As with other practices, The Work often seem to work best if the three centers are included.
Thinking about it as the three centers can be a little too abstract and removed from direct experience. (I only use the three centers when I organize experiences here on this journal.)
Instead, we can explore it in a more immediate and practical way… as allowing experience, staying with what is happening, bringing in the heart, and inviting in a felt-sense of what is happening during inquiry.
For each of the questions, we can do all of this…
Allow whatever content of experience comes up… feelings, sensations, emotions, whatever it may be. Asking myself, can I be with what I am experiencing right now?
Staying with whatever is happening. Allowing it to be experienced, felt, loved. Allowing it to sink in. To work on me. Taking time to stay with it and see what happens. Being with it instead of rushing through.
Bringing in the heart… do the inquiry in a wholehearted and heartfelt way. Have compassion for myself as I go through the inquiry. Be with whatever comes up as I would with a child or a wounded animal.
Inviting in a felt-sense of whatever happens… Take time to feel what comes up under each question. To bring it into the body, and bring the body into the inquiry. To feel the reactions to the belief under question number three, the release under number four, and the truth and how it would be to live the truth in daily life for the turnarounds. Making it come alive in a felt sense, in the body.
Rushing through the questions, or staying at a mental level even if we slow down, can certainly have some effects. It can open doors which over time allows a deeper shift. There is nothing wrong in doing it this way.
But for me, bringing in the heart and bodily felt sense, and taking the time to allow it all to sink in and seep through our being, seems far more juicy. It allows whatever comes up during the inquiry to work on me in a more thorough way. I place more of myself under the influence of what comes up.