I have often asked myself, "Where does my body's compass point me? And my felt sensing responds with what comes inside when I recall that remarkable phrase of Steven Hawking: 'Remembering the Future!' Is it possible that our bodies already carry some inchoate knowing of the direction that lies ahead?"

In his introductory remarks, Dr.Campbell offers a capsule description of his presentation by saying: "I believe that my exploration of the habit of felt sensing is really an exploration of the human experiencing which we generally call, "faith." The precise question I am asking, however, is: "What is faith when I cross over the bodybridge into my body's knowing? What is faith when I move beyond beliefs, beyond my mind's interpretations and thinking?"

Reflecting upon a serious accident in which he fell and severely crushed a spinal vertebra, Peter shares his experience that faith is really an inner movement. "It is a call to my pilgrim spirit to begin a sacred inner journey within my bodily knowing, and I believe we are all pilgrims walking this same path together."

This journey of faith, as it unfolds within our body's awareness includes an embryonic inner knowing of the personal path and evolutionary direction that lie ahead. "The habit of felt sensing is the DNA of human consciousness evolution itself as this moves forward within each person's bodily knowing. Faith, evolution, and the uniqueness of who I am becoming as a person all flow together within the habit of felt sensing."

This is a milestone presentation by a man who has dedicated his entire professional life to exploring the implications of BioSpirituality and Focusing. Approaching the close of a long career, he now realizes he is being called further forward to learn an entirely new "habit of felt sensing," one that can open depths of faith and gratitude he never before imagined possible.

Dr. McMahon outlines his personal journey, from the early days of exploration when he struggled to articulate the basic foundations of BioSpirituality, to his current quest to better understand and pass on what he now refers to as "the habit of felt sensing." Along the way he shares what he has learned and the implications of what he has found. Recently, he has begun to develop structures and teaching methods different
from those he first learned while sharing Focusing with others.

His personal goal, he now realizes, has led him toward simply "noticing and nurturing" a much more expanded landscape of felt connecting. He has turned to developing the habit of attending more carefully to a vast array of previously neglected feelings and felt senses that did not lend themselves to be considered in a more therapeutically oriented expression of the Focusing process.

In his closing remarks Dr. McMahon challenges his audience and pleads for help and support in making an impossible dream come true for our children--the challenge of passing on
to them the habit of felt sensing. Quoting from Miguel de Unamuno, he invites his listeners to make their own the words of the Spanish philosopher's comment on Cervantes masterpiece,"Don Quixote de la Mancha"
- "Only the person who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible."

Elizabeth and John Thompson are two remarkable young adults who have been encouraged to listen to their feelings and felt senses from early childhood. What they learned, and now spontaneously live, can guide the rest of us in passing the habit of felt sensing on to the next generation.

This videotape is a valuable resource for any parent or teacher. Filled with interesting "flashbacks" and old photographs, the viewer begins to get a feel for this family from the inside, acquiring a rich sense for the process of young people growing into a new way of relating to themselves and the world around them. It is a journey filled with great hope and promise for the future of human society.

A simple, yet profound presence to whatever is real inside has enabled John and Elizabeth to begin moving through life without filling and carrying a sack full of unprocessed issues all the time. Marianne encouraged them, right from the start, to move into the habit of "noticing" their feelings (and through them their felt senses), and then taking time to "nurture" those feelings and felt senses. That made all the difference.

Dr. McMahon opens the dialogue by saying:"I remember Marianne once writing me how she had simply taught her kids that a story was waiting inside every feeling which felt important. All they needed was to take care of that feeling until something came to connect with it, and then their inner story could unfold. They would notice a change in how they felt inside their body. It was that simple! Marianne consistantly helped her children to focus every time any strong feeling surfaced within them."

Elizabeth, now a college graduate writes:"When I was 3 years old my mother taught me that my fear of the dark didn't have to be permanent. By asking the scary places inside to "play with me," I grew accustomed to listening to my felt senses with a gentle, child-like openness. Even though there were times when I ignored hurting places, I developed a deep, lasting trust in my body's knowing.

"This trust has proved invaluable throughout my school career. When I felt pressures from other junior high girls to conform to their standards for young women's looks, dress, speech, and lack of academic achievement, I responded by sitting on the family room couch with my mother after school. As my mom helped me gently listen to the pain of trying to maintain my identity amidst pressure to do otherwise, I slowly grew comfortable in myself with behaving in a way that felt right to me and not necessarily right to other junior high girls."Even when school often squelched my creativity that arises through felt sensing, I recognized the importance of trying to maintain the difficult balance between academia and listening to my inner felt sense. As I pay attention to this inner guide when bringing creativity into the classroom, sensing my way through situations, and making career decisions, I feel confident and whole inside myself."

