How Paired Mindfulness Can Deepen Therapeutic Healing

​

Many people have heard of mindfulness, grounding, or breathwork — but fewer understand the deeper somatic processes that help the body truly regulate, heal, and shift long-standing patterns. Two models that work beautifully together as expressed by Jan Winhall are Eugene Gendlin’s Felt Sense (from Focusing) and Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory.

​

Together, they give us a powerful map that helps us move from stress, overwhelm, or emotional shutdown into connection, clarity, and safety — especially when practiced in pairs.

​

🌿 What Is the Felt Sense?

​

Gendlin used the term “felt sense” to describe the whole-bodied, pre-verbal knowing that we carry inside.

​

It’s not an emotion, not a thought, and not exactly a body sensation — but a blend of all three, held in the body as a kind of intuitive, implicit understanding.

​

Examples of a felt sense:

• “A tight, pressured ball in my chest that somehow includes worry about work.”

• “A heavy fog in my stomach that’s connected to feeling stuck.”

• “A warm opening in my chest that feels like relief.”

 

A felt sense is alive — it shifts, unfolds, and reveals meaning when we pay attention gently and non-judgmentally.

This is the heart of Focusing, Gendlin’s six-step process for listening to the body’s inner wisdom.

 

🌿 What Is Polyvagal Theory?

 

Polyvagal Theory explains how the nervous system responds to safety and threat.
It identifies three primary states:

 

1. Ventral Vagal — Safety & Connection

• grounded

• socially engaged

• calm, open, regulated

 

2. Sympathetic — Mobilization / Fight-or-Flight

• anxiety, urgency, overwhelm

• anger or agitation

• racing thoughts, panic

 

3. Dorsal Vagal — Shutdown / Collapse

• numbness

• hopelessness

• freeze or dissociation

• feeling disconnected or heavy

 

In therapy, one of our biggest goals is helping clients return to ventral vagal — where they can reflect, access insight, and connect with themselves and others.

 

🌿 How These Two Models Work Together

 

Polyvagal Theory explains what state we’re in.
Felt sense work shows what’s happening inside that state, and how to shift it.

 

Here’s how they integrate:

 

✔ The felt sense gives the body a voice

When we tune into the sensations, emotions, and intuitive meaning held inside, we access information the thinking mind misses.

 

✔ Tracking the felt sense moves the nervous system toward safety

Gentle, non-forcing attention signals the body:
“You’re safe to explore this.”
This often shifts people out of sympathetic or dorsal states.

 

✔ Felt-sense awareness helps integrate unfinished emotional material

Rather than analyzing, we allow the body to unfold its meaning at its own pace — which reduces overwhelm and promotes regulation.

 

✔ Polyvagal knowledge helps us work with stuck felt senses

When a felt sense won’t shift, polyvagal theory helps us identify whether the system is in a state that needs grounding, movement, or co-regulation.

Together, these models form a mind-body approach that supports emotional healing in a gentle, accessible way.

 

🌿 The Focusing Process: A Simple Overview

 

Gendlin’s Focusing is usually described in six steps, but the essence is simple:

 

1. Pause & come into the body

Bring awareness inward, noticing breath and sensation.

 

2. Invite a felt sense to form

Ask gently: “How is this whole thing living in my body right now?”

 

3. Find a handle

A word, phrase, or image that captures the quality of the felt sense.

 

4. Resonate

Check the handle against the actual felt sense to see if it fits.

 

5. Stay with it, gently

Without forcing, staying with the sense allows it to shift organically.

 

6. Receive whatever comes

A new insight, a release of tension, a subtle emotional shift — these often emerge naturally.

Focusing is non-analytic.

It’s about listening, not dissecting — which is why it’s so regulating for the nervous system.

 

🌿 Practicing Felt Sense + Polyvagal Awareness in Pairs

Working in pairs can accelerate healing because co-regulation is built into our nervous system.
We regulate better when someone is present, grounded, and attuned.

 

A paired practice typically looks like this:

👥 Step 1 — Settling Together (Co-Regulation)

Partners take 1–2 minutes to breathe, ground, and notice:

• What state am I in? (ventral, sympathetic, dorsal?)

• What sensations are present?

• What’s needed to feel 2% safer?

This begins shifting the system toward ventral vagal.

 

👥 Step 2 — Exploring the Felt Sense

One person (the Explorer) turns inward.
The other (the Companion) simply listens without fixing, advising, or interpreting.

The Companion might say:

• “Take your time.”

• “You can check where that is in your body.”

• “Notice what wants your attention now.”

• “See if there’s a word or quality that fits.”

This creates interpersonal safety, which deepens somatic awareness.

 

👥 Step 3 — Tracking Polyvagal Cues

Both partners notice:

• breath shifts

• tension easing or increasing

• grounding sensations

• signs of activation (fidgeting, fast speech)

• signs of shutting down (long pauses, heaviness)

The Companion can gently invite regulation:

• “Would it help to take a slower breath?”

• “Notice your feet on the ground.”

• “You can come back to the room anytime.”

This helps prevent overwhelm.

 

👥 Step 4 — Allowing the Felt Sense to Shift

As the Explorer stays with the felt sense, it naturally unfolds.

Shifts may include:

• release of tightness

• new words or meaning

• softening of emotion

• insights about past experiences

• greater clarity about needs

This is felt shift — a hallmark of somatic integration.

 

👥 Step 5 — Closing & Grounding

Both partners check in:

• “What’s different now?”

• “What do you want to take with you from this?”

• “What does your body need as we close?”

Ending with grounding helps consolidate shifts.

 

🌿 Benefits of Paired Felt-Sense Work

 

✔ Supports deeper emotional regulation

Co-regulation helps the nervous system settle more quickly.

 

✔ Reduces anxiety, panic, and overwhelm

Felt-sense tracking prevents emotional flooding.

 

✔ Softens trauma loops without reactivation

This approach is gentle, slow, and body-led.

 

✔ Builds relational safety

Partners learn to listen in a mindful, non-intrusive way.

 

✔ Improves communication and attunement

Both partners practice presence rather than fixing.

 

✔ Supports insight and clarity

Felt shifts often reveal meaning and solutions the mind can’t access.

 

✔ Deepens mindfulness

It trains people to notice subtle experience rather than jumping into thought.

 

🌿 Why This Work Is So Effective in Therapy

 

Focusing + Polyvagal Theory:

• gives clients a language for their nervous system

• empowers self-regulation

• deepens emotional awareness

• prevents overwhelm

• supports trauma healing without retraumatization

• strengthens the therapeutic relationship through safety and attunement

 

This approach is especially effective for clients who:

• overthink

• struggle to verbalize emotions

• get stuck in fear or shutdown

• repeat old emotional patterns

• feel disconnected from their bodies

• long for deeper relational connection

 

🌿 Conclusion

 

Felt-sense awareness and the Polyvagal model offer a compassionate, body-centered way to understand and transform emotional patterns. When practiced in pairs, the process becomes even more powerful — two nervous systems co-regulating, listening, and supporting each other in reconnecting with safety and presence.

 

This is slow, mindful, healing work — work that helps people move from survival patterns into genuine connection with themselves and others.