Category: MBTI

Focusing and Architecture: Designing From The Inside Out

comments Comments (2)
By , December 14, 2009 7:17 pm

In The Not So Big House and Creating The Not So Big House books, Sarah Susanka (amazon link) advocates leaving the vaulted-ceiling mansions that have become the hallmark of house design and returning to designing houses that are specifically tailored to the very personal and unique needs of the homeowner who will live in the architect-designed home. Quality replaces quantity; intimate detailing replaces square footage.

Recently, as my husband and I hired an architect and began the schematic design process for our future retirement home, I found myself in the midst of an “archetypal” battle. I see it as defined by the clash of “masculine” vs. “feminine,” “Thinking vs. Feeling” modes of being, based upon psychiatrist C.G. Jung’s descriptions and psychological tests such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Keirsey Temperament Sorter (see “Jung, MBTI, and Experiential Theory”  for explanations and Creative Edge Focusing Personality Tests for links for some free versions of these tests).

My husband and I had agreed, after seeing the book New Minimalist Houses (this is Amazon link for great bargain price, $50 reduced to $15!), that Minimalist could describe the kind of house we wanted — lots of glass/concrete/steel, as little as possible between us and the surrounding nature of our 20-acre forest on a ridge. But, it turned out, this was about all we agreed on!

Mind you, both the architect and my husband are feminist, egalitarian, good listeners. And I am a Ph.D. scholar.Yet, there was something about this opportunity to design from a blank slate that engaged all of us in visions to which we desperately wanted to cling, making it almost impossible to “hear from” the opposing view .

The architect followed a method he is known for, going to the home site, hiking for hours, sitting for hours if needed, until he came up with an inspiration for the design of the house, knowing some about us but a lot about the site and location. He ended up discovering a totally different and much better site location for the house, in our twenty acres of forest, and offering creative and striking designs for a one- and two-story version of our house.

The architect’s proposed one-story design was much like The Air House in the Minimalist book — a long rectangle of glass, spread along the ridge, with views and light from North and South. My husband fell in love with it, as it let light enter every room from both north and south.

Okay, I thought, I can live with that, but I want the Guest Area/Project Room/Full Bath closer to the rest of the house, not across a breezeway, I said. I said the Garage and Shop can go across the breezeway. I knew that, at a distance, I would not use the space for Projects, and it would be empty, wasted square footage except when Guests came.

I also wanted the Full Bath to be shared with the two Studies at that end of the house, so that the three spaces, Guest/Project, Study, Study could function as bedrooms, if our future aging needs or future buyers needed such a constellation. I thought my husband would be happy with the striking southern views and light he could have from his shop. And he was okay with this compromise.

And here the epic struggle began. The architect would come back with his original design, saying “the house” needs the Guest/Project/Bath across the courtyard, or “there needs to be a living space across the courtyard to balance the design.” I would counter with “I” need them on this side of the courtyard, so they can function together as three bedrooms, if needed.

And yet his design would come back again, modified some but still with Project/Guest/Bath at a distance from the rest of the house (given geographical distance, we were communicating by email, not ideal!). Finally I said, “You keep trying to ISOLATE this space, and I am trying to CONNECT it.”

I also mentioned casually to my husband that I would like a Front Porch, where I could sit and watch nature go by, and where visitors could find a sheltered entry.

Reading Susanka, I also found some confirmation for my wish for some bay windows to serve as alcoves at the edges of the minimalist open floor plan. I was afraid that flat, rectangular expanses of glass wall would not “draw us in” to the view, would seem cold and distant.

And my husband, usually very mild-mannered,  freaked out: “No! No bumps! The house is to be sleek, sleek, not full of bumps and lumps.”

It seemed to me that each of them, husband and architect, were quite comfortable with accommodating the needs of the residents to the needs of the design, the conceptual needs of “the house.” They could look at a floor plan and fall in love with it.

I however, could not imagine living, feeling alive, in a house that was like a shell laid over and against my actual living, constraining me into a particular shape.

Through an epic struggle coming close to divorce and firing of the architect, we have come to an understanding, a compromise which I call “cozy minimalism,” incorporating Susanka’s sensitivity to the human longing for enclosed, sheltered “alcoves” at the edges of open floor plan spaces with the flying visions, open spaces, and angles of minimalism.

We are entering a period of design where the architect will mainly LISTEN as my husband and I articulate our intuitive sense of our own wants and needs, and then come up with creative, unique ideas and methods for incorporating, aned compromising, those needs.

Out of this new dialogue, already a possible “roof garden” and “sunroom/breakfast nook” alcove have arisen to soften The Air House into an individualized home, yet keep the soaring aspects of the architect’s inspiration.

