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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 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

Intuitive Focusing | Active Listening, anxiety, Creativity, depression, economic recession, Empathic Listening, Focused Listening, Gendlin's Focusing, imprisonment, Intuitive Focusing, meditation, paradigm shifts, self-help skills, social change, spirituality, stress reduction

“WHY CRY?” PART 5: BOOKS AND ARTICLES ON TEARS, CRYING, BEING TOUCHED AND BEING MOVED, INNER CHILD HEALING, ACTIVE GRIEVING, TRANSFORMATION

By Kathy McGuire, March 4, 2009 6:41 pm

Articles by Dr. Kathy McGuire: Being Touched and Being Moved, The Alchemy of Grieving, Focusing Inner Child Work, Finding The Meaning of Tears

Crying and vision, crying and opening the heart, crying and connecting (this is such a profound experience when it happens — as a Listener, I tear up in empathy with a Focuser, who may also be touching on tears, and, in my experience, the walls, the envelopes of flesh separating us simply melt away, and we meet in Buber’s I-Thou space — the two of us and The Something More, The Sacred entering in).

In my own journey to understand the place of crying, being touched and being moved, particularly, I have found

(a) an early book by William Frey called Crying, which, when first published, was a media event. He collected tears in test tubes from people watching a tear-jerker movie, and compared them, their chemical analysis, with “non-emotional” tears, collected questionnaire data on frequency of crying (women five times as often as men!), etc.

(b) The book by Anglican hermit Maggie Ross, The Fountain and The Furnace, cited above.

(c) Pema Chodrin’s (Buddhist nun) work on the “way of compassion” as a complement to, for instance, Tolle’s “way of enlightenment.” While much of Eastern philosophy seems to emphasize “detachment,” “objectivity,” Chodrin talks about going DOWN into the morass of human pain and living through it and into it, with other humans, with compassion.

(d) William Gaylin, Feelings: Our Vital Signs (Harper & Row Perennial, 1979), where he has chapters that are a phenomenology of many different feelings. He has a chapter on “being touched” as a human to human happening, and one on “being moved” as between a human and The Something Greater.

Here are links to some of my articles (all found on my website, www.cefocusing.com , Category Free Resources, then Articles):

“On Tears and Focusing,” a mini-research where Focusers spoke about their experience with tears (I have tons of great quotes!). SHORT BUT SWEET

“Being Touched and Being Moved: The Spiritual Value of Tears”, with lots of quotes about how Focuser value their tears.

“Finding The Meaning of Tears,” a book chapter, with more great quotes about how Focusers use their tears and giving actual Focusing exercises for following the path of tears.

“Affect in Focusing and Experiential Therapy”, containing quotes from dialogue between Gene Gendlin and myself about the value and role of what I call “cathartic unfolding” vs. “sheer, repeating emotions.” THEORETICAL WITH EXAMPLES

“Medical Change Events Through Experiential Focusing,” including the complete transcript of the 12- minute session (also on my DVD Listening/Focusing Demonstrations) where a woman goes from depression/migraine to felt shift, including joyful releasing teariness, and also including my “Five-Minute Grieving” procedure for helping professionals, immediate application for all physicians and helping professionals.

“Active Grieving Part One,” a perspective on grieving as an alchemical, tranformative process

“Active Grieving Part Two,” an actual protocol for active grieving of a loss.

“Focusing Inner Child Work With Abused Clients”, which is not about tears directly but about the extreme attitude of awareness toward subtle nuances of word or body gesture which can indicate repressed memories of emotional/sexual/physical abuse in childhood and the extreme attitude of gentleness needed to allow clients to “be with” and work through, “carry forward,” these painful experiences.

It was enlightening to me to see how much of my work has this emphasis upon a kind of “going deeper” and “connection” that is associated with even a slight SHEEN OF TEARS in the eyes (sobbing not necessary but welcome!)

GREAT BOOK: WHY GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE

By Stephen Post and Jill Neimark, Why Good Things Happen To Good People: The Exciting New Research That Proves The Link Between Doing Good And Living A Longer, Healthier, Happier Life, Broadway Books, 2007. Read about the Ways of Celebration, Generativity, Forgiveness, Courage, Humor, Respect, Compassion, Loyalty, Creativity , and

Chapter 11: The Way of Listening: Offer Deep Presence

See more at the author’s organization site, Unlimited Love Institute.

