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By Kathy McGuire, October 25, 2007 2:47 pm

Reflect, Don’t React

Someone comes at you, seemingly out of the blue, absolutely furious. You are stunned and want to fight back. Instead, you can diffuse the other person’s anger by simply responding in an Active Listening way:

• “Wow, something is really upsetting you…”
•  “You’re saying you are absolutely furious that I forgot to show up for lunch”
•  “You are really upset because you are not getting the service you expected”
•  “You are really mad that you’ve had to go through four other departments just to reach me”
•  “It really bothers you when you have to go through all those mechanical phone responses just to get to a human being” 

Yes, this is the behavior which I wish customer service representatives had all been taught so that, when I call them, furious, they would just respond,” I’m sorry that you are so upset. Tell me more about what is bothering you so we can fix it,” instead of adopting that rigid, “I’m just following the rules,” “We never make mistakes,” “There’s really not anything I can do for you”  attitude that just makes me more and more angry!

Bottom Line: deflect and diffuse anger by simply responding with empathy: “Boy, I can see how this is hard for you,” “I’m really hearing how frustrating this has been for you.”

Reflect the Words…and the Feeling Tone…

As opposed to Passive Listening, where you simply give your silent attention to the other, at the most saying “Ummmhmmm” or “Ah, hah!” or “Wow!”, in Active Listening, you set aside all your typical responses (advice, argument, opinions, problem-solving, judgments) and simply try to say back what the other person is saying, with an emphasis on the feeling tone, if you pick up any:

Example One: Customer

Customer: “I’ve just had to wade through 16 phone messages to get to you, and I was cut off and had to start all over. It’s taken me ten minutes already.”
Customer Service: “ Wow! I’m so sorry! You’ve already been through ten minutes of frustration, and I’m the first person you’ve gotten to talk to.”
Customer: “Why can’t there just be a simple way to talk to a human being?!! I hate these phone messages!!”
Customer Service: “It is so frustrating to you to have to go through this waiting and confusion everywhere you go.”
Customer: “Damn right! Okay, let’s get on with it. This is the problem. I changed my mailing address for my bills, and they are still going to the wrong address, and then I end up getting late fees.”
Customer Service: “Okay, let me take a look at your account right now and see what we can do.”

Example Two: Spouse

Wife: “How could you have forgotten that we had a dinner engagement at 6PM with the Smiths???!!!!!!!!
Husband: “Wow! You are really angry. I must have slipped up somewhere. You’re saying I forgot a dinner engagement with the Smiths?”
Wife: “Yes, you idiot! It was at 6PM, and I’ve been trying to reach you on your cell phone. How humiliating!!!!! Where were you?!!!!!”
Husband: “So you’ve been trying to reach me ever since 6PM, and it’s been embarrassing for you, having to make excuses to the Smiths. And you’re wondering where I was.”
Wife: “How could you not answer your cell phone!!!! That is what they are for, emergencies like this one!!!!!
Husband: “So, to you, this really was an emergency, and no way to get through to me. You’re wondering why I didn’t answer my cell phone and where was I anyway!!!!!!”
Wife: “Yes, that is exactly right! So, where were you?”
Husband: “Okay, I am so sorry. Let’s try to figure out how this happened. I got held up at an emergency meeting with my boss, and I couldn’t answer my cell phone. He would have gotten even madder at me….I guess I was so upset by this confrontation with him that I just absolutely forgot about the Smiths…..I should have had the dinner in my Palm Pilot, but I guess I didn’t hear that either…I was just driving and thinking about what to do with the work situation. What can I do to make this better now? Do you want me to call the Smiths and make another plan?”
Wife: “Oh, that’s okay. It’s over now. Why don’t you tell me what happened at work while I find you something to eat….”