For more on The Not So Big concept, designing from “the inside out,” from careful attention to the unique needs of the homeowner, see the Susanka books cited above.

For more on learning to Listen To Yourself through Intuitive Focusing and Listen to Another through Focused Listening, see the many resources and free downloads below.

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

Free Downloads: 

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

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!!! 

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

 

 

 

categories Best of Everything, Business, conflict resolution, Creativity, gender, LISTENING, MBTI, personality differences | tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“WHY CRY?” PART 4: CRYING FOR A VISION, OPENING OUR EYES TO TRUTH

comments Comments (0)
By , February 28, 2009 7:59 pm

The Opening of Vision: “Crying For A Vision” by David Michael Levin
 
A key quote from Levin:
 
“Crying, of course, is involuntary.  But the experience of crying, with which we are all familiar, can be taken up by the self, taken to heart, and turned, through the gift of our thought, into a PRACTICE of the self.  The practice is concerned with the cultivation of our capacity for care —  Crying becomes a critical social practice of the self when the vision it brings forth makes a difference in the world, gathering other people into the wisdom of its attunement.”

Crying as a PRACTICE, a discipline like yoga or meditation or Focusing, a social practice for CULTIVATION OF OUR CAPACITY FOR CARE!!!

Dave Young, Focusing Teacher in Colorado,  brought attention to the work of David Michael Levin, a Focuser and philosopher-colleague of Eugene Gendlin, creator of Focusing, particularly Levin’s book, The Opening of Vision, Chapter 2, “Crying for a Vision.” Here are Dave’s comments interspersed with quotes from Levin. I include the entirety, since most will not have the Levin book at hand (original discussion happened on The Focusing Discussion e-list, joined at www.focusing.org , under Felt Community).

Dave says:
 
[Kathy]You challenge us brilliantly & beautifully, with your question:  “So, just wanting people to look and then ask themselves, “What is this about humans being ‘touched and moved’ to tears, and how does it relate to guiding oneself and others during Focusing?”
 
I’m presenting some quotes, with a bit of my own commentary, from the best philosophical writing on crying that I know, this from one of Gene’s closest philosophical colleagues, himself a Focuser, David Michael Levin.  It’s found in his marvelous book, The Opening of Vision, Chapter 2, “Crying for a Vision”.

  “This work on vision began, not with a vision, but with an experience of crying.  Crying for the earth, the earth itself, whose devastation I see all around me.  Crying over the plundering of the land.  Crying from the depths of my ancestral body for the victims of the Holocaust.  Crying for the Indians massacred in my country — “
 
Let me urge our discussion of crying, as Focusers, begin here:  with specific experiences of our crying, not merely of our sense of crying in general.  And let it include our own crying & our own struggles with crying.
 
Levin makes a startling claim, based on his Focusing-oriented experiences:  “With crying, I begin to see, briefly, and with pain. Only with the crying, only then, does vision begin.” 
 
Perhaps carefully, caringly examining our own specific experiences of crying we can bring Levin’s claim within us.
 
Levin:  “Our eyes are not only articulate organs of sight; they are also the emotionally expressive organs of crying.  The site where vision takes place is sometimes a site where a very different kind of process takes place.  We will now give some thought to the character of this process. What is crying?  Is it merely an accidental or contingent fact that the eyes are capable of crying as well as seeing?  Or is crying in the most intimate, most closely touching relationship to seeing?  Is crying essential for vision?”
 
Understand that Levin is a Focuser.  Therefore, as he will point out later, vision is never divorced from the body, and in particular, vision is never divorced from what he calls the body’s “moodedness” or as he says, “our capacity for care, ‘Sorge’, feeling:  our care-taking capacity, that is, as visionary beings.”  More strongly, he says, “Crying is visionary feeling, and feeling is inherently closer to a sense of wholeness than the disembodied intellect.”
 
This, then, is what Levin means when he says that crying & “vision” are linked, when through his question he implies that crying is “essential for vision”.
 
Levin:  “Only human beings cry.  Animals are beings endowed with sight; but only we are capable of crying.  What does this show about us?  What does this show TO us?  Is it this capacity for crying, then, which ennobles our vision, makes it human?  And is it not the ABSENCE of this capacity which marks off the inhuman?  By the ‘inhuman’ I mean the monstrous and the inwardly dead:  the Nazi commandant, for example, and his victim, the Jew, locked into a dance of death, neither one, curiously, able to shed a tear:  for different reasons, their eyes are dry, empty, hollow.”
 
Very strong, what Levin is challenging us to examine.  And yet, on a deeply felt-sensed level, we know this.  I would hold that, in any discussion of crying, the state or rather the stopped-processing of not-crying must also be closely examined, experientially, in ourselves and in others.  What, societally, that stops us from crying is, of course, what we most need to cry about.  And as this need is a stopped-processing, that means the need always remains within us, waiting, crying to come forth.
 
