The Real Sixth Sense

Our felt sense is our most direct link to our needs, wants, and identity- so why don’t most of us use it?

When people talk about the truth, [they] get away with saying factual truths and calling it truth. I’m talking about full body, primal truth…It means the material reality, the feeling, and the ideas, and the words match. -Kasia Urbaniak

Introduction: A whole body compliment

When was the last time you said something and meant it with your whole body?

I asked myself that question last year as I left a very unusual class at the Russian Arts Theater in New York City. After the director spoke to us about the importance of ethics and honesty in theater, he gave us what appeared to be a very simple exercise: pick out someone else in the class and give them a sincere compliment.

One of the first women asked to give a compliment said, “I love S. because she is so sensual and fun.”

To my total surprise, the director responded, “No! You’re lying. What do you really feel?”

“I really feel that,” the woman replied in astonishment.

“You’re speaking from your head. Look at her- she’s not touched. It’s not a sincere compliment.”

I watched the woman speaking become flustered and emotional for a moment before speaking again. “I love S. because…she’s like a fiery goddess!”

And suddenly, the atmosphere in the room changed. The other woman’s face lit up and the director finally smiled and acknowledged the compliment.

It was the first time I consciously saw- and felt- the distinction between someone speaking from her head versus her whole body. And the difference between energy and personal connection was like night and day. It was also the first time that I realized that like most beginners in the room, I was wildly guilty of the former. I spoke, worked, and practically lived my entire life with my thoughts disconnected from my body and emotions.

Though I didn’t have the knowing or words for it then, I now understand that the director was trying to get us in touch with our bodies and our most primal link to ourselves: our felt sense.

What is the felt sense- and why do most of us lose it?

The felt sense is the language of the body. It doesn’t speak in “good” or “bad” or any of the terms we are familiar with. It speaks in contraction and expansion, tight and relaxed, warm and cool, and all the words of sensation. Our felt sense gives us awareness of how our bodies are responding in each moment- both consciously and unconsciously. And unlike our vision or hearing, it can’t be so easily fooled by others. Because it is our earliest sense, our felt sense responds faster than our minds, giving us raw feeling without interpretation.

Probably the best teacher of felt sense is a newborn baby. Though its mind is still rapidly forming, a baby already has the ability to instantly respond to its internal state: to cry when upset, yell when angry, play when content, and sleep when full. As babies, we’re all naturally wired to sense what our bodies need and communicate it in the simplest way possible. Unfortunately, after a few years of life, this ability is generally conditioned out of us.

As they grow up, babies become children and children learn that their parents won’t tolerate crying and screaming. They learn that they have to sit still in school even though they want to move. By the time they reach their twenties, they’ve often suppressed the majority of their natural feelings because they realize they can’t share them with others or act on them.

Though all of us started out as babies in touch with our bodies and their needs, by the time we are adults, we eat when we’re not hungry, stay up late when we’re tired, and often can’t recognize our own emotions until they burst out unexpectedly. In my own experience working in a corporate setting, I stuffed down so much rage and sadness at work that I was either emotionally flat or unpredictable. I often made it through days of meaningless work only to burst out crying later in the evening as I made tea, unsure of what was wrong with me.

Given the jobs many of us work and the culture we get pressed into, it’s almost inevitable that each of us disconnects from our bodies at some point. That’s why bookstores are filled with Self-help books on “finding your passion” or “understanding your emotions.” The degree to which we make psychology and happiness into sciences represents the degree to which we are cut off from internal knowledge and need external answers.

How to develop your felt sense

A few months ago when I told a friend that I wanted to get “out of my head” and deeper into my body, she offered me an interesting suggestion: keep a body-feeling journal. The goal was simple: at various moments through the day, especially emotional ones, pause and jot down what I felt in my body.

The journal started off simply enough with entries like, “Just saw a work e-mail on Saturday- body tightened,” or “Got call from Mom- felt more energized after.” After a period of weeks though, my felt sense seemed to sharpen and the information became clearer: “Ran into _- felt ball of tension under right scapula, shallow breathing,” or “Talked to _- throat and stomach tightened.” The more I paid attention to signals from my body, the stronger and more distinguishable they became. It was the same feeling I experienced as a child learning to play music, when I slowly began to hear the timbre and subtlety of different sounds. The felt sense, like any other, grows with attention and opens a new level of experience.

Over time, I began to notice that in every moment, my body was sending me signals in the form of patterns of tension about what I wanted, whom I could trust, and how I was feeling.

My interest in the felt sense has ultimately drawn me to practice a form of bodywork called BBTRS, which is based on tracking internal sensations to release patterns of blocked emotion in the body. After spending years reading books on psychology and struggling to understand complicated models of the mind, I’ve put those aside to focus on my body. When I focus on my felt sense, I don’t need to understand CBT or archetypes or chakras. I just need to do what a baby does naturally- feel sensations without blocking them.

For a long time, I was fascinated with the idea of a sixth sense and a lofty truth beyond myself. But my body is pulling me into a different direction: down into myself, my instincts, my needs, my feelings and identity. And, I hope, closer to that honesty and energy our director gave us a glimpse of in acting class.