In the welcoming curve exercise, we explore a way we can form a deeper relationship with our felt sense.
However, this is a slow process that isn’t so viable in everyday situations.
Here, we present a simpler version, which we call the “three second felt sense”.
The basis of this is that the felt sense takes longer to process than our rational mind does, so it needs to be given time. We sometimes need to “hold back” our rational mind to give the felt sense time to get started. That’s what this exercise aims to achieve.
When we have an uncertainty, a question, an unknown that we’re thinking about, talking about, etc, all we do is take hold off saying or thinking anything for three seconds. Stay with the felt sense during that time.
If we’re with others, we can easily mask this. Hold your chin, look up to the left, say, “hmmmm”. This is the kind of natural behaviour people use when naturally consulting the felt sense (often unconsciously), so we can find whatever such behaviour feels natural to us. Looking up to the left or right does seem to be a natural component of this.
To summarise - if unsure of something, just stay with the felt sense for three seconds before thinking or saying anything.