Levin:  “What does this capacity [for crying] make visible?  What is its truth?  What is the truth it sees?  What does it know as a ‘speech’ of our nature?  How does it guide our vision?”
 
Certainly, these are questions which we, as Focusing/Listening guides need to address.
 
Levin:  “Crying is not something we ‘do’.  Crying is the speech of powerlessness, helplessness —  As a response to what history has made visible, crying calls for vision, for thought, for understanding; we need to SEE what IT make VISIBLE.”
 
Levin points what, to me, is a key in crying:  that crying isn’t a self-chosen act.  Though we do, of course, choose to embody-open ourselves up to seeing what calls for crying.  Yet crying, genuine crying always comes as a kind of cleansing & joining gift.  But more on this later, when I have time to better think it through, based on my own personal experiences.
 
Continuing & developing this thought, Levin states,

“Crying, of course, is involuntary.  But the experience of crying, with which we are all familiar, can be taken up by the self, taken to heart, and turned, through the gift of our thought, into a PRACTICE of the self.  The practice is concerned with the cultivation of our capacity for care —  Crying becomes a critical social practice of the self when the vision it brings forth makes a difference in the world, gathering other people into the wisdom of its attunement.”
 
This will take an unbundling I cannot do now.  But know:  crying does make a difference.  Kathy, it’s not only pointing to meaning, but to a special type of meaning.  And this meaning is a connecting, an act that reaches out and makes a difference in the world.  This I know from my own crying for abused & neglected clients who have been alienated from their capacity to cry for themselves and, worse, have become alienated from the truth that they are worth crying over.  And that is only one example.  But this points to a powerful truth which, when we guide those who have greatly suffered, we should not shirk from.  Always, of course, we see how our crying affects, not only is affected by, in our intense “interacting first”.  But we must never rule away our crying out-of-hand.
 
Additionally, when I allow myself to cry for my clients, not only does this crying — not all crying, not the crying of pre-empting or communicating this is too much, but the crying of being deeply touched which can be held  & presented  — not only does this crying usually bring for depths & healing from within my clients or rather from within our interacting.  I myself, by our genuineness, by my congruence, am far less likely to be drained & burned out.  This healing capacity of crying should also be noted in our discussion.
 
Levin gives us a starting point to understand the types of “moods” in crying, paralleling yours, Kathy:
 
“We could think of our eyes as capable of three kinds of mood:  (i) the ontical moodedness of everyday seeing, which can differentiate and articulate what it beholds only in a more or less dualistic, objectifying, re-presentational manner; (ii) the transitional moodedness of a seeing which cries for vision, immersed in painful seeing, immersed in the processes of its subjectivity; and (iii) the moodedness of a more joyful, more fulfilled seeing, clear and bright and articulate, and capable of being deeply touched and moved, even at a distance, by what it is given to see.”
 
— As a taste of where this leads, permit me one more Levin quote: 
 
“Crying is the rooting of vision in the ground of our [universal, shared & interacting] needs:  [our] need for openness, [our] need for contact, [our] need for wholeness.” Dave

And Franc Chamberlain, Certified Focusing Professional in Ireland,  also dives into Levin’s work, with more on Vision and Crying:
 
“Hello, I haven’t been following closely, so apologies if I’m repeating — I’ve recently been dipping back into some of the Levin books, such as The Opening of Vision — and there’s also a questioning about tears in the early part of The Philosopher’s Gaze, in the section entitled ‘Blindness, Violence, Compassion’ (which seems to link the two threads of tears and (non) violence).
 
After discussing briefly T.S. Eliot’s ‘I see the eyes but not the tears/this is my affliction’ he goes on to say:
 
“What must we say about philosophers? When have philosophers seen the tears? When have they given thought to what, without words, tears are saying? Is the history of philosophy a history of blindness, a discourse disfigured by traces of this terrible, unavowable affliction? Is there something inherent in the philosophical gaze that compels this affliction to remain unavowable? (The Philosopher’s Gaze, 1999 p.4)
 
So, is there something in the philosophical gaze that both arrests crying whilst at the same time prevents us from knowing that crying is arrested? So, could we discuss ‘crying’ in a philosophical sense, and even discuss the arrest of crying, without even knowing that our own crying is a stopped process? Because western philosophy often splits itself off from ‘experiencing’ even when speaking about ‘experience’
 
Franc

Dave and Franc and Levin all pointing to the experience that crying is essential to our caring, having compassion, “seeing” the truth of this world, and acting on its behalf. “Being touched and being moved” as essentially human, and essential-to-humanness.

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

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

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!!! 

