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By Kathy McGuire, November 19, 2007 12:14 pm

Experiencing The Sacred

Predictable Access to Spiritual Experience

As with personal growth and creativity, spiritual experiences can also be reached more predictably through the conscious use of Intuitive Focusing. If you “accidently” find yourself in the midst of a transformative, spiritual moment, you can enrich and enlarge that opening by consciously turning attention toward the “feel of it all” and making words and images for the power and meaning of it.

These words and images can then stay with you after that magical moment ends. You can use them as a predictable road back to that spiritual experience, again by consciously turning your attention to them, and the intuitive feel which goes with them, using Intuitive Focusing. 

Using Intuitive Focusing, you can enrich your spiritual experience. Whether the initial intuitive sense of The Sacred is comes through nature or inspiring music or religious rituals in church or through watching the kindness of one person toward another, these spiritual experiences can be deepened through Intuitive Focusing. The existence of Something Greater or Something More will be fully and unquestionably known, experientially, rather than being only an intellectual theory.

Being Touched and Being Moved

Dr. McGuire calls it “being touched and being moved.” Experiencing The Sacred is often marked by at least a sheen of tears in the eyes, along with an expansive feeling of one’s own boundaries and limits dissolving for at least a moment of merging into a feeling of Oneness – with nature, with another person or other people, with music, or with the religious ritual in church.

Biospirituality

Jesuit Fathers Pete Campbell and Ed McMahon (Bio-Spirituality: Focusing As A Way To Grow, 1985) have made a life’s work out of looking at the specifically spiritual aspect which can be present in any use of  Intuitive Focusing. They see entering the bodily “felt sense” through Focusing as a way of entering into The Body of Christ from the Christian perspective and also into the common ground of all spiritual experience. They call their approach Bio-spirituality (www.biospiritual.org ).

In any Focusing process, the Focuser will often experience a Felt Shift or Paradigm Shift, an opening of tension release into forward movement and new energy. Fathers Pete and Ed tell us to pay more attention to the “bodily-feel” surrounding these felt shifts in experiencing. They show us that, if we attend fully to the feelings surrounding the felt shift, we will find experiences of gratitude, of awe, of being “graced” by the presence of the Almighty.

While they started with Christianity, the Fathers now see Focusing as an access path to the Experience of the Sacred which underlies all religions. They elaborate upon Gendlin’s sixth step of Focusing, called Receiving: thanking and acknowledging your Body’s Wisdom for the new steps of healing that have emerged through Focusing and taking the further step of noticing the presence of grace and awe and thanking the Greater Source from which felt shifts, and spiritual and emotional growth, emerge.

Empathy and Agape: The Creation of Love

Intense spiritual experiences of the love known as Agape also happen regularly through the experience of exchanging Listening/Focusing turns in a Focusing Partnership or Focusing Community. Through the use of Focused Listening, I am able to set aside my own stereotypes and prejudices and really enter into the world of the other person.  In these moments of empathy, when the Focuser touches upon her deepest values and most profound truths, as the Listener, I am often moved and touched by the absolute uniqueness, yet universal humanness, of the Other.
 
In these moments, often with a sheen of tears in our eyes, it seems that the boundaries separating one person from the other drop, and we stand together in a shared, sacred space. I believe this is what is meant by experiencing The Christ Within The Other or Universal Oneness or Martin Buber’s description of “I-Thou” vs. “I-It” relationships. For me, there is no more sacred experience.

Read more about Focusing and Spirituality in Interest Area: Experiencing The Sacred

Download my articles:

 Focusing and Spirituality: The Still, Small Voice

 Being Touched And Being Moved: The Spiritual Value of Tears

 Finding The Meaning Of Tears          

If you haven’t yet, download our Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual   (Ajas Instantaneos  ) so you can try “Ahah!” #10, Spirituality: Being Touched and Being Moved and nine other exercises for integrating Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening into your every day home and work life.

In the sidebars at Creative Edge Focusing (TM)  , you can subscribe to our e-newsletter and e-support groups for ongoing support in applying Listening and Focusing  to every life situation.

