spira speaks, near the end, about turning toward and being with what he terms “uncomfortable feelings.”

How might this look?

Step 1: Uncomfortable Feeling

Identify any uncomfortable feeling arising just now. Or just memory to call forth any especially uncomfortable feeling–a vivid, a fresh one or an ancient one.

Step 2: The Body

Turn inside the body and begin to “locate” the feeling in the chest, solar plexus, hands, shoulders, or wherever it may be.

Step 3: Go With The Essence of Gendlin’s Focusing

First, explore its qualities: warmth, coldness, colors, patterns of movement, etc. At this point, use metaphors freely (e.g., “It feels like a zipper that’s stuck midway.”).

Second, only after you’ve begun to explore its qualities do you ask: “If this feeling could speak, what might it say?” Let the feeling speak for as long as that is needed.

Step 4: Then Turn To Internal Family Systems

You can ask ChatGPT more about IFS. I take a basic point to be this one:

• How can you turn toward the sensation, assume for the time being that it’s a character or person, and learn more about this one?
• How old is he or she, for instance?
• What is she like?
• What does she fear? What does she desire?
• What does she need above all else?
• And so on.

Steps 3 and 4 are really just placing you in a position to let go of all mental labels. Then you can be with the essence of the uncomfortable feeling: that is, with the sensation itself.

Step 5: Open To The Raw Sensation

Notice that, in direct experience, there is actually no emotion/feeling. There’s either a thought (or series of thoughts) or a sensation (or a series of sensations). (But never both at once, and as you go deeper, you’ll discover that it’s often a sensation.)

Indeed, as you explore ‘the body’ further, you’ll come to understand that it’s just sensation, or a network of sensations.

In S5, then, take off all the labels and just have what’s left as sensation.

Be with this sensation. Open to it. See what this is like.

Step 6 (or at any time): Notice Any Resistances

• Are you turning toward smoking?
• Is there a sense of checking out?
• Is there an immediate thought about being too tired for this?
• Has the mind risen and has it gone on a journey with a view to “solving a problem”?
• When is reading wholesome and edifying, and when is it a sophisticated escape route?
• In short, where are the escape routes?

Just notice all the resistances and, to the best of your ability, return to S5.

Throughout, be innocent, without expectation, open, fresh, welcoming, curious.