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

categories gender, health, Intuitive Focusing, MBTI, personality differences, relationships, spirituality | tags , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“WHY CRY?” PART TWO: VIDEOS OF MBTI “THINKER” VS. “FEELER”

comments Comments (1)
By , February 23, 2009 4:11 pm

In “Why Cry?” Part One, “Are Women Better At Crying Than Men?”, I pointed to a gender difference, but I also found a better descriptor in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator distinction between Thinkers and Feelers, allowing for a goodly percentage of male Feelers and women Thinkers who do not fit the gender mold on this distinction.

Here, I will compare two videos, one of Eugene Gendlin describing Focusing as a Thinker on the MBTI, a second of Kelly Corrigan describing Women’s Strength and Connection as a Feeler on the MBTI, becoming “touched” and “moved” to tears during her presentation.

Gene Gendlin on YouTube
 
First, let’s take a look at Gene Gendlin, creator of Focusing,  in person on YouTube, through the wonderful efforts of Simon d’Ortega and Nada Lou. You will see Gendlin, now in his 80s, in his gentleness, his intelligence, his great wisdom, and his wonderful humor. However, you will not see him “being touched” or “being moved” to tears (I have, however, seen Gendlin with tears. So I include these videos just as a contrast in these moments)
 
Short but sweet, less than two minutes: “That Place That Knows”
 
Longer: 
 
“Theory, TAE, and Democracy 

 
Thinking At The Edge Part One: Mary Hendricks-Gendlin Introduction
 
For more, go to www.youtube.com and Search Eugene Gendlin.
 
Being Touched: Kelly Corrigan on Transcending: Words on Women and Strength
 
I got this message by email from my “Women Relatives” group:
 
“I wonder if you’ve seen this ~ it’s perfect and so are all of you ~
friends, sisters, moms.” And the following link:
 
 Transcending: Words on Women and Strength 
 
If you can’t open this, go to www.youtube.com  and search for Kelly Corrigan and watch Transcending: Words on Women and Strength. You will see Corrigan “being touched” and “being moved” to tears as she speaks, and you may well find yourself having a corresponding emotional response. My women friends and relatives communicate between each other in this way as a matter of course, sending each other “touching” emails, as well as humorous ones. Corrigan and the women experiencing their tears with her are also being “bonded together” by their shared empathetic response. Feelings are inherently relational and draw people into contact.
 
Okay, in case you thing this topic of tears is “too heavy,” here are two more humorous YouTubes to check out, totally for fun and having nothing to do with Focusing:
 
“The Mom Song,” this is hysterical. Sung to William Tell Overture, about 3 minutes.   
 
“The Mean Kitty Song”
 
Tears As Harbingers Of Deep Meaning
 
I have collected countless paragraphs from works of fiction which mention the “coming of tears” as harbingers of deep meaning — profound love, relief, connection, millions of things. We all know that people cry at births and weddings, beautiful, moving music, sunsets, moments of compassion seen between people, etc. Even grieving, if looked at without prejudice, contains many warm, joyful memories and re-connections with the beloved. Etc., etc. 
 
What matters to me in terms of Focusing is that, noticing even the tiniest sheen of tears in the eyes, or sometimes just the softening of the skin around the eyes, or the quivering of a cheek muscle, or a slight wiping gesture toward the eyes — if the person or the Listener/therapist notices these “openings,” and suggests spending some Focusing time with “Whatever brings the tears,” huge wealth of personal, profound, meaning/carrying forward usually arises, as well as life-giving moments of I-Thou connection between the participants (even a whole group of “witnesses”) that is Sacred/soul-building.

In “Why Cry?” Part Three, I will explore phenomenological research on the kind of crying called “Tears of Wonder/Joy,” a positive experience of awe and transcendence.

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

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

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!!! 

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

 

categories gender, health, Intuitive Focusing, MBTI, personality differences, spirituality | tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“WHY CRY?” PART ONE: ARE WOMEN BETTER AT CRYING THAN MEN?

comments Comments (1)
By , February 22, 2009 6:06 pm
TAKING TEARS SERIOUSLY: WOMEN CRY FIVE TIMES AS OFTEN AS MEN!
 
William Frey, in his book Crying,  states research which found that women cry five times as often as men. Certainly, there is a difference, and perhaps a skill, worth exploring here, if we take the value of tears and crying in a positive way.
 
TEARS OF WONDER/JOY, BEING TOUCHED AND BEING MOVED, AS POSITIVE, TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCES
 
In a recent discussion about the many photos of “tears of joy” throughout the world which appeared in conjunction with Obama’s inauguration, I started a discussion about such “tears of joy,” “tears of ‘being touched’ and ‘being moved’ on The Focusing Discussion e-list (join at www.focusing.org under Felt Communities and read the archives for November/December, 2008 —). Fellow list members came back with some wonderful articles and multi-media on the positive place of tears.
 
