CE Focusing Blog

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This month: From Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, p. 7, #2.

Active Listening: Short-Circuiting An Angry Confrontation. (You can find it here in English and in Spanish at links at top of this blog)

When someone comes at you with anger, it is a natural response to feel attacked and to defend yourself, to fight back without a moment’s thought.

However, it may help to reframe this anger as “upsetness.” The person is feeling attacked or undermined or frustrated in some way, so they are attacking back. We can break this cycle of attack and defense if we can reframe the anger as “upsetness” and, stepping aside from reacting, simply reflect in an active listening way: “Wow! You are really upset!” “Wow! Something is really bothering you.” “Wow! Something I’m doing is upsetting you.”

And, you can add, “Would you like to tell me more about that?”, but, if that doesn’t allow the person to calm down, just keep reflecting (maybe we can think of it as “deflecting” as well — trying to get the anger off of yourself so that you feel less threatened, less need to react with attack yourself).

The person who is angry, who is upset, is knocked off balance. As you know yourself, this kind of angry response doesn’t feel good. It is not centered, but a reaction to the helplessness of feeling attacked or frustrated. So, by reflecting the person’s words, you can help the person to get grounded again, to get centered.

Read the instructions and the examples and try to keep this immediate response of Active Listening in your back pocket, for emergency confrontations.

Active Listening: Short-circuit angry confrontations

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.

The Focused Listening Core Skill of the PRISMS/S Focusing Process is more than just reflecting. Through Phone Coaching or classes with Creative Edge Consultants or trainers of The Focusing Institute, or through the manual, CD, and DVD of our Self-Help Package, 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.

Tell me what you think at cefocusing@gmail.com or comment on this blog below !

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

LISTENING | Active Listening, anger, anger management, anxiety, Carl Rogers, communication skills, conflict resolution, confrontation, depression, Empathic Listening, Eugene Gendlin, Focused Listening, Focusing, Reflective Listening, self-help skills, stress

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING NEWS AND GOODS: Creativity, 12-Step, Art Therapy, Enneagram, Focusing Partnerships

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

By Kathy McGuire, October 6, 2008 4:14 pm

Free Downloads:

http://www.breakoutofthebox.com/AugustNews08.pdf

NEWS AND GOODS BELOW: The Many Applications of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening!!!

On Creativity: Writing From The “Felt Sense”

Here is a quote from an author about being guided, not from the logical “all-ready known,” but from the “felt sense,” the “intuitive feel.” The Creative Edge can carry implicit in it “the whole thing,” just waiting to be articulated into words and images that capture and grow forward from it:

“From that point on, the tale ran on its own legs, and turned into something I didn’t expect. It turned into the book it always should have been, a real book, where plot, character, and theme all worked together to make a whole greater than the sum of the parts. It turned out to be about something, beyond itself. It’s a bizarre but wonderful feeling, to arrive dead center of a target you didn’t even know you were aiming for.”

Lois Bujold, Cordelia’s Honor, NY: Baen Publishing, 1996, Afterword, p.479

Focusing-Oriented Art Therapy: Accessing The Body’s Wisdom

There is a wonderful new book in the works which combines Focusing with Art Therapy for the professional therapist, and with artistic creation for the rest of us. Focusing-Oriented Art Therapy :Accessing the Body’s Wisdom and Creative Intelligence by Laury Rappaport, long-time Focusing teacher and professor.

To learn more and pre-order this book visit: www.focusingarts.com/articles.html
(reviewed by Cornell, The Focusing Connection Newsletter, Aug. 2008)

Bringing Focusing Into The Enneagram

Mary Bast, long-time executive and life coach and expert on using The Enneagram (link to free tests) in coaching, has written an article on using Creative Edge Focusing with various personality types in her August, 2008, e-newsletter:

The Creative Edge by Mary Bast
Out of the Box Coaching Newsletter
Volume 8, Issue 8 August 1, 2008

In our chapter on Fours in Out of the Box: Coaching with the Enneagram, Clarence and I wrote “You’ll establishmore rapport when you witness their pain, show yourempathy, honor their unique way of seeing things, andfocus your questions on how they feel.” We alsosuggested that “Twos respond better to feelback than tofeedback.”

Nonetheless, when concrete results aren’t obvious whilecoaching someone with heightened emotions, I sometimeswonder if I’ve been helpful by simply listeningdeeply, though my clients have assured me suchlistening feels right.
I try not to be too pushy about moving to solutions (otherwise I can become very Three-ish, wanting both results and evidence of my success), but I have often used Focusing as a way to help clients move through their kinesthetic experience of emotional pain and into imagery that has the potential to heal symbolically.

