August in Barcelona. The city slows down, sheds its commitments, relaxes. There are no rigid schedules. Barcelona takes off its corset, takes off its shoes and lies down in the sun and shade, allows itself to feel, rest, enjoy. It looks at itself, observes its felt, walked and lived streets, prepares for a kind of inner journey. Barcelona in August allows us to catch it off guard and show its essential authenticity, the one that during the year is covered by noise, haste, routines, schedules, demands and order. It is a closed for holidays that invites us to feel the breeze, look at the sky and wander through its inner world.
I have just returned from a Focusing retreat, una técnica psicoterapéutica que inició el filósofo norteamericano Eugene Gendlin en Chicago en los años 50, y se basa en la escucha activa de tu propio cuerpo, una invitación a bucear dentro de ti para conocerte y conocernos mejor. Un viaje a y hacia uno mismo que tiene seis pasos que de una forma orgánica van sucediendo cuando aprendes y practicas este método. Siempre se hace con una pareja que será tu guía acompañante en este viaje interior.
It all begins with an awareness of your body, your breathing and silence. From that comfort and awareness you enter into your interior, into what inhabits behind the skin. This step is about "clearing" and observing what is happening to you, not covering it up, not making it invisible. From there and without haste, without forcing, without deducing, letting the body speak, manifest itself, show itself. It is likely that you feel something moving, a tingling, a little stitch, a subtle movement; this second step is the "felt sense."
If this happens, it is convenient to give it a name; what kind of sensation it is, what it provokes in us. It is a bit complex to summarize it in one word, but it will help us to continue the journey. For example, we can feel a tingling, freshness, pressure, pain... This step is the "handle," we have given a name to the sensation. We continue this introspection, and from that silence, we contrast if what is moving within us, and the sensation that appears to us, makes sense to be that way. If that is the best way to understand it and we ask ourselves an inner validation question. We are already in the fourth phase, which is "resonating." From there, we ask ourselves what is happening in our life that resembles that sensation, that word that came out in the listening.
With time and without expecting anything, we stayed for a while, and left an open question to everything that is happening to help us understand what is behind it. A answer does not always appear to us, but recognizing what is happening and giving it space is the work that occupies us. This penultimate step is called "asking". And the most powerful one that remains at the end of the journey, is when in a clear way, a phrase, or word-mantra, comes out, and it is as if the body were speaking to us. "Receiving" is the last stop on this journey; which will allow us to return there to that sensation, to that wound, to that problem whenever we want, because we have already identified it, greeted it and made it visible.
Now Barcelona asks us to clear it of its external noises, to feel it, to tell us what is happening to it, to compare it with what is happening in the city, to ask what we can do for it and to be attentive and brave in listening to the answer and giving space to its needs. Barcelona needs to be focused and breathed from this inner silence because it is a body that is speaking to us. It is a great body that shows itself to the world in its best clothes, and now, these days, it asks us for silence and to enter its wound to be able to transcend it a little more.