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By Kathy McGuire, January 12, 2009 3:14 pm

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

If we live in a Focusing/Felt-Sensing way, we will be able to use our “intuitive feel” of situations that touch us or matter to us to uncover, to unfold our most important life meanings and directions. Here is an experience I had and how, taking time later to “sense into” and make words for “the whole intuitive feel” left by the situation guided and enriched me.
 
Context of the day: I went to a Women-In-Networking (WIN) holiday luncheon. This is a gathering of small business owners and other “Women in Business.” I had fallen just before needing to leave and severely bruised several boney parts. I iced them a little, but had to rush off — I am turning 62 on Dec. 24, and this enters into “feeling more fragile.”
 
At the meeting, the Emcee, one of few men involved in the organization, told a story about how his single-mother mom had worked and sacrificed to make a home, a living, a life for her children. Throughout the entire telling, he kept completely choking up, being almost unable to speak, tearing up, but he continued on. Noone freaked out. Many people teared up along with him. Occasionally he would make a joke or articulate a point. It did not seem to phase him at all. His main point: (and this made him cry/choke up a lot!) That we here at WIN were supporting each other in a way that his mother did not have support, and how precious and important that was.
 
Then a woman minister spoke about her ministry, about “women who live dangerously,” meaning “women who are willing to ‘lose’ their life in order to ‘find’ it” (I tear up a little here right now). She told stories of her own widowhood at age 45, about women in third world countries struggling to raise, not only their own, but children orphaned by AIDS. She told stories of how women seem to have a special talent for rising to the occasion in the midst of adversity, being able to pick up the pieces and go on, helping themselves and others. Again, many people were wiping their eyes and sniffling.
 
And I am sitting there thinking/feeling: this is what I am working on.
 
And, later, at home, I took time to relax into my body by paying attention to my body, then asked myself in a Focusing way, “What was it about that meeting that is so ‘crux’ to me?” and waited for “the feel of it all” to form in the center of my body. And these are the words that came as I went back-and-forth between words and “the intuitive feel” until the words were “just right”:
 
This calling of mine about integrating masculine and feminine, work and home, about the way in which “tears of being touched and moved” are our body’s “signposts that we are on the path to profound meaning—and I wondered how I could remind these people of this teary and heartfelt experience they all went through, happily, in a holiday mood, when I proposed (which I was getting clarity on doing as a next step) that we add real Listening/Focusing Support Groups (for creative thinking, problem solving, and emotional clarity — that these two things are not separate but go hand in hand) to the networking meetings that we have and to creating Creative Edge Organizations.
 
And, in there, is the crux of my work (at least in this area — that leaves parenting support groups, relationship support groups, etc., etc.) — but this thing right here is the crux about bringing work and home, masculine and feminine, thinking and feeling together in a business setting—
 
Moral of The Story: Living In a Self-Reflective Way Enriches Meaning
 
So here we see that simply paying attention to what is happening in our “bodily felt sense” or “intuitive feel” while we live our life situations, and taking a few moments to give Focusing attention to make words for “the feel of it all” enriches our life with meaning. Not just for difficulties and problem solving, but in terms of positive, profound indications that we are on the “right track” in terms of life directions.

Pre-Focusing Practice B. Getting A Felt Sense #4: “Finding the Felt Senses of A Situation”
 
(from Complete Focusing Instructions, free download link at top of this blog) Week Four of four weeks of practice
 
Remember, especially at the beginning, time those “1 minute” pauses. You will be amazed at how long a minute is, how seldom we ever pause for a whole minute!!! And it is exactly in the PAUSE that the Creative Edge comes.

 4.  The “Felt Sense,” The “Intuitive Feel” of a Situation-Allow 15 to 20 minutes
 
In this exercise, you are going through a first round of Intuitive Focusing, looking for The Creative Edge, the something-new-that-is-more-than-words about an actual situation during the week that felt unfinished.

Although you may have gone around and around in your head, trying to find a solution, to figure out what happened that was strange, now you will set aside that left-brain problem solving and consult your “right-brain wisdom, the bodily “intuitive feel” of “that whole thing.” First, we use a Relaxation exercise as a way of clearing some space inside for Focusing:
 
—Let’s start with The Counting Meditation for initial Relaxation:
 
—First, stretch—and relax, stretch—and relax, stretch—and relax—-30 sec.
 
—Now, begin noticing your breathing, just noticing the breath going in—and out—in—and out—30 sec.
 
—Now, on each exhale, count starting with “1” and continuing, on each exhale, until you reach “9”—1—2—3—4—5—6—7—8—9
2 minutes
—If you lose track, just start counting over again with “1”. When you get to “9,” start over and count to “9” one more time—
                                                                2 minutes
—Spend a few minutes coming to a peaceful place inside, noticing your breathing—
2 minutes
—Now, bring to mind an incident or a situation from the past week which feels unfinished, left behind an uncomfortable or confusing feeling or even a positve feeling—
2 minutes
—Set aside all your ready-made words or images, and try to get a fresh “intuitive feel” for how you felt in that situation, paying attention to the center of your body, around the heart/chest area—
1 minute
—Try to find some words or an image to describe the “intuitive feel” of it, The Creative Edge before words—
1 minute
—Keep checking until the words or image are just right.
1 minute
—Ask yourself, “What’s that about for me?” and wait for a felt sense, an “intuitive feel” that is more than words, to form—
1 minute
—Find some words or an image to capture that “intuitive sense”. You are letting your body’s Wisdom tell you about the situation, instead of answering with everything you already know.
1 minute
—When you are ready, come slowly back into the room.
 