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

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

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

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 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

experiential focusing therapy, gender, health, Intuitive Focusing, LISTENING, personality differences, self-help skills, spirituality | Active Grieving, being touched and being moved, compassion, crying, depression, Empathy, Gendlin, Inner Child healing, Intuitive Focusing, Maggie Ross, Pema Chodrin, self-help skills, spiritual transformation, tears, William Frey, William Gaylin

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

By Kathy McGuire, 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)

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

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 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

gender, health, Intuitive Focusing, MBTI, personality differences, relationships, spirituality | being touched and being moved, compassion, crying, David Michael Levin, Empathy, Gendlin's Focusing, Intuitive Focusing, peace making, philosophy of crying, spirituality, tears, transformation, vision, visionary

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

Comments (1)

By Carolyn, 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:

Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual

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

gender, health, Intuitive Focusing, MBTI, personality differences, spirituality | being moved, Being Touched, crying, Eugene Gendlin videos, gender, Gendlin's Focusing, Getting A Felt Sense, Intuitive Focusing, MBTI, personality differences, tears, Thinker vs. Feeler, transcendence, women's bondling through tears, women's strength through connection

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

Comments (1)

By Kathy McGuire, 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)

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

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 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

gender, health, MBTI, personality differences, relationships | awe, being touched and being moved, crying, depression, gender differences, Gendlin's Focusing, Intuitive Focusing, MBTI, personality tests, spirituality, tears, tranformation, wonder

INTUITIVE FOCUSING: CAT DOING FOCUSING = “SITTING WITH” THE “INTUITIVE FEEL”

By Carolyn, February 17, 2009 12:15 am

: Cat Noticing need for “Focusing”

: Cat “sitting with” the “felt sense”

: Cat experiences “felt shift” and action steps

In Intuitive Focusing, Focusing Intuitivo: Destreza Basica, we notice “something inside that is more than words,’ an “intuitive feel.” we decide to pause, sit quietly, pay attention to the “felt sense” inside, looking for words or images or gestures that can capture this “something more than words.” When we find the “just right” words or images, the “felt sense” opens, shifts, carries forward, and new possibilities, solutions, ideas, action steps emerge.

Seems to me that cats live in this Focusing way, always aware of their “bodily felt sense,” never letting blockages stop their freedom of movement. Hence, the “cat Focusing” metaphor.

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

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

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

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 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

Intuitive Focusing | biospiritual focusing, Creative Edge Focusing, creative problem solving, Focusing en espanol, Gendlin's Focusing, Getting A Felt Sense, Intuitive Focusing, meditation, personal growth, relaxation exercise, self-help skills, stress reduction

EMPOWERMENT ORGANIZATION: MOTIVATING FROM THE BOTTOM UP

By Carolyn, February 16, 2009 12:53 pm

Thank You, Volunteer Firefighters

Every organization needs top/down and bottom/up forms of motivation, community-building, and creativity. See Interest Areas Creative Edge Organizations and Building Supportive Community for Creative Edge Focusing(TM) models for incorporating collaboration into hierarchy. Here is the Introduction to “The One Small Thing” method for bottom/up empowerment from The Creative Edge Focusing (TM) website:

“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. 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.” Please read more and find “The One Small Thing” exercise at our website.

Spaghetti Binds Community

Here’s another recent example from my own experience:

For two years, my rural fire department (I am on the Board) has been trying to find a volunteer, a “strong leader,” to head up a federal program called Citizen’s Emergency Response Teams (CERT). Candidates appeared but chose not to proceed.

I wanted to do a Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser, start at the grass roots, with the community I knew that we did or would or could have easily: people who were willing to bring spaghetti sauce or desserts and help out at a the dinner.

I put out sign-up sheets at community events, built up an email network of willing volunteers, and got it all going. Firefighters and their spouses and families, Town Council members and spouses, Board members and spouses and church volunteers, teenagers, lakeside and rural and town people, all pulling together for a fun community event.

Two weeks before the event, a massive ice storm hit, wiping out the town’s electricity. I continued contacting my volunteers by phone, hearing their ice storm stories, meeting new people.

Along the way, I discovered that the husband of one of the spaghetti volunteers was a retired Fire Captain. I put out feelers: “Would he be interested in helping with the CERT Program?”

By the evening of the dinner, 40 volunteers were involved, 100 people came, we had located two possible co-chairs for the CERT program, and neighbors who had been through the ice storm together were ready to mobilize into CERT Teams. We fed 150 people (including many free volunteer meals) for $210.37 and raised $1000+, including tickets for a drawing for a gift basket and outright donations.

But equally important, we had planted the seeds for community involvement, appreciation for the Fire and Rescue Department, and citizen’s emergency response.

So, starting from the bottom, with the “One Small Thing” of bringing food to the fundraiser, we started the motions to accomplish a larger community goal. Try the “One Small Thing” Focusing exercise here.

