Field Note #9 - What is Here?

There is one question that has steadily become one of the foundations of both my own personal practice and the way I work with others. 

What is here?

It is such a simple question.

Yet I have found it opens extraordinary territory.

We often imagine that understanding ourselves requires long journeys through complicated stories, analyzing the past or trying to make sense of every thought.

Sometimes that has its place.

But again and again, I find myself returning to something much simpler.

What is actually present in this living moment?

Often that begins with the body.  The body's expression exists in the moment.

A pressure in the chest.

A knot in the stomach.

A tightness in the throat.

A place that feels heavy, blocked, or somehow alive with emotion.

Usually we know when something is asking for our attention.

There is a charge to it.

Something in us keeps returning there.

Rather than trying to remove it or get past it, I become curious.

What is happening here?

What does it feel like?

What is this experience asking of me?

Can I simply stay with it a little longer?

As attention deepens, something often begins to reveal itself.

Not because we have excavated what was hidden.

Not because we have analyzed it into understanding.

But because we have entered into relationship with what is being expressed in this moment.

Over the years, I've come to experience the body less as a place that stores our past and more as a living participant in the present.

When something calls for our attention—a sensation, a heaviness, a resistance, an emotion—I don't assume the body is holding onto something that needs to be dug out.

Instead, I become curious about what it is expressing now.

The body becomes an access point into a living experience that is asking to be witnessed with love, attention, and listening.

In this Field Note, I share a very personal example following the death of one of my horses.

As I stayed with the physical sensation in my heart, something began to reveal itself—not as a mental story I had to construct, but as a living experience unfolding in the present moment.

From there came understanding.

Forgiveness.

And a deep sense of peace.

I also speak about something I often encounter when working with others.

People frequently describe a block, a knot, or a resistance.

Our first instinct is usually to remove it.

But what if the resistance isn't simply in the way?

What if it is the very place that is asking to be met?

Sometimes what appears to be the obstacle is actually the doorway.

(Sound familiar to my shamanic friends and journey explorers?!)

Not because it is holding something we need to excavate or remove...

But because it is expressing something that is ready to be experienced.

I've found that this process is often much simpler than we imagine.

It doesn't require us to become lost in long, complicated stories.

Instead, it asks for something beautifully simple.

Love.

Attention.

Listening.

When we truly meet what is here, something naturally begins to shift.

Not because we made it happen...

But because we entered into relationship with what was already unfolding.

As always, this isn't some theory to believe in.

It's simply an invitation to explore.

And if you feel that something in you is asking for your attention, and you'd like someone to accompany you in that inquiry, you're warmly welcome to get in touch.  I am able to do this work even if we live at a distance.

With love,

Kimba