If you wanted to continue with another round of Focusing, you would simply ask again, “And why is this important to me?”, wait to see what comes as an “intuitive feel,” look for words or an image that are “just right,” checking and resonating until something shifts inside. You can find full Focusing Instructions in Complete Focusing Instructions, p.12-17, download from the link at the top of this blog.

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! Today’s blog is part of the year-long e-course offered through the Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter.

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

Comments (0)

By Kathy McGuire, January 11, 2009 2:50 pm

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

MEDICAL CHANGE EVENT: FROM MIGRAINE TO TEARS OF MEANING
 
While Instant “Ahah!” # 4, Five-Minute Grieving,  specifically addresses what to do if a patient, friend, or co-worker begins to cry, the excerpt below shows how using Intuitive Focusing to “sit with” the “intuitive feel” of a physical symptom. Intuitive Focusing can allow that symptom to open into an “Ahah!” of deeper meanings, with a sheen of tears in the eye often the body’s signpost of a place to stop and go deeper into “the feel of the whole thing.”
 
The excerpt is a tiny portion of a Focusing Partnership session. The Focuser is experienced in using Intuitive Focusing. The Listener is experienced in Focused Listening, Dr. McGuire’s  version of Carl Rogers ‘ Empathic or Active Listening.

Early on, as the Focuser talks about waking with the beginnings of a migraine headache and related issues, the Listener notices a faint “shimmer of tears.” She suggests that the Focuser stop and “sense into” the place of tears. By the end of the session, the Focuser has moved through deep sobbing about the heavy burden of depression she has carried “for soooo long” and experiences the liveliness of a “felt shift,” “being lighter, wanting to dance!” She states that the migraine has abated.
 
The Focusing Partnership session begins with Focuser and Listener in chairs facing each other. The Focuser, because of her comfort with the Intuitive Focusing process from past practice, chose to keep her eyes closed throughout the session, attending to her inner experiencing. The Listener, Dr. McGuire, begins:
 
Listener: “So, just feel comfortable closing your eyes and going inside, coming in tune with whatever is there—Let me know if you need some help or when you’re ready to begin speaking—
 
Focuser: (10 second pause)—“—This morning when I awakened, I  had a headache on the left side of my head, and I thought, ‘Oh, it’s  migraine coming on’— so I’m just sensing into what that was  about, um, like, my body was really full of toxins, like I just wanted to kind of shake the toxins out.”
 
Listener: “So, even on waking, you noticed there was the beginning of a headache on the left side of your head, and you spent some time with it, just sensing into it, and the feeling was of toxins in your body, and you just wanted to shake them out, shake them out.”
 
Focuser: (30 second pause) ——- “And I notice that my throat is stopped up this morning, and that’s something I’ve been working on, we’ve been working on together—something deep emotional there in my throat, getting kind of choked up.”  
 
[The Focuser is doing the first step of Intuitive Focusing, “clearing a space,” noticing and naming the various issues she is carrying so she can choose one to work on]
 
Listener: “Yea, so you’re aware of that now, too, your throat getting choked up, and that’s something we’ve worked on before, and it’s connected to deep emotional things—and it seemed like I even saw a shimmer of tears as you described that—maybe just be with that, sit with that ‘choked up.'”
 
[The Listener notices the beginnings of tears and gives an Intuitive Focusing Instruction, suggesting that the Focuser stop talking and pay attention to the “felt sense.”] 
 
Focuser: (tears visible under closed eyelids, face reddening, voice thickening) “What bothers me about it is I keep trying to clear my throat, and it doesn’t clear. I keep trying to clear it, and it prevents me from speaking the way I want to speak, and it’s annoying to people, I think.”
 
Listener: “Uhhuh.”
 
Focuser: “It somehow prevents me from projecting my voice—” 
 
Listener: “Umhm.”
 
Focuser: “I keep trying to get it out, and it just stays there, it’s uh—”
 
Listener: “Umhm—so what bothers you is you keep trying to clear it out, and it won’t go, and you also think it makes it difficult for other people. You want to project your voice and get it out, and that’s hard for the other people, too, you can’t really speak.”
 
Focuser: “That really prevents communication.”
 
You can read the entire excerpt, with commentary, and see the “felt shift” for yourself in Medical Change Events Through Experiential Focusing. You can view the entire 12-minute session in the DVD Listening/Focusing Demonstrations, also part of The Self-Help Package.
 
 Download “Being Touched and Being Moved: The Spiritual Value of Tears for many examples of how tears and Focusing interrelate and “Finding The Meaning In Tears” for exercises for using Focusing to find the meaning in your tears. Both articles are packed with real-life examples of how tears “touch us” and “move us” in positive ways.

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! Today’s blog is part of the year-long e-course offered through the Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter.

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

Comments (4)

By Kathy McGuire, January 10, 2009 3:19 pm

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

SITUATION PILE UPS AND NEGATIVE SPIRALS
 
Intuitive Focusing is a meditation-like practice which allows you to sort through your thoughts and emotional reactions by paying attention to the way in which your “physical body” and your larger “intuitive, gut feel” hold information needed for problem solving.

I can use Intuitive Focusing for “sensing into” the “intuitive feel” left by situations to clear my inner space, sort through meanings, and come up with action steps many times a week. However,  there are two other inner events related to outer situations and interactions that are harder to unravel. I call them “situation pile ups” and “negative spirals.”
 
SITUATION PILE UPS
 
Sometimes I find myself feeling overwhelmed, or maybe numb, like concrete, or stiffened from stress and anxiety. When I find time to gently “sit with” the “feel of it all,” I can start to unravel what may have been a “situation pile up.” The final feeling state is the result of several situations or incidences during the week where the “felt residue” went unnoticed and unattended to. Hence, the “pile up” into complete overwhelm or numbness.
 