"It all began with a piece of Gorgonzola cheese and my grandfather's magnifying glass." Thus commenced a long spiritual journey that continues today within a partnership where pain is a constant companion.

Lesley Wilson, a UK BioSpiritual Focusing Regional Coordinator, describes her unique struggle, together with her partner Addie van der Kooij, in learning how to include his severe neck pain from cervical spondylitis as a meaningful part of their lives. It is a challenge requiring them both to develop consistent, unconditional felt sensing relationships with the inner pain underlying the outer pain.

Using her own perceptions as Companion, and Addie's rich descriptions in his Focusing journal, Lesley shares the experiences, difficulties, discoveries and unexpected gifts of their constantly changing journey together through pain. Their challenge has involved moving from an initial reaction of fighting and controlling the pain to an attitude of receiving it as a gift and doorway to new learning.

This journey has included many stages of growth and change as they become more able to accept the reality of the condition, through staying excruciatingly honest (congruent) with the raw felt senses of the process. The challenges and learnings have included: recognizing process skipping tricks; letting go of expectation, agenda and comfort thresholds; mutual vulnerability in the context of pain and new experience in Focusing together interactively; finding ways to continue daily life and work (pain forces us to live a felt sensing way!); working with shame and anger; receiving unexpected times of stillness, humility and Grace.

The healing crisis has led Addie to realize that for him willingness to surrender is an ever-deepening state of being, and that it has several levels. These have become a cornerstone of Focusing for him.

Lesley writes: "For me as companion, I have learned that I need to hear the truly raw data always staring me in the face. I have learned that the body is direct, innocent and guileless in its communication, and I need to be equally so in my listening. Everything can be included in this process, including my own tiredness and panicky feelings as a companion. Together, we are part of one movement, one process, not separate. A very special gift that sometimes comes during moments of deep shift is an unexpected, intense stillness that I can feel in my body. For Addie, everything that had been tense before can relax in this stillness. For me, it has brought awe and joy, together with a deep knowing of Something Great."

Dr. McMahon writes: "This video is by far the best BioSpiritual description I have yet found of that universal human tension between our control agenda and simply being willing to notice and nurture the felt senses of whatever is real."

"Addie's journey, excerpted from his journal and further situated by Lesley, describes the habit of "noticing and nurturing" movement in the body's experience of physical pain. It reveals the crux of our human growth problem- -disconnection! It chronicles our unwillingness to surrender and own inside ourselves the felt senses of whatever we want to fit into our preconceived scenario of how we feel things ought to be. And then, it surprises by unveiling what happens as we gently hold the body's sense of how all this feels inside until it reveals the world of gift and life hidden within what the pain itself wants to say.

For those interested in what I am calling a "habit of felt sensing," this tape will feed and guide those deepest, yet often feared hungers of your heart. This video is a classic in healthy spiritual growing."

Through their work at a prayer center in Mexico City, Sonia and Gloria have found respectful and productive ways to work with process-skipping behaviors. These are habitual responses to painful or threatening situations that, on the surface, appear to relieve inner tensions. But in reality they mask the real sources of our discomfort, offering conditioned reactions that distract our attention, hide what is real, freeze our inner process, and prevent us from moving toward change. Such habitual responses are often so ingrained in our lives that we hardly even notice them.

Gloria and Sonia have learned that creating a climate of caring presence around whatever is real inside, as well as learning to focus alone and with a companion, help give people enough inner resources to begin identifying their process-skipping mechanisms. These two women have found that different types of body work can also be very useful. Sonia, an experienced Focusing massage therapist, notes that structure bound issues are frozen not only psychologically but physically as well. Body work can help to open such structure-bound places inside ourselves. "The issues are in our tissues!"

Gloria says:"What feels amazing is that the inner climate we have learned to create really feels like it's cheering us on in this process of reclaiming areas that are physically released through sharing their stories while developing what Fr. Edwin McMahon calls,"the habit of felt sensing. At the same time, body work alone is not sufficient to allow process to go forward and may, on occasion, become just one more process- skipping mechanism itself."

This balanced, even-handed presentation is filled with wisdom and respect for the human body, mixed with a delightful touch of humor.