Example Three: Child

Child: “I hate school, and I’m never going again. Teachers are all idiots!!!!”
Parent: “Wow, something is really upsetting you today. Sounds like a teacher did something stupid that bothered you…”
Child: “No, it didn’t bother me!!!! I’m not going to get bothered by fools like that. I don’t care what they think!!!!! I’m just not going anymore!!!!!!”
Parent: “So, it didn’t bother you. You’re not going to be bothered by fools like that. You don’t even care what they think. And, right now, you’re saying you are never going again.”
Child: (tears of hurt coming) “She said I’ll never be a writer…that I don’t even know punctuation (crying).”
Parent: “So your teacher said, ‘You’ll never be a writer…you can’t even do punctuation,” and that is really hurting you. Writing is very important to you.’
Child: (more tears) “There is more to writing than punctuation….what I’m saying is way more important….I’m pouring my heart out.”
Parent: “So, for you, writing is not about punctuation but about what you are saying, that you can really pour your heart out. That’s what’s important.”
Child: “Yes (fewer tears)…that’s what matters to me. Next time, will you help me with the punctuation so that she can’t make fun of me?”

Believe it or not, this diffusion of anger, usually to hurt, will happen. And what have you got to lose by trying? There really isn’t any other miracle way in these situations!

Perhaps the idea of just “reflecting” the other person seems silly to you, like a parrot. However, when you are on the receiving end, just hearing your own words back without judgment or “fixing,” you will be amazed at what a rare blessing and relief it is just to be heard.

Learn The Focused Listening Skill

The Focused Listening Core Skill of PRISMS/S at Creative Edge Focusing (TM) is more than just reflecting.  You will learn many nuances:

• how to “ask for more” about words with “neon lights” around them,
• how to use Focusing Invitations to help the speaker sit quietly and “sense into” the “feel of it all,” facilitating a Paradigm Shift, and
• how, sometimes, you can offer your own Personal Sharings (advice, information, own similar experiences), as long as you go back to Active Listening, reflecting the impact of your words on the other person.

However, always, simple Active Listening, saying back, reflecting the words of the other, remains the core – the one, simple, most powerful thing you can do to increase communication with another person, while, at the same time, helping them to find their own solutions to their problems.

Learn more about Focused Listening at http://www.cefocusing.com/coreconcepts/1a2.php

Apply Active Listening as “Five-Minute Grieving,” when patient, friend or colleague starts crying: http://www.cefocusing.com/freeresources/2a1d.php

Try “Passive Listening Turns,” a simple turn-taking protocol to turn arguments with significant others into creative problem solving: http://www.cefocusing.com/freeresources/2a1c.php

See examples of  Interpersonal Focusing for conflict resolution: http://www.cefocusing.com/casestudies/6a3.php

Purchase the Self-Help package of Creative Edge Focusing (TM) to learn how to apply all of these skills in friendship, love relationships, support groups, and work teams: http://www.cefocusing.com/services/5b1.php

Find Certified Focusing Professionals offering Classes or Workshops in core Listening/Focusing skills World-Wide, in many languages at http://www.focusing.org/trainers_search.asp

Find Coaching, Classes and Workshops with Dr. McGuire and Creative Edge Associates at http://www.cefocusing.com/store/categories.php

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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By Kathy McGuire, October 24, 2007 6:42 pm

PDF : PROCESO DE SOLUCION DE PROBLEMAS  PRISMAS/S at http://www.cefocusing.com/pdf/PROCESO%20DE_SOLUCION_DE_PROBLEMAS_PRISMA.pdf

Reflecting Before Acting or Reacting

The radical contribution of Gendlin’s Focusing (Bantam, 1981) and McGuire’s Creative Edge Focusing ™ is that the problem solver makes the explicit choice to pause and take some moments for silent reflecting before acting or reacting.

Instead of simply repeating past reactions, the Focuser can create new, completely innovative solutions and behaviors from the “intuitive feel” of the whole situation.

