Up: [[Gendlin Focusing]] Related: [[Exercise to Find a Felt Sense]] Course: Focusing with Leslie Ellis on Jung Platform Created: 2024-01-23 Updated: 2026-01-24 Gendlin was the originator of the term “felt sense.” It is the cornerstone of the Focusing process. The idea is that your body is a real-time sensor of intricate, complex information and it can give you a fresh somatic take on any aspect of your life. Your felt sense brings a new perspective or new information from the edge between consciousness and the unconscious. It all sounded very woo-woo to me until Leslie gave the example of driving to the airport and having a niggling feeling that she’d left something behind at home. The feeling is very tangible you don’t quite know what it means. When her body realized what was left behind, she experienced a shift, called a “felt shift.” A felt sense can be an emotion, an image, a sensation. It is an inner conviction that is physically felt, but it’s often vague and unclear. Leslie compared it to watching a Polaroid photo develop, or our eyes adjusting to the dark.