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)                       

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By Kathy McGuire, November 18, 2007 7:47 pm

Focusing On The Creative Edge

Sitting With The Unclear Edge

Intuitive Focusing applied to creative expression, is a methodical, predictable road to “Ah, hah!” experiences.  Gendlin’s Focusing (Bantam, 1981) is a step-wise procedure for paying attention to the murky, intuitive, whole-body “feel” of a creative project and going back-and-forth between this Creative Edge and words or images for describing it. When you hit on just the right words or image, you will experience that “Ah, hah!…Yes, that’s it. That is exactly the next step.” With continued rounds of Focusing, you can carry the creative project through many steps of problem-solving.
 
Focusing simply provides specific steps to encourage the “Ah, hah!” process which creative people have always accessed, usually accidentally. Fortunately, the “unconscious,” or the concretely available Creative Edge, “the intuitive body sense,” can carry more information, all at once, in that murky, wordless “feel,” than we can ever carry in our minds consciously. So, during Focusing, the creative problem-solver has access to “all of it,” “the whole thing,” more than could ever be recited consciously.

From Creative Block To Next Step

For example, a painter is stuck on what a particular painting needs next, right now. She can step back, take a look, and then, ask herself, “What does this painting need?” and, instead of answering from her head, the already-known, she can wait, as long as a minute or more, for the bodily-feel, the intuitive sense, the Creative Edge of “the whole thing, and what it needs now…” to arise as a murky, wordless “feel,” usually in the center of the body, between the throat and stomach…”What does it need?”…..and waiting, just paying attention to the intuitive feel….then carefully looking for words or an image or just the right gesture, the next painterly act, the next step toward “completion.”  Stuck again later? Just follow the same process, stepping back, sensing in, waiting for “the exactly right” next move to arise.

A writer is stuck in a novel: “What does this story need?….What does this character need?…..What happens next?” Again, the writer steps back, takes a moment to go quietly inside, perhaps with eyes closed, and sits with the creative question, setting aside any already-known guesses or solutions, and just waiting, for at least a minute, for the intuitive feel of the “whole thing…this whole question” to arise.  Then, just as carefully, he looks for words or images or metaphors that are exactly “right” in capturing the “feel of it all.”  And, then, “Ah, hah! That is exactly it.” Or, in writing even more than in painting, he can try out the body’s best guess, and, again, check with the body sense: “Is that it?”

Same thing for creative problem solving in a business, engineering, scientific research situation. When “stuck,” not knowing the answer in a left-brain way, the problem solver can simply pause for a moment, go quietly inside, and look for the Creative Edge, the “intuitive feel” for “this whole problem,” wait at least a minute for the intuitive feel to form, then use Intuitive Focusing to carefully find the exact words or images which ,”fit,” bringing that experience of “Ahah! That is exactly it!”

Predictable Creativity

By definition, creativity comes from the not-yet-known. Whether you are trying to find the next step in a piece of art work, a musical composition, writing, or a scientific, philosophical, or business project, you need a predictable, methodical method for having the kinds of “Ah, hah!” moments which otherwise come only when a new solution or idea bubbles up, unpredictably, from the backburner of your consciousness.

The great thing about Intuitive Focusing is that the answer, the next step, comes, not just intellectually, but experientially, as a whole-body response: “Yes. That’s it!” Throughout the Focusing process, the Focuser is constantly checking with the body-sense: “Is it this?    Is this right…?” and waiting for the body’s response. If the words or image or gestures don’t fit, the body response is flat. Nothing moves or changes.

But, when the symbols are just right, an exact “fit” for the whole-body-sensing, then, the body responds with a physically experienced sense of relaxation, tension-release, opening into a new, forward flow of energy. This is the true “Ah, hah!” experience, physically and viscerally felt, as distinct from all the ideas and possible solutions tried before. Gendlin called it a “felt shift.”  Dr. McGuire calls it a Paradigm Shift to emphasize that the kaleidoscope has turned, and everything is new.

And, another check point: the artist or painter or musician or problem-solver can try out the new “next step,” and see if it does fit, again checking with the intuitive sense as this new step is made manifest. Now, the art work, the creation, will “reflect back” to the creator, who can again sense in the body, The Creative Edge, “Is this it?” So the Focusing process, the back-and-forth between symbolizations and felt experience, can be carried on throughout the creative process.

Read more about Intuitive Focusing

Read about “Ahah!” experiences and Paradigm Shifts through the PRISMS/S Problem Solving Process  or PROCESO DE SOLUCION DE PROBLEMAS  PRISMAS/S.

