To inquire into the Self is to slow down the step, to look in the opposite direction of what life typically asks of us. The Gestalt practitioners call this the phenomenological attitude. As opposed to the natural attitude, where we engage with the objectives and tasks that we typically fill our days with.
I did this for two days with Gestalt therapist Helena Kallner, who invited us to cultivate bodily knowing with her, as a way to understand at a deeper level how we know what we know. As she demonstrated in the PhD thesis, our knowing is formed in our physical body and cannot be separated from it. She puts it this way: ”Coming back to our physical self is a practice, and it’s a radical act in our time.”
Through our physical body and how it continuously interacts with its environment, we pick up everything we later label as observation or evidence for the ideas we have formed. To examine this inner process takes us deeper into the experience of being human. It takes time and effort but the reward, I find, is vitality, wonder and a sense of increased freedom.
It is not the length of life, but the depth of life. (RW Emerson)
Aristotle, who thought much about this, had different terms for knowing. Episteme was his name for scientific knowledge. Techne captured the practical knowledge that we use to create things. And Phronesis was his name for practical wisdom, that which cannot be pinned down but rather shows up in every moment as our judgment. A sort of human ability to translate our impressions to responses, to actions.
If you want to inquire into your own knowing process — try to slow your pace next time you walk home. Imagine, as Helena said, that the world comes to you rather than you go towards it. How does it change your perception? How does it impact your judgment?
Anna Thurdin Hedblad, founder Paxsum AB