I have had an ongoing debate with Eugene Gendlin, creator of Focusing, and others about the place and value of tears in change processes using Focusing and Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy.
 
Gendlin’s position is that some tears are simply repetitive, “sheer” emotion, and change will not happen unless the Focuser pays attention to the wider, deeper, “felt sensing” under the tears: “What are these tears about for me?” and pausing for a “felt sense” of “the whole thing” to form.
 
I agree with Gendlin about this, tears and crying that seem repetitive, stuck, often cried from a helpless, “victim” stance.
 
But there is another kind of tears and crying which I experience as deeply transformative, as part of Gendlin’s “felt shift,” the crux of change within the Focusing model. I call these tears “cathartic unfolding”: tears and crying accompanying a deep shifting and opening and “carrying forward” at the bodily level. I experience these kind of “tearful felt shifts” as among the deepest in terms of true, lasting transformation of the psyche.
 
Gendlin tends to say, “Yes, receive these tears, value them, but they are a ‘side product,’ not an essential aspect of the ‘felt shift’ through Focusing.” I agree that ALL “felt shifts” do not have to include tears, in fact, most do not. But I think I disagree with Gendlin and others on what I see as the ADDITIONAL significance of felt-shifts accompanied by “cathartic unfolding.”
 
I also see more subtle “tearing up,” the slight sheen of tears in the eye, as an indication of places of deep meaning. So, when being a Listener for a Focuser, or a Focusing-Oriented Therapist, I am likely to ask the Focuser if it would make sense to stop and “sense into” the place of tears, as a pathway to profound personal meanings.
 
I have approached this difference with Gendlin as a difference between “masculine” and “feminine” in the Jungian sense, as a difference between being a strong Thinker (T) and a strong Feeler (F) on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). On the MBTI, 60-70% of men score as Thinkers, leaving 30-40% male Feelers, and vice versa for women, 60-70% Feelers but also 30-40% Thinkers. So, there are many men for whom tears come easily, and many women who are not so close to their tears. See my articles, “Jung, MBTI, and Experiential Theory,” “The Body As A Source Of Knowledge,”  and “Existential Phenomenology: A Philosophy Articulating Feminine Experience,” .

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

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

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!!! 

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

 

categories gender, health, MBTI, personality differences, relationships | tags , , , , , , , , , , , ,

CREATIVE EDGE EDUCATION: ADHD, SCHOOL DROP OUT, JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

comments Comments (3)
By , December 29, 2007 2:58 pm

Creative Edge Education pays special attention to the needs of students with ADHD and other non-traditional learning styles. It  joins with Juvenile Justice in prevention of school dropout and juvenile delinquency.

The Creative Edge/ Differing Gifts model  can apply to all education, but the education of those children labeled as  having “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or “Attention Deficit Disorder” and other learning differences  is an urgent area needing response.

  “Attention Deficit Disorder” simply defines children in terms of their “deficit” in the ability to participate in and benefit from traditional, passive, obedience-based education. These children receive a positive definition for their “unique abilities” in the Myers-Briggs and Keirsey definitions of differing temperaments and learning styles. The child with an SP, hands-on learning style, called The Artisan by Keirsey, can excel in an active, independence-based, hands-on learning environment, steered toward careers which maximize the use of these special skills.

In a traditional classroom, where obedience and passive learning are the watch word, the Guardian children (who make up one-third of the typical classroom) have an advantage, while the Artisan children (which, according to Keirsey, make up another one-third of every classroom!):

  1. Are doing the “wrong thing” all day long, given their inability to “sit still, listen, and obey.” Their behavior is just the opposite, a need to learn by moving, and by their own hands-on, trial and error, not by passive listening. The medications like Ritalin help them to “sit still,” to conform to the traditional model.
  2. Are being punished all day long for doing the “wrong thing,” ending up in time-out, in the hall, in detention. Their self-esteem and trust in themselves to make good judgments are destroyed, encouraging them to identify themselves as “losers,” “bad kids.”
  3. Are pushed out of school and into school dropout, juvenile delinquency, teen pregnancy, drugs, and other high-risk behavior.
  4. Become our lower-tier of “working class poor” or jobless people.

Needed instead: Hands-on and other learning approaches which respect their different learning style and lead to careers which they can thrive in.

Of course, legislation at the national or state level specify academic content which must be learned by every student, as an attempt at holding educators responsible for delivering an equal product to all learners. This seeming conflict with a Creative Edge model, which aims at maximizing the unique, creativity-motivated learning of each child and producing creative, innovative, self-motivated and collaborative adults, must be given attention in finding compromises which work to the advantage of each child.