Download  the Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual or Ajas Instantaneos so you can try “Ahah!” #9, Creativity: From Blocks To Predictable “Ahah!”s, p.29

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

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By Kathy McGuire, November 14, 2007 1:40 pm

Elegant Simple Puff Pastry Tart Using Almost Any Fruit

This is it! The one perfect, generic dessert for every party or every day occasion.

Just keep frozen Puff Pastry sheets in your freezer. Also, buy some Parchment Paper (in the Baking section of grocery store) and keep it handy.

Need a fancy dessert, or just want to enjoy fresh fruit in season or out? Take out one sheet. Defrost it on very low a few minutes, making sure not to “melt” it. Flour a wooden or pastry board lightly and roll the sheet out into a rectangle the size of a cookie baking sheet.

Preheat the oven as instructed on Puff Pastry package.

Choose a fruit. Peaches, pears, apples, plums, raspberries, blueberries, bananas, apricots, nectarines, dried apricots, or your imagination! Or mix fruits with each other.Slice the larger fruits thin as you want (1/4 inch?).

Mix the fruit with a little something for slight flavoring. I like liquors: Ameretto (great with peaches, pears, apples) Raspberry Chambord, whatever!, just a few tablespoons to moisten and let sit a few minutes.

Or use traditional spices: cinnamon (apples?), nutmeg (pears), clove, pie spice, whatever you like!

You can sprinkle in a little Splenda or Splenda-for-baking (half Splenda, half sugar) or a little sugar if you want more sweetening. But the idea is to let the flavor of the fruit on the pastry shine through. Very European! Very gourmet! Very easy!!!!!!

Put Parchment Paper on the cookie tray (prevents sticking of tart), rectangle of dough on the paper, and arrange fruit on the dough, leaving a small (1/4-1/2 inch?) margin to pinch up as a rim to keep juices in.

ONLY MAIN RULE: DON’T PUT TOO MUCH FRUIT JUICE OR OTHER JUICE ON OR YOUR PASTRY CRUST WILL GET SOGGY! Still delicious but not quite as “gourmet.”

Put in the oven and bake as directed. The pastry will puff up, especially around the edges.

If you want, when you roll out the puff pastry sheet initially, you can cut it into rectangles or circles, then make smaller tarts by spreading fruit on each. But, me, I just cut the big tart into rectangles after it cooks and cools for a few minutes, and nobody at my house complains.

See other recipes and the philosophy of Intuitive Eating and Intuitive Cooking under Categories: Intuitive Eating or Food in the sidebar.

Basic to Intuitive Cooking and Eating is checking with your “body sense,” your “intuition” of what you want to eat, what would taste great “thrown together.” You can learn the Intuitive Focusing skill and find many Free Articles about Focusing and its partner skill, Focused Listening, at our website for Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

Using the icons in the sidebar, you can subscribe to our e-newsletter and immediately download our Instant “Ahah!” Mini- Manual (Ajas Instantenous en espanol) of ten practices to try at home and work immediately.

You can also join our two e-support groups for practice and networking.

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM

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By Kathy McGuire, October 30, 2007 10:24 am

Empowerment Organization: Motivating from the bottom up

Motivation = Engagement : Apathy Is The Enemy!

You are charged with finding that “one small thing” which will get every employee or volunteer or citizen fully engaged in your larger projects. No apathy allowed in a Creative Edge Organization! You want to become alert to noticing apathy, people at any level who are not caring, not involved, and then work at involvement. You want every person actively involved at The Creative Edge, the lively, creative, energized “intuitive feel” of being a living, thinking, involved  Co-Creator or Collaborator.

Finding “One Small Thing”

In the ongoing life of your Creative Edge community or organization, the weekly exchange of Listening/Focusing turns in Focusing Partnerships and  Focusing Groups or Teams will keep individuals involved at their own personal, unique Creative Edge. See Interest Area: Creative Edge Organization at http://www.cefocusing.com/isthisyou/3a1a.php for a full introduction to the model.  

However, in addition, or perhaps first or independently, you can use the “One Small Thing” method to find one over-arching project that will get everyone involved.

You want to find “One Small Thing” that every person in the community or organization can become involved in with minimal effort but maximum sense of satisfaction in contributing something to the larger mission.  If the first step of involvement is too big, too difficult, then most people won’t be willing to do it.

So, you have to keep looking until you find something so small that everyone can do it, easily, willingly, yet so important that it will feel like a real contribution, a first step of commitment to the larger cause. Then, you can invite these involved, engaged people into further Collaborative Decision Making about the project.