Please download the “Complete Focusing Instructions” from the link above so you have access to the exercises I refer to below.

Perhaps starting with a Relaxation Exercise like #1. Noticing (p. 3) or #4. Counting Meditation (p.6), I might then move to Felt Sensing # 3, Clearing a Space (p. 10 in Complete Focusing Instructions).

Clearing A Space

 As I ask myself, “What is between me and feeling totally okay?”, I can sit silently, eyes closed,  with each issue or situation or interaction that arises, notice the “bodily-felt sense” of “that whole thing,” take a moment to find a “handle” word for it, then set it outside of me (ahhhhh!). Eventually, I will find a cleared space inside and be able to say, “Except for all of that, I am totally okay.” I will realize that a series of unresolved situations or interactions have “piled up.” I can now choose to take them one at a time and use Instant Ahah #1, Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You, to go more deeply into problem resolution.
 
NEGATIVE SPIRALS
 
Similarly, I might find myself falling into negative statements and beliefs about myself, saying “I am so stupid,” “Nobody wants me,” “There is something terribly wrong with me,” “I never do anything right,” etc. There seems to be a negative spiral, going deeper and deeper into despair and negative thinking.
 
Again, such a negative spiral can be the end result of a number of situations or interactions that left an unresolved “residue.” In this case, they may all have coalesced around a theme, like “I am worthless.” And again, the solution is to stop and commit some quiet time to Intuitive Focusing.

Start with a Relaxation Exercise, then perhaps Clearing A Space followed by a longer Focusing session (see above for links to these exercises). Simply by sitting with the negative feelings, giving them an empathic hearing, and asking open-ended questions like “What is this all about?”, you can begin to trace the negative feelings back to actual situations and interactions. Now, knowing what really happened, you can begin to look for solutions and action steps.
 
Especially with overwhelming negative spirals, you will want to use some specific techniques for dealing with the inner Critic and for finding a way to give a negative feeling a voice without falling into it. Ann Weiser Cornell, with her Inner Relationship Focusing methods, has specialized in helping Focusers to “disidentify” from all the various “parts” or “voices” or “aspects” inside, giving each an empathic hearing. You can learn some of these methods in upcoming Level 1 and 2 tele-classes with Ruth Hirsch, an Inner Relationship teacher and Creative Edge Associate.

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! Today’s blog is part of the year-long e-course offered through the Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter.

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

Comments (1)

By Carolyn, January 6, 2009 12:09 am

BEING TOUCHED AND BEING MOVED: THE SPIRITUAL VALUE OF TEARS

In his book, Feelings:Our Vital Signs (Harper, Row Perennials, 1979), Willard Gaylin makes the following distinction:

“Touched is generally a light emotion, although we do experience feelings of being deeply touched. The fact that we speak of it so (and it is not considered redundant) merely affirms the sense of touch as being a gentle feeling. The caress is its symbol. It arises almost inevitably in terms of something that is done for us by someone. It is a person-to-person emotion.

Being moved, on the other hand, is a deep and intense emotion and it rarely relates to a transaction between people. More often than not, the feeling of being moved is in relationship to certain abstractions, events, concepts, and sensations—The most common experience of being moved is in relationship to some encounter with grandeur(p.196)—

There is a physical feeling implicit in the very name of the emotion “being moved.” We do tend to feel “transported” by this emotion—the feeling of our being lifted out of ourselves—establishes an identification of ourself as a part of something bigger.(p.197) It is the emotion of spiritual communion, and, as such, may be the essential feeling of the religious experience.”

It is so pleasing to me to hear someone make such fine distinctions between “feelings” as are more often made between “ideas.”

In my experience, “being touched” and “being moved” are very often signalled by a sheen of tears in the eyes, nature’s signal to us that “This here-and-now is important.” We think of tears as related to painful experiences and overlook how often they signify love, happiness, joy, awe, reverence.

If we pause and use Intuitive Focusing to “sense into” the meaning signalled by the tears, we find ourselves enriched by a “tap root to the core of your Being and to the Universe.” See this excerpt below on using Focusing to find the meaning in tears:

By now you have experienced the sheen of tears. Perhaps you have come to treasure moments of being touched and moved. They are an instant channel to energy, a tap root to the core of your Being and to the Universe.

You may find yourself asking some questions:

— What does it mean to “be moved by” something?
Am I supposed to do something?

— Do my tears mean anything? Are they trying to
tell me something?

— Why do I always cry when I see a particular
thing?

— Are my tears related to something from my
childhood?

— Do the same things touch other people as touch
me?

What Is ‘Meaning’?

You experience the meaning of living by having feelings in your body, not from ideas in your head. “Meaning” lies in your unique feeling response to any situation, based on your own lifetime of experiences. One man might experience a terrible grief when his father is dying: “Oh, I can’t go on living. He means so much to me. Everything that is important to me is wrapped up in him.” Another man may have a different experience at his father’s death, a sadness tinged with joy: “I’ll miss him, but it means that he is free. His time has come.” By carefully making words for feelings, you can find your own unique meanings.

Being open to tears, anger, embarrassment, love, and other emotions allows you to discover, through the exploration of the “felt meaning,” the personal meanings which give value and direction to your life. It might help to think of feelings as “felt meaning”– your feeling of the meaning of the situation to you. They are your access to the network of thoughts and beliefs which gives a goal and a direction, a meaning or a purpose, to your life.

