The Tangible Minds Practice makes feelings easy to examine, grasp, and understand. It enables rapid transformation at the core, bypassing limiting beliefs and clearing the way for living with possibility, presence and passion.

Most of us experience unwanted feelings, moods, emotions, impulses, drives, needs, habits, hangups, and reactions. It sometimes seems we are at the mercy of these forces, and we attribute their unruliness to unresolved childhood issues, unbalanced brain chemistry, uncontrolled animal instincts, unprincipled character, or the uninvited influences of people, events, or conditions outside our control.

...makes us try to control it...

We respond to these forces with various forms of control, including logic and rationality, rules and structure, faith and discipline, distraction and suppression. But these efforts yield unreliable results, and often even intensify the problem.

...which (paradoxically) creates more unruliness!

Over the past 14 years I have studied the hidden, unpredictable forces within myself and hundreds of other people using a unique self-awareness practice I call Tangible Minds. I have discovered that not only do we badly misunderstand the feeling mind, (we don't even recognize it exists), but the methods we use to control it explicitly CAUSE the very irrationality we are attempting to curtail. As a civilization and as individuals, we have created a perfectly vicious feedback circle:

These feedback circles are built into our personal habits and woven into the structure of our society. They are so much a part of our lives that we take them for granted.

What can we do about it?

Fortunately, stopping this insanity is easy for individuals, (although it may take considerable effort to reshape our social structures to do the same for communities and nations). In contrast to the thinking/controlling mind, which is merely clever, the feeling mind is wonderfully sensitive and wise. Its wisdom is present and available within every one of us, and it is an easy matter to restore this wisdom to its natural place at the center of our lives.

Introducing feelingwork and the Tangible Minds practice

The process of reclaiming and restoring the wisdom of the feeling mind, I call "feelingwork." I use this as a generic term to refer to the myriad methods and practices we humans have intuitively created over the years to support the healthy functioning of the feeling mind. These include various therapies, spiritual practices, personal growth methods, cultural practices, expressive arts, movement practices, and the many other ways we have to bring awareness to feeling and invite it to contribute its wise gifts to our lives.

Feelingwork, however, has never been identified specifically as work promoting the healthy functioning of the feeling mind. So of the great variety of methods available to approach these ends, most offer only a partial understanding of the feeling mind and how to encourage its fullest contribution to our well being. The Tangible Minds practice illuminates the three phases and three principles that characterize complete feelingwork of any kind.

Three phases:

1. Awareness: What are you feeling in relation to your situation? What is your actual, felt experience of that in or around your body? And what else are you feeling?

2. Invitation: In your ideal world, what would this part of you want to be feeling instead? This ideal feeling is your reference point or "true north" for knowing what's best for you.

3. Integration: Holding both your reactive and ideal feelings in mind at the same time, what do you want to do? What wisdom arises in relation to your current situation?

Three principles:

1. We are made of many parts: At any given moment, nine distinct parts of us, each having its own unique feeling state, are creating our total experience of being. In addition, three more parts of us are creating our experience of a higher self, or witness. The relationships among these parts and their feeling states determine our joy and fulfillment in life.

2. Every part has positive intent: No matter how ugly, dark, or painful, difficult feelings are signals that wholeness has been compromised, and they are trying a return us to balance. When the feeling is disregarded or the person is disempowered, the signal gets fixated and amplified. Inviting it to reconnect with wholeness re-calibrates the feeling so it is once again responsive and wise.

3. Creative tension = aliveness: Full consciousness consists of holding the polarity between the ideal and the real, embodying the power of creation. When we have access to our ideal states of wholeness and simultaneously are present to the nuances of reality, we live in constant orientation to our dreams and enjoy responding with grace to whatever comes our way. Life is rich!

What do you want to do about it?

If this all makes sense to you, and you're interested in learning more, I invite you to give me a call right away to set up a time for us to talk. My cell number is 206-407-3296. We can just talk on the phone, meet for coffee, or schedule an introductory appointment for you to try out the Tangible Minds practice for yourself. After we've scheduled our time together, then you can poke around a bit more here on the website.

Have fun. The possibilities this work offers are very exciting. I look forward to meeting you.

The Tangible Minds Practice in Brief

The practice is facilitated in the form of a structured interview designed to turn your attention inward in new ways. When you work with me, we start by identifying the nine distinct feeling states that define your chosen area of inquiry. This will likely be some part of your life around which you want better understanding or more choices.

Then we map each feeling state using direct questions about the inner sensation of the feeling and the specific beliefs and perceptions that accompany it. You'll actually draw what each feeling would look like if you could see it, (see examples below). Mapping by itself leads to significant personal insights in a very short time.

The release is the most exciting phase of the Tangible Minds inquiry process. Through further questions, we elicit a felt shift in each of the feeling-states – toward wholeness, resourcefulness, and fulfillment. Through the release, a deep inner wisdom comes through, revealing powerful and personal truths. When releasing is complete, you experience yourself very differently, with nine positive states shaping your perceptions, thoughts, beliefs and actions.

Throughout the process, you are in charge of your own experience and learning. This work is not therapy, but is rather a very focused self-awareness practice. As your facilitator, I serve your awareness process. I do not interpret; I do not give advice; I do not judge, assess or diagnose. I have learned that I can fully and completely trust YOUR wisdom to know what is best for you, and I simply help you access that for yourself.

The entire process requires about 10 hours of structured interviewing and another five to ten hours of personal exploration and practice.

Tangible Minds Mapping Examples

Click on any image to view a full description of the feeling and see its place in the full Tangible Minds Inquiry process for that client. You can see these feeling-state maps in the context of a complete self-inquiry involving nine distinct feeling states governing a life issue on the Examples pages. And please take a look at the many great things people say after experiencing this work.

Fear became Boundless

Frustration became Cool breeze

Shame became Joy

Disappointment became Uplifting expansion

Disconnecting became Showing up with wisdom

Sickening became Sunburst

Lack of trust became Right here

Hate became Admiration

Bafflement became Contentment

Tense/nervous became Blue happiness

What are you feeling?

Do you notice yourself tuning in to your own feelings as you read this? Would you like to try using the Tangible Minds practice to map a feeling for yourself? Go to the Do It Yourself page for a complete list of resources available here on this website to help you do that. You'll find templates to draw and write your notes on, scripts for the basic questioning sequence, and audio prompts you can play on your computer or mp3 player. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to give me a call: 206-407-3296.