Releasing and expanding the natural wisdom of the feeling mind

Overview of The New Feeling Psychology

DISCOVERY: Origins

One afternoon in June of 1994, I placed my attention on the actual felt experience of depression. This was a familiar feeling, as I had suffered from recurrent cycles of both depression and hypo-mania throughout my adult life.

I noticed the depression felt like a downward pull in my chest, and I wondered what would happen if the motion were reversed. As soon as I imagined the pull reversing and the sensation surging upward, I felt instantly different. My mood lifted, and everything in my life changed.

Within a year, I had developed a full repertoire of questions to elicit feeling state imagery. I had also discovered that feeling states travel in packs, and on April 4, 1995, I mapped and released eight distinct feeling states directly contributing to my recurrent depressions. At the end of that day I was no longer the same person. I felt differently. I thought differently. I behaved differently. And bipolar disorder was no longer my reality. It was as if I had to learn all over again who I was.

This profound experience was an undeniable wake-up call. I realized my discovery was significant, and devoted myself to investigating it further.

PRECISE: Vivify Your Awareness of Feelings.

Within a few months of my discovery, I quickly expanded my repertoire of feeling state imagery questions to include:

• Location: Where is the feeling located, and what size and shape does it occupy?

• Substance: Does the feeling most resemble a solid, liquid, gas, light, energy, or something else?

• Temperature: What temperature is this feeling sensation?

• Color: What color does the feeling-substance seem to be? And is it transparent, translucent, or opaque?

• Movement: How is the feeling-substance moving – is it flowing, pulsing, vibrating? Or is there some sort of force or pressure?

• Sound: In listening, do you notice any inner sound or voice accompanying this feeling?

They are simple. They are unfamiliar to most of us. But these six question topics quickly lead to a more tangible, vivid experience of any feeling state.

One way to think of this is to compare it to an X-ray or fMRI. With this imaging process it is now possible to perceive and investigate the much finer structure of the actual, inner experience of feeling states.

IDEAL: Become Friends with Your Best Self.

The feeling state image creates a new relationship with feeling. In the process of answering the imaging questions, the feeling becomes suddenly just one aspect of a much higher sense of self, and you are no longer overtaken or controlled by it.

This new relationship grants a power that was previously impossible: you can interact directly with the feeling, through the image you have created. Change the image, and the feeling itself changes. This is a radical experience for many people, completely unexpected yet strangely easy.

In this way, we engage the feeling state, shifting the image this way and that toward whatever feels better, more true, more authentically real for you. Shame might become Pride. Anxiety might become Easy Confidence. Loneliness might become Full of Love.

The new feeling states which reveal themselves through the transformation of the old ones connect you to a deeper power and truth which have always been available to you, but which were obscured and obstructed by the old feeling states. Inhabiting the new states, you make friends with your best self.

COMPLETE: Clear Any Issue For Good.

The unprecedented power of the Feeling State Imaging method allows us to unpack any issue into its component parts. Over many years of applying this technique I discovered that the feeling mind is highly structured. For any specific mood/thought/behavior pattern in your life, you will find exactly nine feeling state objects creating your experience of being in that pattern. And you will find three additional feeling state objects creating your experience of selfhood.

Understanding the structure of the feeling mind enables a great freedom in working with any issue. We have a clear road map by which to engage the issue, identify its component feeling states, map and release those feeling states, and re-integrate the new states into a fresh new state of being. The clear beginning, middle, and end to the process makes it easy to decide whether, and when, to engage an issue with the intent to transform it.

Most issues are simple in structure. For these, you can expect to spend about six to nine sessions in total to completely transform the issue. This is true whether the origin of the issue is in adulthood, early childhood, or even before. There is no need to dig through memories because what’s important is the way the issue inhabits your feeling mind today, right now. And that is completely and easily accessible.

Most issues are also somewhat complex in their relationship to one another. Compromises we made in early childhood affected the choices and capacities we had in adolescence, which created limitations on what we were able to experience as an adult. These layers often take decades to unravel using conventional methods.

Feeling Psychology opens the door to moving very quickly through these layers. As one layer releases, the next one sometimes eagerly appears. Once we experience the ease with which we are able to transform our long-standing limitations, all the layers begin to wake up and smell the possibilities brewing.

EFFECTIVE: Easily Enhance Any Path.

Feeling State Imaging and its applications in The New Feeling Psychology are highly compatible with a number of different practices, paths, and therapies.