Join the Creative Edge Collaborators yahoo group  for further brainstorming with interested others, find “one small step” people are willing to do, create action plans for carrying out our mission, and use our power as a concerned “group” to approach legislators, foundations, whoever has the power to bring listening/focusing into education.

The goal? Having training in PRISM/S and The Creative Edge Pyramid as a cost- and time-efficient part of curriculum for teaching “emotional” and “social” intelligence as basic to “human literacy.”

Download Dr. McGuire’s article, “Don’t Fight ‘Em, Join ‘Em: Community-Wide Intervention for ADHD, School Failure, and Juvenile Delinquency” .

Spend some fun time taking some of the Personality Tests and discovering your “differing gifts,” your Temperaments, your varying Multiple Intelligences, your Shadow Side in the Enneagram.

–Learn more about Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening and Experiential Focusing Therapy at Creative Edge Focusing’s website, filled with free downloads on creativity, spirituality, collaborative thinking, parenting, innovation in business, and many other aspects of application of Focusing and Listening skills at home, at work, in your community, and globally.

Download our Instant “Ahah!”s Mini-Manual (“Ajas” Instantaneos en espanol) for ten exercises bringing Listening and Focusing into your everyday life starting today.

Download our complete Intuitive Focusing Instructions to start practicing Relaxation, Getting a Felt Sense, and Intuitive Focusing today!

See actual demonstrations of Listening/Focusing in our Self-Help package, a manual in English or Spanish, four CDs of Focusing Instructions, and a DVD with four demonstrations of actual listening/focusing sessions — everything you need to start your own Listening/Focusing Partnership or Support Group or to incorporate these basic self-help skills into existing support groups.

In the side bar at Creative Edge Focusing, subscribe to our free e-newsletter for weekly reminders to practice Relaxation and Focusing exercises and join our free yahoo group, Creative Edge Practice, for ongoing demonstrations, practice, and support.

Find classes/workshops/phone coaching in our Listings section or Coaching/Classes/Consulting with Dr. McGuire

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way

categories ADHD, Creativity, education, MBTI, parenting, personality differences | tags , , , , , , , , , , , ,

CREATIVE EDGE EDUCATION RESPECTS DIFFERING GIFTS

comments Comments (5)
By , December 23, 2007 10:53 pm

In business settings, there is great appreciation for the fact that teams need a balance of people with different skills, interests, and talents. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is one personality test widely used in organizations to help co-workers come to appreciate the “differing gifts” each brings to the table and to avoid conflict by respecting these differences. The MBTI helps businesses to hire personnel, organize teams, and increase conflict-free collaboration.

The MBTI is also widely used in education, to identify students’ differing gifts and to offer guidance in terms of career choices utilizing various gifts. The MBTI, has proved highly valid in predicting future career choices and guiding students into careers which are a good fit for their particular skills, talents, and interests (Myers, Gifts Differing, 1980).

Kiersey’s Please Understand Me, Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, and Mel Levines’ All Kinds Of Minds all offer additional perspectives for appreciating the “differing gifts” of each child. See Personality Tests for thorough descriptions and sample tests from these models.

The Career Academy model for high school education, sponsored by the federal Department of Labor in the USA, allows students to become exposed to a variety of possible career choices through hands-on, real-life activities. It also helps students to specialize in an area of interest leading directly into actual jobs or next-step accreditation programs, such as community colleges and technical schools, as well as colleges and universities.

Read Dr. McGuire’s article, “Don’t Fight ‘Em, Join ‘Em: Community-Wide Intervention for ADHD, School Failure, and Juvenile Delinquency” .

Spend some fun time with holiday company, taking some of the Personality Tests and comparing your “differing gifts,” your Temperaments, your varying Multiple Intelligences, your Shadow Side in the Enneagram.

–Learn more about Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening and Experiential Focusing Therapy at Creative Edge Focusing’s website, filled with free downloads on creativity, spirituality, collaborative thinking, parenting, innovation in business, and many other aspects of application of Focusing and Listening skills at home, at work, in your community, and globally.

See actual demonstrations of Listening/Focusing in our Self-Help package, a manual in English or Spanish, four CDs of Focusing Instructions, and a DVD with four demonstrations of actual listening/focusing sessions — everything you need to start your own Listening/Focusing Partnership or Support Group or to incorporate these basic self-help skills into existing support groups.

In the side bar at Creative Edge Focusing, subscribe to our free e-newsletter for weekly reminders to practice Relaxation and Focusing exercises and join our free yahoo group, Creative Edge Practice, for ongoing demonstrations, practice, and support.