A quiet pause is needed in order to sense into the “intuitive feel,” The Creative Edge, of problems. Whether in private or in group decision making settings, these opportunities for pauses to contact and articulate the Creative Edge are what allow the creation of totally new ideas and solutions. No pauses, no creation of the new!!!!!

Using the PRISMS/S Problem Solving Process is like passing light through a prism. A few moments of pondering, and The Creative Edge opens into a whole spectrum of new possibilities and action steps.

Pausing To Ponder: From Problems To Possibilities

The PRISMS/S Problem Solving Process includes seven ingredients of predictable “Ahah!” experiences using Creative Edge Focusing ™. With its Core Skills of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening , PRISMS/S is based upon Eugene Gendlin’s “A Theory of Personality Change” (  http://www.focusing.org/gendlin/docs/gol_2145.html ) and his Focusing self-help book (Bantam, 1981, 1984), as well as Dr. McGuire’s thirty years of  experience integrating Listening/Focusing skills into task-oriented groups and supportive communities.

PRISMS/S can be used on one’s own or with the help of Focused Listening in a Creative Edge Focusing Partnership, Focusing Group or Team, or Focusing Community. In any case, problem solving goes through the following steps:

Pausing :  Clearing A Space for Problem Identification
Reflecting: Listening To Oneself or Focused Listening from Another 
Intuitive Focusing:  Back-and-Forth Between Symbols and Intuition
Shifting:  The Kaleidoscope Turns And A New Paradigm Arises
Movement:  Innovative Solutions and Action Steps Arise Spontaneously
Satisfaction:  Tension Releases in the Sureness of “Ahah! That’s It!”
Support: Listening/Focusing Partnerships Build Empathy and Community

Pausing:  Clearing A Space For Problem Identification  

As the first step of PRISMS/S, the Focuser sits down and takes a quiet moment to pay attention to the “intuitive feel,” the Creative Edge of consciousness.

Right-brain Problem Solving Is Non-Linear

Right-brain problem solving is non-linear. Wherever you start, you may find totally new directions, ideas, possibilities arising. This is exactly what you want!!!! But it means a relaxation around having to know exactly what the problem is and how it is going to come out before you begin!…….read more about PRISMS/S at http://www.cefocusing.com/coreconcepts/1a3.php

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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By Kathy McGuire, October 23, 2007 1:04 pm

“Core Concepts of Creative Edge Focusing (TM) approach to parenting: 

• In order to raise children for today’s world, parents must “mentor” their children for independent and flexible problem solving and decision making.  Children need guides, mentors : Yoda of Star Wars, not authoritarian police man.

• Children have natural access to the “intuitive sensing” central to Intuitive Focusing . This inner guide leads to independent decision making, having a “conscience,” and having a satisfying life which fulfills one’s unique “blueprint,” specific talents and aspirations.

• Positive Parenting helps children maintain and develop this “inner guide.” Using Focused Listening,  parents learn to help children find their own solutions to problems.

• Physical, sexual, and emotional abuse are the enemy of developing this inner sensing, this conscience and guide for independent decision making.  They exactly teach children to dissociate from their bodies, from their “felt experiencing” or “intuitive feel.”

• Educating parents for child rearing is not enough; parents must heal their own “Inner Children” before they can radically alter their behavior toward their children. The PRISMS/S Problem Solving Process, with Core Skills of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening,  is needed for change at the level of Paradigms, cognitive/emotional/behavioral “schemata” that determine behavior, emotions, and thinking. The kaleidoscope has to turn….

• Parents can learn to use Focused Listening and Intuitive Focusing in their own relationship. The Creative Edge Pyramid includes applications of PRISMS/S at many levels. Parents can help each other with Inner Child healing through Focusing Partnership turns. They can also use Interpersonal Focusing to resolve conflicts between themselves in terms of parenting styles

• Parenting support groups are absolutely essential. Parents sharing with other parents can help them weather crises in their marriages or single parenthood. The essence of support groups is (a) you are not alone. You are not the only one experiencing these things (b) you are all experts. Using the resources among you, you can solve problems, move mountains. Focusing Groups and Focusing Communities provide self-help, peer counseling models for support groups.

