Guide to Using AI for Embodied Thinking
How to Develop Concepts Grounded in Felt Sense Using Artificial Intelligence
Introduction
This guide offers a structured approach to working with AI systems like Claude to develop conceptual frameworks that remain grounded in embodied knowing. Unlike traditional intellectual work that often disconnects from felt experience, or purely somatic approaches that may lack conceptual clarity, this method integrates both dimensions—allowing new understanding to emerge that is both conceptually robust and experientially grounded.
Drawing upon Eugene Gendlin's work on "thinking at the edge" and the process of "crossing," this practice uses AI as a mirror and conversational partner to help articulate what you sense but cannot yet say clearly. The result isn't just better writing or clearer thinking—it's the discovery of conceptual structures that can carry forward your implicit knowing in ways that transform both your understanding and your embodied experience.
Foundations: Understanding the Process
Before we dive into specific techniques, let's establish the foundational principles that make this work effective:
The Felt Sense as Ground Truth
Your body's knowing—what Gendlin called the "felt sense"—serves as the ultimate arbiter of truth in this process. No matter how elegant a conceptual framework might be, if it doesn't resonate with your felt sense, it doesn't accurately capture what you know implicitly. The AI might offer brilliant formulations, but you are the one who determines whether they "ring true" to your direct experience.
This relationship creates a crucial safeguard: the AI can help articulate what you already know, but we don’t want it to lead you away from your own knowing into abstract intellectual territory that loses touch with lived experience.
The Dance of Articulation and Checking
The core movement of this process involves a rhythmic alternation between articulation and checking. You express what you're sensing, the AI reflects it back with possible articulations, and you check these against your felt sense. This checking isn't intellectual evaluation—it's noticing how your body responds to different formulations. Does something open up? Does it feel constricted? Does energy move? Does something shift in your understanding?
When you find language that resonates deeply, your felt sense itself often shifts. What Gendlin called a "felt shift" occurs—a tangible release, opening, or clarity that indicates your conceptual understanding has successfully carried forward your implicit knowing.
Crossing: Where New Meaning Emerges
The magic of this process happens through what Gendlin termed "crossing"—the interaction between your felt sense and conceptual language. In crossing, neither remains unchanged. Your felt sense becomes more differentiated and clear as it finds expression, and the concepts become more precise and alive as they connect to direct experience.
The AI facilitates this crossing by offering multiple ways to articulate what you're sensing, creating a rich field of possibilities for crossing to occur. You're not looking for the AI to give you the "right answer," but rather to generate linguistic environments where crossing can happen naturally.