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

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

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

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 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

Business, collaboration, community building | collaboration, community building, empowerment within organizations, finding "One Small Thing" to motivate and involve, Gendlin's Focusing, Intuitive Focusing, motivation and buy-in, peace making, support groups, The Creative Edge, volunteer organizations

INTUITIVE FOCUSING: TRANSFORMATION = PHOTOS OF LOTUS FLOWER OPENING

By Kathy McGuire, February 6, 2009 11:48 pm

Lotus bud potential

Lotus bud unfurls like Focusing attention

Potential Becoming Whole: "Felt Sense" opening

Lotus Fully Open, Potential Fulfilled

And we begin another cycle, bud to flower

Intuitive Focusing is a meditation-like self-help skill that allows you to set aside pre-formed “intellectualizations” and find the fresh, experiential, immediate “bodily felt sense” of problems and creative ideas. Steps of Focusing allow you to find words and images for this “intuitive feel,” letting totally new solutions, ideas, and action steps unfold.

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

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

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

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 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

Uncategorized | actualizing potential, biospiritual focusing, Creative Edge Focusing, creative problem solving, depression, Focusing en espanol, Gendlin's Focusing, Getting A Felt Sense, guided imagery, image of transformation, Inner Child healing, Intuitive Focusing, lotus flower photos, meditation images, paradigm shifts, personal growth, relaxation exercise, self-help, stress reduction

FOCUSING AND BUSINESS: BUILDING COMMUNITY AT WORK

By Carolyn, January 30, 2009 12:14 pm

In Creative Edge Organizations, everyone learns Intuitive Focusing ( PDF: Focusing Intuitivo: Destreza Basica) to access the intuitive, right-brain Creative Edge of their thinking and problem solving, and everyone learns Focused Listening ( PDF: Destreza Basica: Escucha Focalizada)to help others articulate from the Creative Edge and to hear deeply the views of another instead of arguing.

The exchange of Listening/Focusing Partnership turns leads, not only to creative, innovative problem solving, but also to feelings of “buy in,” “loyalty,” and “collegiality.” The workplace becomes a community, encouraging diversity and creativity rather than competition and backbiting.

Here is part of my recent article “Creative Edge Organizations: Businesses and Organizations As A ‘Kind’ Of Focusing Community“:

“— Businesses and Organizations ARE Communities

Doing my own Thinking At The Edge (TAE) process, I realized that businesses and organizations ARE communities. By their nature, coworkers are “trapped” in a face-to-face, interdependent situation which they cannot leave.

Some absolute essentials for workers:

• learning to work out their interpersonal conflicts

• having a successful model for making and implementing group decisions

• having a model for creative, innovative thinking and problem solving and for

communication between themselves and their clients.

• For co-workers: the ability to work in teams, tolerate their diversity, and make

the most of their “differing gifts.”

Businesses cannot afford the constant turnover and need for retraining that comes from irresolvable conflicts.

The model I developed for Focusing Communities, articulated in the Focusing in Community manual (1981, 2007), included all of these things: not just Focusing Alone for creative problem solving, but also Focusing Partnerships in the context of Focusing Groups or Teams, Interpersonal Focusing for resolving conflicts, and Collaborative Focusing-Oriented Decision Making for task-oriented groups. Here was a “package” of skills and methods that could be brought into businesses and organizations.

At about this time, I gathered up some books at a kiosk at the Northwest Regional Airport near Bentonville, Arkansas — home of mega-business giant WalMart. Everyone who is a vendor for WalMart passes through that airport, so it seemed to me that the books sold there would be cutting edge —”

Read the entire article “Creative Edge Organizations: Businesses and Organizations As A ‘Kind’ Of Focusing Community in the 30th Anniversary Tribute Focusing Folio online at The Focusing Institute.

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

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

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

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

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

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

Click here for a free 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

Business, collaboration, community building, Creativity | Active Listening, building community, collaboration, conflict resolution, Creative Edge Focusing, Creative Edge Organizations, creative problem solving, Creativity, empathic workplace, Focusing en espanol, Gendlin's Focusing, Intuitive Focusing, Intuitive Problem Solving, right-brain, self-help skills

TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCES THROUGH VIDEO AND MUSIC: WINGED MIGRATION AND MISSA SOLEMNIS

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

By Carolyn, January 19, 2009 12:10 am

Just watched again Jacques Perrin’s wonderful DVD, Winged Migration. Beautiful live photography of many different flocks of birds migrating from Africa to the Arctic and back again, the realities of their confrontations with industrialized civilization, and magnificent musical score as transcendent background. The migrations represent “the hope and promise of return,” the cycle of life.

Also just downloaded the MP3 version of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, the Otto Klemperer version from the 1970’s, Digital Remaster 2001, Elisabeth Soderstrom, soprano from Amazon. Amazingly clear and “present” music and singing, creating a transcendent experience. Downloading to ITunes or Windows Media Player is least expensive way to get this classic from EMI, about $9.95.

I’ve also ordered the Leonard Bernstein version, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam, on CD. $11.98

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

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

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

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

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

Click here for a free 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