For instance, when I saw a slender, Asian woman stand up as the violin soloist at a concert and launch into sound, I welled up with tears. The tears indicated that the situation had meaning for me. I found the precise meaning as I made words for the texture of the feeling: “It’s not just that she is a woman, but that she is small and feminine. I can be feminine and be powerful. A small, feminine person can be the vehicle for excellence. I have never seen this before. Always before the vehicle has been a man. Women can do this. I can do this.”

If I had not allowed myself to experience the emotion, to taste the tears and look for words to describe them, I would have been cut off from the profound meanings in the situation, meanings that could affect the entire course of my life.

The capacity to feel the meaning in situations, to be moved to tears, is a skill and a gift overlooked in our society. Psychologists and philosophers note the feelings of isolation, alienation, and despair called the “existential neurosis:” “What’s the meaning of my life?” The loss of meaning can be traced to the downplaying of the ability to feel and thus to discover the personal values which can guide meaningful action.”

You can begin to notice the landscape of your tears as an Eskimo can decipher 100 different kinds of snow.

Download “Being Touched and Being Moved: The Spiritual Value of Tears for many examples of how tears and Focusing interrelate and “Finding The Meaning In Tears”  for exercises for using Focusing to find the meaning in your tears. Both articles are packed with real-life examples of how tears “touch us” and “move us” in positive ways.

You can try out “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

Comments (0)

By Carolyn, December 25, 2008 10:42 pm

Grieving = Alchemy
 
Alchemy is about transforming something gross and terrible into gold, the most precious metal. Alchemy needs going through a fire of transformation within a protective container.
 
Grieving is alchemical. If you can welcome it and stick with it and see it through, you will come out the other end having created something new and valuable.
 
In grieving properly, we are welcoming and honoring the memories and meanings of our loss. We are viewing our grieving Self with compassion. We create love and self-love.
 
C.S. Lewis wrote one of the best, short books about grieving, A Grief Observed (this is a link to Amazon listing). He describes, upon the death of his wife, going down into despair, then, one day, coming out the end of the tunnel, being able to really hear, really experience the birds singing again.
 
Please see my articles Active Grieving Part One and Active Grieving Part Two for a philosophy about welcoming grieving and actual techniques for using Focusing to enhance the journey through grief. While I used childbearing losses as the example, the philosophy and procedures apply to Actively Grieving any loss — facilitating transformation.

You can try out “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

Comments (0)

By Carolyn, December 21, 2008 6:08 pm

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

Do your situations leave a felt “residue” behind?
 
Have you noticed that real-world situations, interactions can leave behind a “residue” of “something-more-than-words”? Our bodily knowing, our intuitive sensing, lives in the situation and can “pick up” aspects that affect us without giving us words. We might have to pay attention to the “intuitive feel” left behind a while just to be able to say we feel “anxious,” or “Something is not right here” or “What is being said doesn’t match the feeling being generated” or “I want to get out of here!” or “This is not safe.” 

Even getting this far, any words at all, may take a first step of  “Getting A Felt Sense of a Situation,” paying attention to the “whole thing,” the larger “intuitive feel” under the initial wordless emotional reaction.
 
Intuitive Focusing is made exactly for going further to find words for exactly what is going on in such situations. Finding words allows you to take action to change the situation, because now you know what the problem is.
 
You will learn to take a moment to sit down, “clear a space” inside, and ask an open-ended questions, like, “What is this all about?” Instead of answering with the already-known in your head, you will learn to wait at least a minute for “the feel of the whole thing” to form in the center of your body. Only then will you begin to look for words and images  that are “just right” in capturing the “intuitive feel” of the situation. 

Eventually, you will experience the “Ahah!,” the relief of knowing consciously what your body has been carrying “unconsciously.” Now, you can take action steps to change the situation, clarify the interaction.
 
Pre-Focusing Practice B. Getting A Felt Sense #4: “Finding the Felt Senses of A Situation”
(from Complete Focusing Instructions) 
 
Remember, especially at the beginning, time those “1 minute” pauses. You will be amazed at how long a minute is, how seldom we ever pause for a whole minute!!! And it is exactly in the PAUSE that the Creative Edge comes.

    4.  The “Felt Sense,” The “Intuitive Feel” of a Situation-Allow 15 to 20 minutes
 
In this exercise, you are going through a first round of Intuitive Focusing, looking for The Creative Edge, the something-new-that-is-more-than-words about an actual situation during the week that felt unfinished.Although you may have gone around and around in your head, trying to find a solution, to figure out what happened that was strange, now you will set aside that left-brain problem solving and consult your “right-brain wisdom, the bodily “intuitive feel” of “that whole thing.”

First, we use a Relaxation exercise as a way of clearing some space inside for Focusing, then we look for “the intuitive feel,” the “bodily-felt sense” of the situation:
 
—Let’s start with The Counting Meditation for initial Relaxation:
 
—First, stretch—and relax, stretch—and relax, stretch—and relax—-30 sec.
 
—Now, begin noticing your breathing, just noticing the breath going in—and out—in—and out—30 sec.
 
—Now, on each exhale, count starting with “1” and continuing, on each exhale, until you reach “9”—1—2—3—4—5—6—7—8—9
2 minutes
—If you lose track, just start counting over again with “1”. When you get to “9,” start over and count to “9” one more time—
2 minutes
—Spend a few minutes coming to a peaceful place inside, noticing your breathing—
2 minutes
—Now, bring to mind an incident or a situation from the past week which feels unfinished, left behind an uncomfortable or confusing feeling—
2 minutes
—Set aside all your ready-made words or images, and try to get a fresh “intuitive feel” for how you felt in that situation, paying attention to the center of your body, around the heart/chest area—
1 minute
—Try to find some words or an image to describe the “intuitive feel” of it, The Creative Edge before words—
1 minute
—Keep checking until the words or image are just right.
1 minute
—Ask yourself, “What’s that about for me?” and wait for a felt sense, an “intuitive feel” that is more than words, to form—
1 minute
—Find some words or an image to capture that “intuitive sense”. You are letting your body’s Wisdom tell you about the situation, instead of answering with everything you already know.
1 minute
—When you are ready, come slowly back into the room.
 