Compatible with somatic therapies

Feeling is rooted in the body, and the experience of feeling intermingles with the experience of embodiment. Many times, somatic issues are interwoven with feeling states. For example, simple pain is far more tolerable when it is not complicated by the suffering of a dreadful feeling state which overlaps the physical area of the pain. Pain management goes more smoothly when accompanied by good feeling hygiene. And all somatic practices and therapies are improved when we are free to clear any feeling state obstacles that may be in the way.

Complementary to cognitive therapies

All conscious activity is grounded in feeling as its foundation. Even so-called “mental” activities like calculation and judgment, or states of numbness or confusion, can be traced to somatosensorily-based feeling states. And when you identify the underlying feeling states of dysfunctional patterns of thought or behavior and clear the reactive states, the thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, and behaviors naturally and spontaneously re-calibrate to a healthy and whole state of being. So any effort to change beliefs, thought patterns, or behavior gains effectiveness when combined with a strong program of clearing the underlying feelings.

Augments personal growth and spiritual practices

Any prolonged pursuit of personal or spiritual development eventually runs into roadblocks. These roadblocks can easily be traced to underlying configurations of reactive feeling states. Identifying and clearing these states is easy now, so anyone can more easily maintain forward motion in their chosen practice.

Creates leverage for personal coaching

Coaching usually focuses on goals and actions. But even the best intentions often go off the rails when we encounter deeper issues. And most coaches are inadequately prepared to help their clients move through those issues. Feeling State Imaging gives an opportunity to create movement by releasing small, internal obstacles. For most emotionally competent clients, judicious use of FSI results in faster and more consistent progress toward chosen goals.

Accelerates the pursuit of professional goals

When the next rung on the promotional ladder involves managing subordinates, giving presentations, or making high-stakes decisions, people who are otherwise highly qualified often find their careers stalled. When that next advancement involves actions that take the professional far outside his or her comfort zone, The New Feeling Psychology can help by clearing fear, hesitation, anxiety, or self-doubt and establishing new feeling states that promote success.

UNIQUE: Enjoy Superior Support for Exactly Who You Are.

Many systems for advancing human potential rely on formulas and received wisdom for their success. The New Feeling Psychology takes a different approach.

In The New Feeling Psychology, the central method – Feeling State Imaging – works its magic through an explicit enhancement of your own awareness. Through this enhanced awareness, you gain access to tremendously deep troves of wisdom within yourself. You make new connections between disparate areas of your life. You achieve insights that nobody who hadn’t lived your life would ever be able to see. You discover opportunities that have always been available for greater love, success and happiness which are uniquely your own.

I developed this work through long hours of asking really simple questions about the most basic of all human experiences, feeling. And listening. Long hours of listening taught me that I had no business thinking I had any answers for anyone else. That even the most basic of feelings, simple sadness, joy, anger, or fear which we all feel we understand in one another, exhibited an awesome uniqueness from one person to another.

I learned to simply ask, listen, and reflect back to someone what they said to me. In this practice, I learned to trust the innate wisdom in each person, no matter what their age, no matter what their history, no matter what their overt talents or capabilities. Each person is wise beyond measure when it comes to the domain of their own life.

It gives me great joy to facilitate awakening in this way, to be present as a witness as someone taps into the great knowing that is available to all of us. In response to some of my most basic questions as we move through the process, I am privileged to hear the most sublime statements of human truth, no matter who it is I am with.

As you might imagine, my clients appreciate the experience on their end as well. When we work, the only expert in the room is the client. I serve only as guide and witness, more of a porter to carry the baggage and manage the logistics.

CONVENIENT: Work Easily around the World.

Imagine brewing a nice cup of coffee, settling with your laptop and headset into your most comfortable chair, and enjoying one of the most profoundly satisfying hours of your life. Then you finish, get up from your cozy cocoon of metamorphosis, and saunter out to the kitchen where you greet your spouse with new-found appreciation and caring.

Or imagine closing the office door, having your secretary hold all calls, and diving in to an hour-long transformation. You wrap up and head out to your big negotiation where you find your confidence is rock-solid, your perceptiveness acute, and your clarity laser-sharp. You walk out of the conference room with the biggest contract of your life under your arm.

These are the kinds of experiences I facilitate for my clients.

Our work happens over the telephone, so you can choose to work wherever you are most comfortable. We also confer over a computer connection where you can see full documentation of your work take shape and have input into every nuance of notes and drawings.

Working this way is more effective, and more convenient, than having to travel to an office that lies outside your zone of familiarity. Sure, you may get insights in that separated space, but when you re-enter your natural environment the old triggers have a way of re-activating the old patterns.

When you do the work in your natural environment, that environment transforms along with you. As your feeling states change, your relationship to your surroundings changes instantly. You find it easy to know exactly how to put your new feeling insights into action in your everyday life.