Four Applications of Listening/Focusing to Parenting

The Core Skills of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening  can be applied to parenting in four different ways, two primarily for your children, and two primarily for yourselves as parents. I call this Inner/Outer Parenting…….”

Read more, with links to self-help skills mentioned above, and download articles on

“Parents As Mirrors: Preventing Narcissism,”

“Setting Limits While Allowing Choices” 

“Positive Parenting: Listening to Your Self, Listening to Your Partner, Listening to Your Child”

at Creative Edge Focusing, Interest Area: Positive Parenting, http://www.cefocusing.com/isthisyou/3a1d.php

Three other interesting sites about Positive Parenting:

Jane Nelson (author of Positive Discipline, my favorite book on parenting)’s site, www.positivediscipline.com

The Parent To Parent Training Program at CHADD (national organization for Children and Adults With Attention Deficit Disorder, www.chadd.org

Resources and training from the Positive Parenting program, www.positiveparenting.com

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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By Kathy McGuire, October 22, 2007 12:27 pm

SWEET POTATO “FRIES” AND EASY EXERCISE

Oven-Baked “Fries”

Okay, so, for healthy eating, fried foods are simply out. And yellow, red, and orange vegetables are in. So, here is a great alternative:

I buy a large enough sweet potato for the three of us. Preheat oven to 420 degrees, the standard heat for roasting vegetables. Peel and slice the sweet potato in “fry” shape.

Drizzle some olive oil on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle with coarse salt (I buy chunky Sea Salts at discount stores like TJ Maxx and Tuesday Morning). Spread out “fries.” Sprinkle with a seasoning of choice (I usually use Italian Seasoning, but you could try Curry or anything…). Now, toss it all together, coating the fries evenly.

Place on top rack of oven, and bake for 8 minutes. Stir and turn the fries, and bake for 8 minutes more. The goal is to start the carmelization process that turns the starch to sugar. Turn off the oven. If you want the fries softer, let sit in oven a while. Yum!!!

EASY BASIC EXERCISE

For those who have trouble sticking to an exercise routine and who don’t make it to health clubs, here is all you need to do: buy a treadmill (Nordic Trak from Sears or Vision Fitness T9200 from Your Total Fitness Store are fine for around $1000), unless you can easily walk outside. Walk (You do not need to run. It is not necessary and can lead to more injuries interrupting exercise routine) at speed of 3 miles/hour or less, more is not necessary. Aim for 45 minutes a day five days/week. Advantage of treadmill: If you like to read or watch TV, you can do either as a reward for exercising. Becomes a good excuse for an escape!

For upper body: Bowflex can be good as an at-home machine. The motion is smooth compared to most weight machines. But you can also put together a combination of yoga for flexibility and arm strength, Pilates for core (torso) strength, and arm exercises with or without small weights for upper body strength. Aim to do this routine during some TV program that you watch regularly, like the news or late night talk show, whatever. Just a likely time to fit in 20 minutes of exercise. At least three times a week.

And that is it. If you “fall off the wagon,” it is easy to get started again. Just pick up a book, turn on the TV,  or step outside!

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By Kathy McGuire, October 20, 2007 10:45 pm

Untangling Desire : Self-Satisfaction Part

Two Last week, I spoke about allowing one partner to “self-satisfy” without judgment and perhaps even with welcoming as a way of accepting  unequal desire.Now I speak about Self-Satisfaction Part Two: taking responsibility for one’s on satisfaction during mutual love-making. You would never arrive at a negotiating table in business without knowing exactly what you want so that you can bargain to get it. Same in the bedroom. No more expectation of “second-guessing,” “mind reading,” disappointment, frustration, anger, performance anxiety.  Each person is responsible for knowing what they want and need in terms of sexual satisfaction and how to make it happen. Then, they may communicate with and teach their partner, but they can also take care of their own sexual needs.   

