Guide
Staying With What Is Here
Why we spend less time explaining your life and more time noticing it.
When something hurts, the mind goes looking for an explanation. Why did this happen? Whose fault is it? What does it say about me? Explanations feel productive. Often they are a way of standing a few steps back from the feeling itself.
The Gestalt tradition, which Claudio Naranjo spent his life teaching, takes a different approach. It cares less about why and more about what: what is happening right now, in your body, in your voice, in this conversation. Change, in this view, comes from being fully aware of your experience and owning it as yours.
What That Looks Like in Practice
A companion working this way might interrupt a long story to ask what you are feeling as you tell it. They might notice that your voice drops every time a certain name comes up, and say so. None of this is a trick. It is an invitation to be here, instead of in the explanation.
You do not have to understand everything to start feeling more like yourself.
One Thing to Try
Next time you catch yourself explaining a feeling to yourself, pause and finish this sentence instead: "Right now, I notice..." Say what is true in this moment, without the why. It is a small practice, and it is where much of this work begins.
Further Reading
- Gestalt Therapy: The Attitude and Practice of an Atheoretical Experientialism, Claudio Naranjo, 1993
Written in our own words, from ideas in the work above. Michael shared these books or cites them in his own study.
This article is a general reflection, not medical or clinical advice. If you are in crisis, call or text 988 in the United States, or your local emergency number.