Seeing Inside

Many times in the past I've marveled at a blind person's ability to read Braille. I've passed my fingers over the raised characters many times while waiting for an elevator, etc., and wondered how a person can develop the sensitivity to distinguish those small dots to create meaning.

Then, this morning, I was working with a therapist who was in town for my Myofascial Mentoring Program. We were talking about the process of being able to feel deeply into a person's body; taking huge amounts of information that is present when one places their hand on a patient and bringing meaning from that. A novice may not be able to discern any differences; all tissue may feel identical. But with training and practice, the therapist will begin to feel differences in the quality of the tissue. Taking this a step further, those differences, once pointed out to the patient, often are validated as meaningful places of pain, or ones that create pain elsewhere. The loop is closed when the therapist is able to connect their felt sense and their patient's subjective experience of that felt sense into a validated treatment experience.

While I would never equate learning Braille with mastering the "Feel" in a therapy such as myofascial release, it does call upon the therapist to deepen their senses to a point where previously unnoticed tactile clues begin to be felt. This is the first step to being able to make changes with touch. I call it "seeing inside". Do you have words for this experience?