Through communication and sharing, you may come to all kinds of mutuality of sexual satisfaction. But that is icing on the cake, not anyone else’s responsibility.

Women, Lonnie Barbach, whose initial book was For Yourself: The Fulfillment of Female Sexuality, is a gentle guide to learning how your sexuality works. Her other books include For Each Other and a variety about how to pleasure the other while getting what you need yourself. Here is a link to her many books:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/104-6987695-1101551?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Lonnie+Barbach&Go.x=9&Go.y=12

Men, I will warn that the whole “multiple orgasm” thing should be a choice you make to pursue for your own heightened pleasure, not something you have to do to make adequate love to a woman. Once a woman becomes responsible for understanding her own pleasure, with some erotic massage thrown in for sensuous foreplay, “being able to make love all night” is not necessary.

That said, for men and women as couples,  Barbara Keesling is a great author of self-help books, several translated into Spanish as well:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/104-4632231-5920735?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Barbara+Keesling&Go.x=8&Go.y=12

Best female lubricant (odorless, tasteless, silky, long-lasting): Creme de la Femme, Premiere Enterprises,  Los Angeles, CA  1-800-776-1889 (keep in the fridge)

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

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 

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By Kathy McGuire, October 19, 2007 2:01 pm

Metodo de Toma de Decisiones del Borde de Colaboracion

Collaborative Edge Decision Making Method 

(Download this article to read all about the Creative Edge Focusing (TM) model for creative and innovative task-oriented meetings )

I believe it is at Google that every employee’s total work is put out publicly on a shared networking site, so everyone always knows what everyone is creating!  Wow! The opposite of competitive cubby holes.

Also, at a number of businesses, they are tearing down walls between employees, enlarging “shared work spaces” with comfortable chairs and work stations to encourage sharing, breaking down walls between departments, and also between inside and outside, bringing many more outside consultants and consumers into the idea and product-generating process.

The old model of static bureacracies is not adapted to this “niche” and consumer-driven market. Companies have to respond very quickly in creating new products to meet demands worldwide. So, they need the work teams down the hierarchy to be the “front line” in terms of responsivity… A Bottom-up model.

Also, companies are sending employees out into the marketplace to observe the real lives of consumers — e.g., in terms of figuring out what kind of cell phone to create for a foreign market, employees travel there and observe how the people there use technology, use cell phones and computers , etc.

Creative Edge Focusing is right in line with all of these collaborative and experiential directions! And we “own” the remaining new frontier: inner “felt sensing,” the “intuitive feel” of ideas and situations as a font of creativity and innovation.

Malcolm Gladwell, In Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Little, Brown, 2005) legitimated the power of “intuition” and “gut feelings” for decision making.

Certified Focusing Professionals of The Focusing Institute, and now Creative Edge Focusing (TM) consultants, have been exploring and teaching the use of The Creative Edge, the “intuitive feel” of situations and ideas, for over thirty years!

See (many of these books are available directly from The Store at The Focusing Institute,  www.focusing.org as well as www.amazon.com )

       Gendlin, E.T. Focusing (Bantam, 1981, 1984)

       Cornell, Ann Weiser The Power Of Focusing (New Harbinger, 1996)

       Flanagan, Kevin Everyday Genius: Focusing On Your Emotional Intelligence

              (Marino Books, Dublin, 1998)

See also the website of Flavia Cymbalista, www.marketfocusing.com , and testimonial from George Soros about how the Intuitive Focusing skill helps with decision making in the uncertainties of financial markets.