Find classes/workshops/phone coaching in our Listings section or Coaching/Classes/Consulting with Dr. McGuire

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way

categories ADHD, Business, Creativity, education, MBTI, personality differences, self-help skills | tags , , , , , , , ,

Are you Sensing or Intuitive? Look below

comments Comments (6)
By , October 15, 2007 2:02 pm

Two Oz DioramasOkay, I think I have managed to attach a photo of the Two Wizard of Oz diorama mentioned in my first post. Take a look: my iNtuitive(MBTI) one on the left tells the story: the house fell on the Wicked Witch of the East, the Wicked Witch of the West put Dorothy, Scarecrow, and Lion to sleep in the poppy field — but Tin Man, because of “no heart,” is still awake, looking for help, and Glenda Good Witch is on the scene. All metaphor.

 The other diorama, strong on Sensing (MBTI), has carefully-drawn bricks on the yellow road, leaves attached, tiny dog and basket details added to Dorothy. But no story-telling. Which one draws you? And why? Please comment! It was hard to get this photo up here (but now look for more to come! This is fun!)

categories MBTI, personality differences | tags ,

Can the MBTI save your marriage and family?

comments Comments (5)
By , October 14, 2007 3:18 pm

I first came upon the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator when my adopted son entered public school as a first grader. Immediately, he was diagnosed as Attention Deficit Disorder With Hyperactivity (ADHD).

 Here I had been living with this vastly entertaining, golden boy for seven years (from birth) and, suddenly, because he could not sit still at a desk and listen to a teacher talk, there was something really wrong with him, something needing medication.

Although I am a clinical psychologist, I am not a big fan of medication as the first choice for everything (absolutely, there are times when it is life-saving, can save lives with depression or bopolar and help greatly with ADHD). And, being a client-centered (based upon the work of Carl Rogers) therapist, I believe that every person has a unique path, unique talents, a unique acorn that will grow into a unique tree.

So I started looking for a way to describe all of my child’s positive strengths to his teachers, e.g., no, he didn’t sit still, but, yes, he could do puzzles way better than most children. No, he didn’t sit still, but, yes, he could put objects together and fix machinery. No, he didn’t sit still, but, yes, he was an amazing athlete, always friendly and happy, etc.

The best tool I found was Keirsey & Bates, Please Understand Me (Prometheus Nemesis Book Co.,1984), still my favorite inexpensive, user-friendly introduction to personality differences. There is a modified version of the MBTI in the front with scoring sheet and explanations of the sixteen personality types generated.

I identified my son as an EST(F)P, an “artisan,” an “active, hands-on learner.” (see the tables included at the end of  my short article, “Jung, MBTI, and Experiential Theory”, http://www.cefocusing.com/pdf/2f1n_Jung_MBTI_Exp_Theory.pdf, for Thumbnail descriptions of each of 16 MBTI “types”). I then could use the classroom-oriented work of Thomas Armstrong (ADD/ADHD Alternatives in the Classroom, ASCD, 1999) and Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences theory and many other tools to fight for active, hands-on learning options for my child at school.

As a single mom, I also started to apply the MBTI to my understanding of relationships. At one point, thinking I had honed in on the problem, I posted newspaper “personal ads” saying I was looking for an “NF” (iNtuitive Feeler) partner. I found one, and it didn’t work out! Maybe we were too similar!

Instead, I found an ISTJ partner, a wonderful compliment to my INFJ  type. Right from the beginning, I shared MBTI understandings with him.  We knew we shared an Introverted (I)love of quiet alone time and a Judging (J) love of organization and structure. His Sensing (S), reality-oriented common sense balances my iNtuitive (N) “sixth sense” global  imagination. His Thinking (T) ability to be objective and analytical actually complements and balances my Feeling (F) ability to be subjective, relational, and empathic.

However, without the MBTI understanding of our difference, we might have floundered, him finding me “overly emotional, ” me finding him “overly intellectualized,” him finding me “unrealistic,” me finding him “boring and mundane.” 

As a “mature” couple (he on his third marriage, I my second), perhaps we had also realized that compromise, appreciation, and mutual respect for difference were key to continuing relationship. We discussed how our former spouses, both P’s, had brought spontaneity and fun, but also lateness and disorganization that we couldn’t tolerate.

What does the MBTI understanding do for you? When your child or partner does something that makes you think, “This person must be from a different planet,” or “This person is crazy,” or “This person is evil,” looking at MBTI differences can help you see that, yes, this person is radically different from you, but he is like a whole lot of other people, a whole “type” of people with unique talents and unique “gifts” to bring to the table.

A few examples:

I am rushing to get my son to the bus for a winter retreat with his church group, up on a mountain. Arriving early (which, as a J, I like to do), I look down and see that, on his feet, he has no socks and flipflops, his only shoes for the trip. I am screaming at him as I rush home for “appropriate shoes,” “How could you……?!!!!!” Then, I realize, for someone who is “spontaneous, lives-in-the-moment, is the life of the party,” thinking ahead to a snow-covered mountain was just not in his repertoire.