If you wanted to continue with another round of Focusing, you would simply ask again, “And why is this important to me?”, wait to see what comes as an “intuitive feel,” look for words or an image that are “just right,” checking and resonating until something shifts inside. You can find full Focusing Instructions at  “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

Comments (0)

By Carolyn, December 19, 2008 7:07 pm

At Creative Edge Focusing(TM), we teach a wide variety of applications of two core self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, for use at home and at work, for personal growth, creativity, spirituality, conflict resolution, and innovative problem solving.

A “Sheen of Tears” Signals An Opening

From Instant “Ahah!” #4, Mini-Manual p. 13:

“Opening Up”, Not “Breaking Down”

Most of the time, we walk around “being” our symptoms instead of “relating” to them. The physician’s office is a place where accidental openings into the “felt senses” underlying symptoms have an increased likelihood of happening. It thus becomes important for physicians, and other health professionals, to capitalize on these moments where the defenses fall, and the preverbal felt experiencing underlying symptoms, becomes available for transformation.

Inter-office conflict or stress at home can also cause a co-worker or employee to “break down” and start crying. Or a friend may become teary while sharing. Instead of being afraid of a “break down,” see it as an “opening up,” an opportunity to unblock and build anew. See Creative Edge Focusing at www.cefocusing.com  to understand the Core Concepts underlying growth and creativity.

People Are Skilled At “Not Crying”

Five minute grieving is based upon the following premises, drawn from my 25-year experience as a psychotherapist and peer counseling teacher:

1. In general, people do not fall apart and cry and cry without stopping. In general, people do not cry for more than a few minutes at a time.

2. If tears are present, it is healthier for body and mind to allow their expression than to repress them. Tears also are the doorways into The Creative Edge, the possibility for change.

3. In general, people have a life-time of experience in being able to call up their defenses again, and go on as needed after a few moments of crying.

4. In the few cases where crying is uncontrollable, it is better to discover this vulnerability and get help, by referring to a counselor for psychotherapy and/or a psychiatrist for exploration of the appropriateness of anti-depressant medication.

5. In general, spending a few minutes making words for the “intuitive sense” underlying the tears will bring relief to the person, energy to the Listener, and a deep feeling of bonding and care between the two.

6. Allowing the tears also actually releases energy, letting the person go on to next steps of problem solving and action to be taken.”

Five-Minute Grieving Protocol

Here follows a first step into the Creative Edge Core Skills of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening which I call “Five Minute Grieving,” especially for health professionals, but also for co-workers and friends in a pinch, if someone tears up or starts crying.

FIVE MINUTE GRIEVING

Example from a physician’s office:

You have just told a patient that tests have shown her to be infertile. Tears well up in her eyes.

l. Invite her to cry. Say something like the following:
· “In a minute we can discuss options, but let’s make room for your tears.”
· “It’s okay with me to let your tears come.”
· “It’s okay to cry.”
· “You don’t have to hold back your tears.”
· “It’s important to let yourself cry.”
· “Just be gentle with yourself. Put your arms around yourself.”

2. Empathize with the feeling without trying to “fix” it or take it away:
· “I know it seems bleak right now.”
· “I know it’s hard.”
· “I see your sadness.”
· “I’m sorry for your sadness.”

3. Help her to find words or images for the tears. After she has cried for a while or at a natural pause in her tears, say something like:
· “What are the words for your sadness?”
· “Are there any words or images with your tears? It helps to get a handle on the feeling.”
· “Can you say what’s the worst of it?”
· “Can you say what you’re thinking?”

Just be quiet and give the person some time to grope for words.

4. Empathize again, often by paraphrasing:
· “So it’s (her words: “the fear that you’ll never be a mother;” “feeling like a dried up stick,” etc.) that’s hard.”

5. Continue Steps 1-4 as long as makes sense.

6. Establish closure:
· “We have to stop now.”
· “We only have a minute before we have to stop.”
· “I have to go, but you’re welcome to sit here for a minute until you’re ready to go.”
· Or, if you are now going to continue with other aspects of the visit, “Let’s see if we can put aside the tears for now so that I can give you some more information and we can look for solutions to your situation.”

7. Orient the person, if necessary, by doing a “present time” exercise:
· “I want to make sure you’re back out in the world before I send you off to drive home (or before we continue talking) . How about if you name all the circular (or orange, or striped, etc.) things in the room?”

8. At the end of the appointment, make a referral to a counselor or support group as appropriate and/or make arrangements for the person to check back with you for a future appointment.

Of course, Five Minute Grieving is just a first step toward fully incorporating Core Skills of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening into your personal and professional life. I hope it will whet your appetite to pursue further training in PRISMS/S and the Creative Edge Pyramid for application ofListening and Focusing at all levels and at home as well as work .

You can try out “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

Comments (0)

By Kathy McGuire, December 16, 2008 5:29 pm

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

DEMONSTRATION OF “FELT SHIFT” THROUGH INTUITIVE FOCUSING

The Kaleidoscope Turns and New Solutions Become Possible

Yesterday, I used Gendlin’s Focusing, (bookstore, www.focusing.org ),  or my version  Intuitive Focusing, to try to relieve some overwhelming “free floating anxiety” I was suddenly experiencing. I thought it was related to holiday overwhelm somehow, but nothing I told myself, and nothing I tried doing, alleviated it. So, I sat down, went quietly inside, and asked myself the Focusing Question, “What is this anxiety/overwhelm all about?” 