And, at our own website for Creative Edge Focusing (TM), www.cefocusing.com,

Core Concept: Creativity, http://www.cefocusing.com/coreconcepts/1a8.php ,

Instant “Ahah!” Empowerment Organization: Motivating From The Bottom Up ,  http://www.cefocusing.com/freeresources/2a1f.php,

Case Studies:Creative Edge Organization, http://www.cefocusing.com/casestudies/6a7.php,

Core Concept: Intuitive Focusing, http://www.cefocusing.com/coreconcepts/1a1.php,

Core Concept: Creating At The Edge: Culture of Creativity, http://www.cefocusing.com/coreconcepts/1a11.php,

and, to sum it all up, Interest Area: Creative Edge Organization, http://www.cefocusing.com/isthisyou/3a1a.php 

(if these links don’t work, go to our Blogroll and choose Creative Edge Focusing and The Focusing Institute! You’ll find the articles to download under Free Resources: Articles. I’m just learning how to do this blogging!) Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director, Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

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By Kathy McGuire, October 18, 2007 5:00 pm

Here are the Core Concepts of Creative Edge Focusing (TM) 

Core Creativity Cultura De Creatividad

• Every individual is born with a unique blueprint. Personal growth is the unfolding of this blueprint
• Every problem holds within itself the exact next steps needed for solution
• 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
• The Creative Edge is a right-brain phenomenon and is physically experienced as the murky, intuitive “feel” of the whole issue

Intuitive Focusing

• Creating at the Edge involves a back-and-forth nonlinear process between left-brain “symbolizations” and right brain “felt experiencing”
• The  Intuitive Focusing skill teaches specific steps which make problem-solving at The Creative Edge  and  “Ah, hah!” insights a predictable process
• Central to Intuitive Focusing is learning to silently “sit with” the murky, intuitive, preverbal “felt sense” underlying an issue before attempting to find words, gestures, or images as “symbolizations

Focused Listening

• The Focused Listening skill is a powerful tool for helping another person to create symbolizations out of The Creative Edge and especially in finding the “intuitive feel” for each person in interpersonal situations, turning conflict into creativity
• Focused Listening also allows for empathic understanding of the Other and the possibility for conflict resolution which comes from empathic understanding.

Creative Edge Organizations

• The Creative Edge Organization Method ensures maximum creativity and motivation at every level by encouraging Intuitive Focusing by individuals and Coordinated Collaboration in groups and teams
• Maximum motivation arises when people are encouraged to create their lives and solutions to problems from their own Creative Edge.
• Individuals are motivated when they are engaged at their Creative Edge. When organizational structures lose touch with The Creative Edge of individuals, apathy is created.
• True change, at any level, from personal to global, can only happen by engaging The Creative Edge of individual human beings. There is no lasting way to impose change from the outside. Lasting change is empowered from the individual entering into collaborative action with other individuals.

Paradigm Shifts

• Paradigms are fixed perceptual schemata, or Gestalts,  which determine beliefs, emotional reactions, and behaviors
• Paradigm shifts are the source of true creativity, innovation,  and change
• Intuitive Focusing results in shifts at the level of paradigms. The kaleidoscope turns, a new Gestalt is created,  and new thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are able to arise
• Paradigm shifts at The Creative Edge release blocked energy as well as creating new solutions

Self-Organizing  Tendency…

Read more and find the active links at http://www.cefocusing.com/coreconcepts/1a11.php

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By Kathy McGuire, October 17, 2007 3:41 pm

PDF: DESTREZA BASICA: ESCUCHA FOCALIZADA

Human Literacy = Listening To Oneself And Listening To Another

When an individual is using the Intuitive Focusing Skill to problem solve at The Creative Edge, Focused Listening by another person can help carry the whole process of articulation forward.

Based on Carl Rogers’ Reflective or Empathic Listening, Focused Listening, the second Core Skill of Creative Edge Focusing ™, is the most simple yet most powerful communication skill you will ever learn.

When people are trying to communicate, struggling with  overwhelming emotion, or trying to solve  problems, nothing is more helpful than hearing their own words back. Then, they can use Intuitive Focusing to check inside and ask themselves, “Is that what I am trying to say?”, “Is that really what I am feeling?” “Is that the right image for this creative problem I am solving?”

