I had the privilege of being invited to present at The International Focusing Institute’s Felt Sense Conference 2023 – “Spirituality and the Murky Edge.”
This conference welcomed 170 participants from 30 countries.
The title of my 2-hour workshop was “BioSpirituality and the Murky Edge An Exploration of the Role of the Felt Sense in Spirituality”.
It was a wonderful experience to connect with many familiar faces and lots of new ones to explore the spirituality implicit in the Focusing experience/process.
The workshop was an exploration of Fr Peter Campbell’s (co-founder of the BioSpiritual Institute) assertion that any serious spiritual research “must” contain some dimension of the role of felt sensing.
In this workshop, we examined this assertion in terms of:
- The need for a developmental/felt sense model of “spiritual experiencing”.
- “Mysticism for the millions” creating a foundation for global Interspirituality.
- The felt sense as an essential reference in discovering “where you are” on your journey.
Space and time was provided for participants to sense into locating themselves in relation to their participation in the larger system/mystery of living.
It was so refreshing to witness how the Focusing process can form a common experiencing, a common platform that can support and nurture differing traditions and different interpretations of that sense of Spirituality. When we place interaction/experiencing first, then we can sense the value of other traditions. We do not feel threatened by other interpretations when we can sense into the living that animates them.
I left with a deep sense/hope that our experience of participating in some process/mystery larger than ourselves is the foundation for living a spirituality built on lived experience, rather than our interpretation of it.
I wish to thank the TIFI board especially Catherine Torpey and Darryl Commings for their warm welcome, Melanie Korpi and Elizabeth Cantor for their tireless organising. And especially our own Elaine Goggin for her expert technical support and kindness.
John Keane
International Director
BioSpiritual Institute