One of my husband’s former wives gave him this reason when, after 15 years, announcing “out of the blue” that she was leaving him: “Remember that time we were moving, and I wanted to stop to say goodbye to friends (F) and you said we couldn’t, we had to stay on schedule so we could return the van on time(TJ) ? That’s why.”

When I am caught up in too much feeling (F), my husband can steady the ship with an “objective analysis” of what is happening (T).

Enough for today. Main point: people really are different and, rather than hate them for it, embrace these many “gifts” by using tools like the MBTI.

categories conflict resolution, gender, MBTI, personality differences, self-help skills | tags , , , ,

Who fell over in Wizard of Oz and why?

comments Comments (3)
By , October 11, 2007 10:56 pm

I’m Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director of Creative Edge Focusing (TM) at www.cefocusing.com . I have thirty years experience as a psychotherapist, peer counseling teacher, and decision making consultant. But, here in this blog, I will talk about whatever comes to mind, be it food (Intuitive Cooking), sex (Collaborative Edge Sexuality), Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening (Core Skills taught at www.cefocusing.com ), shopping, relationships, conflict resolution, personality tests, spirituality, creativity, Creative Edge Organizations — everything I’ve learned and want to share.

I think of this blog as Ultimate Self-Help — sharing what we learn that can help others save time, money, their relationships, their spirituality, their world, their work situations, etc.

The story below points to dynamics that happen in all relationships, be they for love, friendship, or business. I don’t believe that we can understand other people unless we come to grips with the idea that people can be really, really different from us, like from another planet, but that there are categories for these differences, as simple as fire, water, air, and earth, but also way more complex “personality tests.”

You can read a more theoretical presentation about The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), my favorite test of individual differences,  in the article “Jung, MBTI, and Experiential Theory” at http://www.cefocusing.com/pdf/2f1n_Jung_MBTI_Exp_Theory.pdf and actually find links to take a version of this personality test and others at http://www.cefocusing.com/freeresources/2e.php, but here is a funny illustrative story:

Yesterday, I went to my doll club (yes, this is how I “lighten up”) It was a Halloween party, the theme was Wizard of Oz, I was in charge, and we had contests: Best homemade costumed doll, Best bought homemade doll, Best diorama (this is a scene in miniature).

My story is about my diorama and how it was totally misunderstood because of a personality difference between me (an iNtuitive on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, MBTI, 25% of people) and the majority (Sensors on the MBTI, 75% of people).

There were two entries under Dioramas. Both of us had gotten our 5 1/2 ” dolls from a McDonald’s promotion, so the 8 “character” dolls we used were identical. We both used a cookie sheet size “ground.”

In mine, I had the Wicked Witch of the East (was that the first sister, with the striped stockings and ruby slippers? We iNtuitives are really bad at details, but long on imagination and creativity!) lying down with a miniature house lying on top of her, legs sticking out (you know, Dorothy’s house blew away from Kansas in a tornado and landed on the witch!).

I had the other Witch (of the West? In black) standing over Dorothy, Scarecrow, and Lion, who were all lying down in a drugged sleep in a field of “poppies” (red fake flowers) next to the “yellow brick road” (yellow construction paper). The Tin Man was still standing (of course! He didn’t fall asleep because he didn’t have a heart!) in the midst of them all, trying to help. There were small pumpkins, munchkins, and Glenda also in the scene. I thought it was an extremely imaginative way of telling part of the story.

 The other diorama, made by an accomplished seamstress, artist, county-fair winner, had yellow construction paper all over the “ground,” and she had painstakingly drawn in “bricks” (a kind of detail work I would never consider). The eight characters were simply lined up in two rows and “glued” to the base. Now, granted, she had supplemented with a tiny basket and tiny dog for her Dorothy (a detail I would never think of). But, there was no “story-telling” there.

Well, I was busy tallying votes from all the contests, so not watching over the dioramas. But, when I did go over to look, I saw that someone had picked up the house off of the witch and stood the witch up and stood the lion up — obviously, she or they thought all the dolls had “accidentally” fallen over!!!! They didn’t get the story at all!!!

The vote was 8 for Sensing her, 6 for Intuitive me (not bad, considering!!). It seemed like such a great illustration of the difference between imaginative, iNtuitive thinking and concrete, reality-oriented Sensing it made me laugh.

In most work situations, there are only a few iNtuitives, in the “creativity” departments, but they drive a lot of the innovation which the Sensing people so carefully bring to realistic expression.

Kathy

categories MBTI, personality differences, Uncategorized | tags ,

Panorama Theme by Themocracy