I intended to use the specific Clearing A Space exercise to make a list of all the various issues I was carrying in a bodily-felt way, and to set each one outside of myself until I could relax and experience “Except for all of that out on the table, I am totally okay!”.

As I worked through the Clearing A space exercise, I hit upon one specific issue which seemed the “crux” of it all, where my body said, “Yes, yes, that is it! That is what is causing the anxiety!” Gendlin calls this “Ahah!” a “felt shift.” I call it a Paradigm shift: the kaleidoscope turns, the Gestalt changes, and new solutions suddenly appear.

Since that new awareness, the anxiety has disappeared, I have slept well, and, today, I find I have, without thinking about it, changed my priorities in a way which should allow me to avoid this particular anxious state again.

So, here is my Intuitive Focusing Turn, including the Clearing A Space Exercise and a “felt shift” with new action steps arising:

Okay, why am I so nervous, having an anxiety attack. So, “clearing a space” by taking an inventory of “all the things I am carrying inside” — stopping to close eyes, breath in, take this Focusing Question toward my solar plexis area, and waiting for a “felt sense,” an “intuitive feel” to form in response, then looking for words/images to capture that, instead of answering with the “already-known” in my Mind — so, breathing deeply, slowing down, Focusing inward) —

—It’s the holiday season. Focusing Discussion e-list, etc., are quieting down, yet I feel like I need to keep stirring up action, keeping my e-lists alive, blogging — perhaps I need to declare a holiday break for myself, since everyone else seems to need one as well! Setting this aside for more attention later, if needed — big sigh. (sensing in again: What else?”) Big sigh

—Speaking to my son on the phone. He always calls me when he is unhappy. Today unhappy at his job, cold working outside, lonely still being out of town, pissed off about new rules about workers logging in new “time records,” showing how they spent their time on each job, being paid only for time justified, or something like that (this is threatening to me, since it could be a way of deciding who will be laid off in these tight economic times ) —

Something teary here about how “disgruntled” he is — stopping to “sense in” to this “intuitive feel” — the words come “Somehow this will be endless, this worry about him and his job, unless I change something about the way I am or the way I am with him” — when he is employed, I still worry every minute he will lose his job — I am always worried about him.

Something teary here, and I am remembering a recent nighttime dream I had, where he and his baby had had to move out of the apartment I was providing, had to get away from me, but some woman with him had left me two glossy, healthy, very green plants, and in a very tidy way; she had “cleaned up” after them — one was a jade plant, a succulent (something teary here, so sensing in—) a succulent saves up water in its leaves for dry times, but its leaves are also very fat and lush — well, I am going to stop here with this issue, set it aside for later, and keep “clearing a space,” making my list, seeing if I can alleviate this anxiety —-

Big sigh (sensing in again, “What else am I carrying?”)

—And something sobbing about JUST HOW MUCH I AM CARRYING, too many things, not just any one thing —

—There is a huge transition with my handicapped step-daughter, trying to move her out of our home and into her own apartment, with 24-hour supervision paid by the government. She has turned 18. Let me stop and “sense into” this one –

— (sobbing here) —she is so needy, and her neediness is increasing during this transition — “Mom, who will get your Christmas ornaments when you die? Who will get your money? Can I have this? Can I have that to take with me? I’ve got to buy this and that and this and that—” (just letting myself feel “this whole thing” about M., her needs, her endless anxiety, these last few weeks, when we are exhausted already, perhaps escalating in difficulty —-

“YES,” MY WHOLE BODY SAYS, “YES, THAT IS IT!” THERE IS  A “FELT SHIFT” IN THIS ANXIETY, SOME WORDS FOR IT.  YES, THIS IS A BIG PART OF IT: ANXIETY ABOUT M.’S TRANSITION.

So I am just going to sit with this a little while here,”sensing into” it — Yes, I just need to acknowledge that her needs are going to consume this holiday time, and I need to remind myself that this should be the end of it, in terms of her moving out of our responsibility and to the care-giving agency (except the meeting guaranteeing state financial aid has not happened, but I must trust the agency will get this covered —) Big sigh

That is actually quite relieving of the anxiety. I am laughing and telling myself, “Kathy, plan to have your own holiday after Jan. 1, because it is not going to happen now!”

THAT IS A BIG FELT SHIFT IN THE ANXIETY. THAT IS THE MAGIC OF INTUITIVE FOCUSING — FINDING WORDS FOR EXACTLY WHAT IT IS THAT IS GOING ON INSIDE.

Another big breath, big sigh of tension release. The words are not particularly cheery, but way better than free-floating anxiety!

Back to “clearing a space.” I ask myself, “Is there anything else on my list of issues I am carrying in my body?” (stopping to “sense in” quietly)

—Well, the continuing saga with my son’s divorce/custody dragging on and on, and not being sure the law office is really on top of it — and any inquiry costing me much money, so — not enough reassurance that they are on top of it. Maybe I will call and say, “Please respond in some way, I’ll pay the $10-20, just to be sure you are on top of this. Tell me what the delay is.You could be on vacation for all I know!”

Going to stop here! Have to go do some things and let this “shift” about M’s needs being overwhelming during this time, and just be aware of that, not constantly surprised!

NEXT DAY: NEW ACTION STEPS AND SOLUTIONS ARISE, ANXIETY IS GONE

I slept well, woke to find myself automatically re-ordering my priorities. I found ways to decrease work-related demands over the holidays. I spent the day cleaning my house and arranging table settings for my step-daughter’s graduation party tomorrow night.

