by Stanley
A useful device in focusing is called ‘getting a handle’. It helps get a grip on a problem that’s a bit slippery. You may have noticed that when you try to think about a personal problem, the mind tends to skid all over the place, lurching between impossible ideas that don’t work – round and round, all of them dead ends; or you just avoid by sliding off into distractions. It’s like skidding about on ice. ‘Getting a handle’ is not solving the problem; it’s just getting a grip on it. Once you know how to do that, workable solutions happen.
The trick is to get a word, a phrase or an image that seems to crystallise the feel of the problem. It could be a phrase like:
it’s never ending; an emptiness; it’s heavy; I can’t be bothered; like a red pulsing ball in my chest; a deadness; a jagged anxiousness; like a post in the ground; like a nothing feeling; like something going zzzzzzz: or images like, a brick wall or a dark prison.
What you want is not just a rough label for the problem. Any old words won’t do. You want a phrase or word or an image that ‘clicks’; something, that, when you think of it, you say, ‘YES, that’s it’ – THAT’S how it feels. Some people work better with words, some with images. When you get a phrase or an image you should check back to the felt-sense (that’s the feel of the problem) to see whether it resonates.
If it does, that’s the handle for the problem; the start point, the gateway to getting it moving. Getting a handle that resonates is very important. It might take you a while to get it, rejecting words that aren’t quite right. You have to be very picky and choosy.
Let’s say you are thinking and feeling the problem. There is a certain sharpness when you strike on how the problem really feels; and you are looking for a word or phase that hits on just how it feels. It’s an amazingly accurate process. You’ll know exactly when you’ve got the right one. Some words are okay, yes, but not quite right. There’s a gap. They don’t react physically somehow. You have to take your time. You’ll know when you’ve got it. It clicks. Your whole organism reacts to it. Yes, that’s it – THAT’S how it feels: that problem gives me a nervous jumpiness (for example).
Why is hitting it accurately with the right words so important? Because it’s the gateway to the problem, to opening it out. Those exact words (a nervous jumpiness) resonate; they fit the feeling like a key. That’s the gateway. But it’s difficult to locate this gateway when you’re skidding all over. So whenever you loose your way or drift or get confused, you come back to the problem and relocate the gateway by just saying the handle: a nervous jumpiness. It goes straight to your midriff. Say it and you’re right back to the sharp, keen feel of the problem. It’s very distinctive. It bites. It’s very like the way a certain smell can immediately vivify an old memory. If the handle is an image, no matter how otherwise strange or unusual, it seems to encapsulate the feel of the problem.
So once you’ve got the handle, what do you do then? You hold to it. Pause with the keen sense of the problem it yields[1] – perhaps only for a moment. If you drift, remind yourself of the handle (nervous jumpiness). Every time you re-vivify the feel of the problem, something slightly shifts. Remember, you’ve never done this before. Not like this. If it is a difficult, long standing problem, perhaps you’ve never really let yourself experience it before – but always skidded off.
As you keep to it, the problem now starts to unstick and shift. As it unravels, ideas will start to occur that you never thought of before; connections to old memories jump out that seem to say: ‘this is also what it’s about’; or an image or a dream more eloquent than words will appear. If you tend to get too far out with these manifestations, you return to the handle. As the problem changes you may need now only to follow where it leads.
The most fascinating thing about this process is that you don’t have to make any decisions. You don’t have to remember anything. It’s not a lesson. It’s not teaching you what to do. You don’t have to do anything more than I have outlined. But you will find that something will change. You may not even be able to put your finger on it. Your way of thinking hasn’t produced a change – it’s deeper than that. But you will find yourself thinking differently anyway, as though the problem has shifted into a slightly different dimension. And I really do mean you will find yourself thinking and feeling differently. I emphasise FIND because thinking doesn’t cause the shift. The shift happens – then you find yourself thinking differently.
This is one of the most important steps of focusing. It’s easier to do with a focusing partner or counsellor, because they will stay with you while you find the handle for a problem – and they’ll feed you back the handle if you get lost – and they’ll stay with you as your explore. However, with a bit of intention you can do this on your own. I do quite often.
Everything I have said here is only a guide. Everyone has their own style. Use this as a guide to find what works best for you.
[1] See my paper Pausing to Focus.
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