If your “One Small Thing” project is not having the desired effect, then the step is too big, requires too much motivation or commitment. If that is the case, then you need to look for a smaller step until you find the one that works.

Example One: Achieving Corporate Buy-In

At Old Navy (Business Week, June,19, 2006), Innovation Champion Ivy Ross, catching the MySpace-type lifestyle of today, used a facebook-style CD in an effort to bind old and new employees into one new group. Every employee filmed three minutes of “something so personal it would take years to discover it.” Ross had new and old employees hungrily viewing the CD. They quickly became bonded into one, new group, “infused…with a close tightness essential for innovation.” Ross had found the “One Small Thing.”

Example Two: Revitalizing the PTO at a public school

The PTO of a public school was languishing. A handful of parents wer doing all the work. A new property tax bill dramatically cut funding to the public schools, wiping out PE teachers, art, music, librarians, nurses….The parents suddenly had to raise a whole lot of money from a population of middle to low income parents.

The small group of committed parents started selling Grocery Store Gift Certificates. The PTO could purchase the “scrip” at a 5% discount, resell it to parents to use to buy groceries, and make a 5% profit on something parents had to buy anyway. Everyone had to buy groceries!  They sold “scrip” in the front hallway before school and at school events and PTO meetings.

Suddenly, everyone was buying “scrip” – grandparents, neighbors, as well as parents and teachers. People were coming into the school to purchase “scrip” and staying to paint walls or help with reading. The only people who were unhappy were parents who were on food stamps – they were furious that they couldn’t contribute!!!! The PTO had found the One Small Thing that allowed everyone to become involved.

Now, parents had a “stake” in how the money would be spent. Attendance at PTO meetings grew to thirty, making decisions about how to distribute the funds, how to enlarge the “scrip” program. Teachers came to present proposals for funding.

In the first year, the PTO raised $11,000 (at the 5% net profit, gross sales of $220,000!) to hire a part-time PE teacher who would teach the other teachers how to run PE classes. The “scrip” program spread to other public schools and, ten years later, a large banner in front of the town high school reads “Buy Grocery Scrip”.

But, more importantly, the entire school was revitalized.  The parents had to establish a “volunteer lounge” at the school to accommodate all the volunteers!

Hypothetical Example: Global Warming

You are Al Gore.  You want to get every day citizens involved in the issue of Global Warming. But most people feel apathetic: “Oh, there is nothing that one person can do…it is up to governments.”

Well, maybe it is up to governments…but non-apathetic, engaged citizens are the ones to put pressure on governments.  So, you are looking for that “one small thing.” “What is one small thing that masses of people would be willing to do and which would act as a first step toward full engagement?”

Here’s a possibility:  Purportedly, “idling” your car greatly increases the output of pollutants. Yet, everyone, without giving it a thought, “idles” at drive-up banks, fast food take-outs, school pick ups. What about a “Stop Idling! Stop Greenhouse Gases” campaign? With bumper stickers, flyers on car windows or handed out at drive-up locations….the double-entendre “Don’t idle and don’t be idle!”……

If you can get people, all over the world, to “Stop Idling!”, you will have them engaged in thinking about global warming every day…and primed to engage in other actions which you initiate.

Intuitive Focusing on “What is the One Small Thing?”

Your Turn

So, let’s use the Intuitive Focusing skill to find the “one small thing” to engage and motivate your target audience, be it consumers, citizens, volunteers, or employees. This could be the most important decision you make, so, one small session may not be enough, but it will start you thinking about Creative Edge engagement. It will put the pot on the burner so that creative insights can arise now or later.

You can do this first step alone, by yourself, but even more productively with the appropriate group of problem solvers, benefiting from the Creative Edge Collaborative Thinking of many people.

However, the best way to generate ideas for the “one small thing” is to initiate a Listening/Focusing Brainstorming process with the people at the bottom! We are not going to do that here, but it is essential to the process of motivating from the bottom up.

As a group or individually, sit down and get comfortable, preparing to spend up to  twenty minutes letting right- and left- brain problem solving interact. Add another twenty minutes for group sharing. Keep a blank pad of paper in front of each person for gathering ideas.

In a group, have one person read the following instructions aloud to everyone else. Everyone except the reader, close your eyes, focusing inward, on The Creative Edge…or, at least, look off “into space”. You want to access right-brain, intuitive thinking before you turn to more traditional “brainstorming” methods.