Then, I took her “hope chest” of apartment-related items out of her crowded room and spread them out under her Christmas tree. Suddenly, it had become “all right” to allow her and her needs to be the “center of attention.” Intuitive Focusing had not only relieved my anxiety but also allowed new possibilities and solutions to arise.

 You can try out “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

Comments (2)

By Kathy McGuire, December 11, 2008 2:33 pm

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Why Practice Intuitive Focusing?

In answering this question, freshly, for today, even after thirty years of practicing Focusing, I am going to do Intuitive Focusing!

Instead of answering the question from my “head,” the “already-known,” I am going to pause, close my eyes, pay attention to my breathing for a while to come in touch with my body, then, turning my attention toward the center of my body, around my solar plexis/heart area.

I am going to wait, for a LONG, LONG minute or more, for the “intuitive feel,” the “whole body-sensing” to form in response to the question.

Only when I can feel this thickening of vague, preverbal “intuitive knowledge” forming, then I will begin to look for words or an image that begin to “fit,” to capture this whole-body sensing in response to the question. I will go back and forth, “checking and resonating” any words or images that come against the “bodily feel” until something “shifts” — by body, through a small or large release of tension, says “Yes, that fits. You are on the right track” or “Ahah! That is exactly it.”

So, here I go: “Why practice Focusing?”  (long pause for “felt sensing”) — 

— And, already, my body says, “Change the question. Make it more personal. This is too intellectual, makes you answer from your head” — So, the new question: “Why do I practice Focusing?”  And, again, I pause, waiting for the “intuitive feel” to form, before looking for words/images to express it — (long pause, eyes closed, paying attention to solar plexis — diaphragm —  area ) —

Big sigh (already tension release!)  — I practice Intuitive Focusing because I am a “kinesthetic” person — so, now, I pause to look for the “intuitive feel” of those words TO ME :”What do I mean by ‘kinesthetic person’?” —- 

I mean that I take things in through my body. I live very close to my body’s experience. So, throughout the day (and often in the night!), it is as if I am “hit by” experiences — I have a bodily response, notice my body responding (getting anxious or shut down or overwhelmed or excited or sad or happy or confused —) AND THEN NEED TO USE INTUITIVE FOCUSING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS GOING ON.

(pausing to “check inside” again, let my words come freshly from my “present felt experiencing,” my “intuitive feel” right now, not what I have always known and said before —-) Big sigh.  (pause for “felt sensing” and then finding fresh words) — 

Before I knew Focusing, and, now, when I don’t stop and pause to use it, I was simply “run around” by my “feelings,” by my bodily responses to situations, thoughts, etc. I felt sad/depressed, I would stay in my bed. I felt happy, elated, I would pursue whatever made me feel that way. I fell in love, I went with those feelings without question. I felt anxious, I suffered sleeplessness. I felt confused, I ran around like a “chicken with its head cut off.”

In the midst of one of these emotional crises, I met Eugene Gendlin and his Experiential Focusing technique (Focusing, Bantam, 1981, 1984, 2007. Order at The Focusing Institute Website Store). NOW I have something I can do other than just run around, “following my feelings.”  I can stop, pause, go quietly inside, and ASK MY BODY, “What is this all about?”, wait quietly for a minute or more for the “felt sense,” the “intuitive feel” to form in response, then carefully go back-and-forth until I find words/images/gestures that are “just right,” and the “whole thing” releases and shifts.

You can learn all about Focusing at The Focusing Institute, www.focusing.org as well as at Creative Edge Focusing, www.cefocusing.com . You can read many free articles by Gendlin in the online library at www.focusing.org/gendlin .

(so I am pausing to “sense into” “What do I mean by this ‘shift’? What is the positive point of Focusing?”)  —- (pause for “felt sensing,” checking with the “intuitive feel” —) 

Well, we call it going from “sheer emotion,” those reactive, emotional “responses,” to finding the “felt meaning” under the emotional response. The “felt meaning” holds within it everything about the situation, past, present, and implicit future.  Finding words/images for the “felt meaning” lets you know WHAT THIS WHOLE THING IS ABOUT. And, then, instead of just running around reacting, you can choose action steps that will really change the situation.

You can try out Intuitive Focusing here, at Instant “Ahah” #1: Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-E-course

 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

Comments (0)

By Kathy McGuire, December 3, 2008 4:06 pm

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

WHAT IS FOCUSING?

Experiential Focusing, or Intuitive Focusing, is a self-help skill for setting aside already-known, left-brain intellectualizations and paying attention to the right-brain, “the bodily felt sense,” the full “intuitive feel” of issues or ideas. Through a series of steps, the Focuser can find exactly the right words/images for capturing this “intuitive knowledge,” this “gut felt-experiencing,” and have an “Ahah!” experience, a moment of paradigm shift when new ideas, solutions, and actions suddenly become clear. Intuitive Focusing can be facilitated by the presence of a Focused Listener. You can learn all about Focusing and Listening/Focusing Partnerships/ Groups/ Teams/ Communities/ Organizations at Creative Edge Focusing (TM). Here I am giving a biography of the Creator of Experiential Focusing, Eugene T. Gendlin.

Existentialism and Phenomenology

Dr. Eugene Gendlin, retired after life-time career at the University of Chicago, now of The Focusing Institute in New York, is the philosopher/psychologist who has most explicitly described the implicit background of human living from which all meaning arises.

While everyone knows about and makes use of this level of “gut feeling” or “intuition” every day, it was the existential and phenomenological philosophers and psychologists who explicitly turned their attention to thoroughly studying this phenomenon – the subtle background of “experiencing” which gives meaning to human living and, from which, new meanings, creative solutions, and personality change can arise. Some of these are Rollo May, Martin Buber, Heidegger, Husserl, Kant, Merleau-Ponty, Nietzsche, Camus.