The understanding of Gendlin’s Intuitive Focusing has greatly enriched Empathic Listening, so that it is no mere “parroting” of what the other has said.   Reflection includes more than the person’s words. It can also include reflection of aspects of The Creative Edge which the person hasn’t yet been able to put completely into words. The person may be communicating these felt edges through gestures or emotional tone. Also, as the person speaks, metaphors or images may arise in the Focused Listener which seem to capture or point to the Creative Edge.

The Focused Listener can also offer Focusing Invitations which can deepen the Focuser’s ability to contact the Creative Edge.

Focused Listening means not trying to solve the problem for the other person but trusting that the solution is already implicit in the person’s own Creative Edge. No outside solution could be as relevant or as likely to be able to be carried out in action than that arising from The Creative Edge.

The Focused Listening Skill involves learning to set aside all your usual reactions, your opinions, judgments, advice, suggestions and just say back, or “reflect,” what the other person is trying to say.  The Listener can also help by giving Focusing Invitations to the Focuser.

Yes, everyone thinks they know how to do listen, but, really, when was the last time you really listened to another person, or that someone really listened to you?   

Four Basic Kinds of Response

The Focused Listening skill as Dr. McGuire teaches it, which combines Gendlin’s Focusing with Rogers’ Reflective Listening, includes four different possible kinds of responses by the Listener: (read more and learn the actual skill involved in the responses at http://www.cefocusing.com/coreconcepts/1a2.php on Creative Edge Focusing’s Ultimate Self Help website.

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By Kathy McGuire, October 15, 2007 2:09 pm

Collaborative Edge Sexuality: Negotiation Among Equals For Win/Win Solutions

 In Unequal Desire? Try Erotic Massage a few days ago,   I spoke about unequal sexual desire and making three dates per week, starting with massage for the weary, if need be— Un-“Coupling” Desire and Satisfaction But what if desire is still unequal? What if one partner would happily have sex every day; the other much less frequently— What if your partner gets turned on just watching you undress for bed – and you are only thinking of going to sleep? You are not responsible for satisfying your partner’s desire—but, you should also not stand in the way.  Self- Satisfaction needs to become completely accepted, not to be hidden or scorned—It can be celebrated by the other, even if the other only wants minimal participation, or none—and, sometimes, it might surprise the other with their own desire— Only do what feels “okay” —but don’t be stopped by society’s “taboos” Check with your “intuitive feel,” your “felt sense” of each new situation (learn Intuitive Focusing at http://www.cefocusing.com/coreconcepts/1a1.php). While your lover self-satisfies, might you be willing to do a slow strip-tease?—or dance for your lover?—or tease them with a feather boa?—or a touch on the inner thigh? Perhaps you are only willing to sit in a provocative pose while you read your book—or, perhaps, this day, you would rather leave and go check your email—or go to sleep—or perhaps your partner would rather go out into the garden, in company of the night sounds and breezes— Then or at another time, share from your “felt sensing” about “self-satisfaction.” We all have a lot of past history, taboos, and also sensuous experiences to share. 

Sharing Sets The Stage And Keeps The Curtain Open

At Creative Edge Focusing (TM), www.cefocusing.com , you can download the free Instant “Ahah!” manual, in the sidebar after subscribing to our e-newsletter, but also in Free Resources under Long Articles. It gives you ten simple exercises you can incorporate into your every day life. Use Instant “Ahah!” #8, “Sharing Your Day: Instant Intimacy” to keep the door to further intimacy open. Use Instant “Ahah!” #3, “Passive Listening: Stop arguments” for five-minute uninterrupted turns to communicate about sex or anything else. Visit www.cefocusing.com to learn about Intuitive Focusing, Focused Listening, and how to use Focusing Partnership turns and Interpersonal Focusing turns for ongoing communication and conflict resolution.Okay, I’m nervous about posting this, but, if you have comments, out with them!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.comThe 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