Upon hearing the instructions, pay attention, inside, looking for the “intuitive feel” of answers – not what is immediately, intellectually known, but the right-brain, intuitive, murky, vague feel of what you know that is “more than words”…..leave at least a minute of silence between each instruction….(read more and find the actual Focusing Instructions at http://www.cefocusing.com/freeresources/2a1f.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 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 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 

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By Kathy McGuire, October 13, 2007 5:45 pm

PDF: FOCUSING INTUITIVO: DESTREZA BASICA

 Pausing To Ponder

Intuitive Focusing  is one-half of the two Core Skills of the Creative Edge Focusing ™ Model.  Intuitive Focusing can be used any time to find out what is bothering you or to articulate an intuitive “inkling” into a creative idea or solution.

Intuitive Focusing is a predictable, step-wise method for sitting with the vague, wordless intuitive sense of something that is “more than words”….something you can’t quite put your finger on or put into words, but something definitely determining your behavior or how you feel……

Intuitive Focusing can be used not just for personal problem-solving but for sitting with The Creative Edge of anything: creation of art or writing, an exciting professional problem to solve, a good feeling that has a spiritual edge…

Here are just a few situations where pausing for some minutes of Intuitive Focusing can provide a way forward:

• You have a “gut feeling” of  exactly what problem you want to work on, but you don’t have any words or images to describe it.
• Your boss hands you a problem to solve out of the blue, and you have no idea where to begin, how to approach it.
• You are “stuck” on a creative project, “blocked,” no inspiration about where to go next.
• You know that something is bothering you, your whole body is tense, you can’t sleep, but you have no idea what the problem is.
• You have an“inkling,” an “intuition,” (see Gladwell, Blink, 2005) but you can’t put it into words.
• You have a “hunch” about what to do, an action you want to take, but you can’t verbalize any reasons to justify it.
• You wake up with the “feel” of a forgotten night-time dream.
• You have a wonderful feeling of well-being, a “spiritual” feeling, and you would like to spend more time with it, finding a way to describe it.
• You have an uncomfortable feeling after an interaction with someone, but you don’t know exactly what it is about, so you don’t know what to do about it.
• You know exactly what you want to do but find yourself blocked, unable to move forward.
• You might have no feelings, no creative ideas. You feel like a flat piece of concrete.
• You feel totally stressed out, confused, overwhelmed….

Learn all about Intuitive Focusing and its partner skill, Focused Listening at www.cefocusing.com Check out Core Concepts area and also, in the Home page sidebar, Instant “Ahah!” Focusing: Find Out What is Bothering You as an exercise you can try right now. Our e-newsletter and e-support group (join in the homepage sidebar) will support you in learning and practice listening/focusing step-by-step.

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By Kathy McGuire, October 12, 2007 4:34 pm

Collaborative Edge Sexuality = Finding Win/Win Solutions Through Negotiating as Equals 

 Unequal desire for sexual intimacy? Try massage…

• First, set the stage for greater closeness with Instant “Ahah!” #8 (p.27) –Sharing Your Day: Instant Intimacy practiced every day (download the free Instant “Ahah!”s Mini-Manual at www.cefocusing.com by subscribing to e-newsletter in sidebar or looking under Free Resources Long Articles — ten simple exercises to bring Listening/Focusing skills into your everyday life)
• Make a date three times a week for sexual intimacy (e.g., Tuesday and Thursday at 9:30PM, Saturday around 9AM) –carry out at least two dates/week. You can set aside 1 1/2 hours, but 45 minutes to 1 hour can be plenty of time.
• At your local natural foods store, stock up on massage oils and lotion…Jason brand is a good one, Lavendar always calming
• If you can, buy a massage table for home; Earthlite portable at www.earthlite.com  is sturdy but inexpensive(well, certainly cheaper than marital therapy or a weekend away, and much easier on the back muscles)
• At least on some “dates, the person with greater desire and energy enjoys massaging the front side of the other person…start with a foot/leg massage, erasing exhaustion,move on to the rest of body and, finally, erotic areas….at some point, make sure the “initiator” also gets a massage…Lover’s Massage and Ultimate Sexual Massage from www.lovingsex.com are explicit DVD’s showing you how…be warned…the rest of that website can be overwhelming….

More to come in future editions!

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