One story of how Gendlin became interested in “felt experiencing” says that a young Gendlin, while tending to his duties aboard ship in the Navy, realized that he was pondering on the “background feeling” that was left in his body from a dream he had had the night before – at least, as he pondered on this vague feeling, he decided this was where this unclear, vague, but totally present “feeling” had come from. He discovered that, as he continued to ponder upon this feeling, eventually, the whole dream came back to him. So, he thought, the content of the dream was implicit, somehow, in the vague body-sense that was left over. So, we as human beings, could discover or rediscover information by paying attention to this subtle, bodily “intuitive feel” of our life experiences.

It was exactly this kind of experience that intrigued him and which became the basis of his career both as an existential/phenomenological psychologist and a philosopher. In one book, for instance, called Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning( 1962), he outlined seven different ways in which symbols (intellectualizations, behaviors, images, words) and felt meanings (felt experiencing, the felt sense, the “intuitive feel”) interact with each other. These are actual phenomenological events that can be observed if you pay attention to your own inner experiencing of how you find the “meaning” of things. Read them carefully and see if you can find an example of each in your own experience:

Direct reference to felt experiencing: focusing, or directly paying attention to the vague, preverbal, “felt sense” of something; silent pondering;

Recognition: having a, usually speedy and unconscious, bodily-response of “Oh, yes, I know what that means” to a word or other symbol;

Explication: being able to make new words out of the bodily-feel of something, like “the meaning, to me, of that movie I just saw”;

Metaphor: the creation of a new meaning by juxtaposing known symbols in a new way, e.g., saying “The sunset was like a dandelion-puff exploding” creates a completely new meaning in the reader of a poem;

Comprehension: the creation of exactly the right metaphor to capture one’s own immediate felt experiencing, “Ah, that’s exactly it! The feeling I am having is comfortable/comforting, like macaroni and cheese”;

Relevance: the accumulation of previous felt meanings give special meaning to a present event, e.g., an experienced gardener sees a wilted leaf from a different perspective than an inexperienced gardener;

Circumlocution: two people using words to point to an experience that can’t really completely be put into words in such a way that they both know what they are talking about and can get closer by continuing to “circle” the actual phenomenon, which can never be fully described: “It’s like democracy, but not quite…more like citizen participation…” “I know what you mean…it’s like each person being active, not just representatives….” “It’s like a community….”

Whoever would have thought that such distinctions could be made in our inner experiencing, perhaps in the same way that we can name hundreds of colors that we can distinguish between in the outer world?! It was this careful study of inner experiencing, and inner actions, that allowed Gendlin to define the very helpful process called Focusing, which allows everyone to learn to sit at The Creative Edge of felt experiencing, Gendlin’s “felt sense,” and find new meanings and creative solutions.

Client-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy

In the 1950’s, Gendlin studied psychology at the University of Chicago with Dr. Carl Rogers, creator of Empathic Listening and Client-Centered Therapy. Gendlin also took a degree in Philosophy. Staying on as a faculty member in the Department of Psychology, he created his theory of changes in felt experiencing as the basis of personality change. He was the founder and long-time editor of the journal Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice.

Gendlin helped to create The Experiencing Scale, a research measure which could accurately predict success in therapy from looking at the client’s own capacity to speak from fresh, ongoing experiencing instead of intellectualizations.

In a large research project, he and others zeroed in on client Focusing as the most important factor in successful therapy. In 1970 he received the “Distinguished Professional Psychologist of the Year” award from the American Psychological Association for his study of client Focusing.

Focusing As A Self-Help Skill

Gendlin went on to define the Focusing skill (Focusing, Bantam, 1981, 1984) as a way of teaching, not only clients, but everyone how to get in touch with the creativity found in felt experiencing. He founded Focusing-Oriented Therapy (Focusing-Oriented Therapy: A Manual of the Experiential Method, Guilford, 1996) as a specific approach for using Focusing to increase client experiencing and thus change in many methods of therapy, regardless of theoretical orientation. You can purchase these and many other books in The Store at www.focusing.org .

Thinking At The Edge (TAE)

In his 80s, Gendlin is still creating new theory and practice. With his Process Model and Philosophy of the Implicit, he has contributed to Post-Modern philosophy. He has created another self-help skill, called Thinking At The Edge (TAE). TAE is a precise method for creating new theory and philosophy out of one’s own “gut sensing” or felt experiencing of something that is meaningful, universal, and profound. Now, everyone can learn to build theory and philosophy by “focusing” upon their own inner experiencing. See The Focusing Institute website, www.focusing.org and the complete Gendlin Online Library for free access to many of Gendlin’s articles.

 As well as a huge Store of books, CDs, and DVDs by a variety of authors, at the Focusing Institute website, under Category: Learning Focusing, you can find Teachers and Classes throughout the world for learning Gendlin’s Focusing skill and its companion, Empathic Listening. You can also join e-discussion groups under Category: Felt Community.

WHAT IS CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING ™?

Dr. McGuire’s Creative Edge Focusing (TM), with her core skills Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, is her offshoot after over 30 years as a Listening/Focusing Teacher and Focusing-Oriented Therapist. She places special emphasis on learning through self-help and peer counseling communities and also upon application to daily life, through her Interest Areas, including Creative Edge Organizations, Conscious Relationships, Building Supportive Community, Positive Parenting, Creative Edge Education, Experiencing The Sacred, and Experiential Focusing Therapy.

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Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-E-course

 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com