So I’m especially pleased to be in contact with Dr. Kathy McGuire and to learn more about her Creative Edge Focusing —
Among the many free articles at The Creative Edge website, those on grieving have been especially helpful to me when coaching Fours, Twos, and other clients experiencing strong feelings—

I’m also intrigued with her Focused Listening, which combines Gendlin’s Focusing with Carl Roger’s Reflective Listening. In previous newsletters I’ve written about Symbolic Modeling, a right-brain technique where the coach stays within a client’s metaphor landscape without leading the client, by using “clean language”-responses that elicit the client’s own resources to generate healing at a symbolic level. Now that I’ve had almost a full year of practice with Symbolic Modeling, however, I find the methodology somewhat difficult in contrast to the clarity and simplicity of the four basic responses in Focused Listening —

Finally, I am touched by her discussion of “The Focusing Attitude.” After summarizing this attitude as one of empathy, respect, and non-judgmental acceptance, she shares the metaphor used by Fathers Pete Campbell and
Ed McMahon, creators of Bio-Spiritual Focusing, to convey the “Caring, Feeling Presence”:

“Imagine you have found an abandoned infant on the steps of your hospital.
Imagine how you would, through your bodily attention, convey complete
acceptance and love and safety to this infant: “You are totally wanted in this
world and safe with me.” Now, turn this same kind of loving attention toward
your inner experiencing.”

I’m convinced the creative edge of change involves working with metaphors and-lovingly and with trust in our clients’ innate healing capacity-following the trail through kinesthetic, auditory, and visual imagery to those metaphors.

Find the entire article, archives of her monthly e-newsletters, and a wealth of actual examples of applying Coaching to the nine different personality styles of the Enneagram, all at Mary Bast’s wonderful website.

Recovery Focusing: Using Focusing To Work The 12 Steps

Here, as she continues to apply her model for Recovery Focusing in an actual addiction rehab center, Suzanne Noel gives us more wonderful examples of the power of Focusing in reaching even those in the early stages of recovery from addiction.

Suzanne describes the difference between teaching/learning the 12-Steps through an intellectualized “head” approach, vs. using Focusing to take the words of each step deeply down into “bodily felt experiencing,” where experiential “Ahah!”s arise as Focusers make words and images freshly from their own unique inner experiencing. Here is learning at a deep, body/mind level. Suzanne says:

I am continuing to “Focus Into” the Steps at the Rehab and am also putting it into practice by Focusing with a specific partner in Recovery Focusing. In my Recovery Focusing partnership I “hold” the Step in a Focusing way to sense it rather than “think it”. Amazingly powerful!

I will offer you a short glimpse into how I worked Step Two at the rehab last week. (We had already done readings and discussions on this Step in the past, as well as spent time with their sense of Sanity in a session several weeks ago.) This was a new, fresh visit to Step Two. Though I cannot recall much since it was last week, here is a brief description of what I did with the group of Spanish Narcotics Anonymous –most of whom are 18-20 years old (sadly):

Session Title: Our Bottom & Step 2

(First we ground ourselves.)

Here are the invitations I offered them:

Take some time to remember how you were the last few months before coming here. Just be with that a while. Recall a memory, a moment in time, an image of yourself, as how you were during “the worst of all that”.

(Share with Group.)

E. Crying and dirty in the rain, after spending all night on a terrible cocaine high, in which he stole from someone, beat up his friend, etc.

I. The horror of mixing so many drugs at one time — heroin, cocaine, pills — and the paralyzing result of all that, the epileptic-like seizure that resulted.

R. Seeing his two buddies injecting heroine in the back seat of his car, and realizing that this is where he was heading, from snorting heroin to injecting it.

P. A rage in which he destroyed a lot of things in his house.

(There were more people there, but these are the ones I have most clearly in mind.)

Now, remember that though we do have a disease, there is a solution. We can live a better life through the 12 Step Program & Fellowship.

READ STEP TWO:

2 Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Now, take some time to think of a Higher Power.
How is that Higher Power, for you?
Go inside yourself and wait for an image or metaphor or feeling that may come that captures your inside sense of that Power Greater than yourself.
If nothing comes to you, that is normal, and just fine.
(Sometimes one or two may say, “Nothing is coming” but as they stay with it, something suddenly comes and they say: “Oh, I got it!” and are anxious to share.)

(Share with group).

E. Arms opening up the clouds, as if pushing them aside and saying “come to me”.

P. An image of the planet. Earth. And “Nature”.

I. (I can’t recall now, but remember something about a light. This person’s higher power is, in general, a light.)

R. Did not get anything. (He is new and highly distracted.)

Now, think about all that is implied by the word “sanity”.
Invite your body to feel into all that about “sanity”.
How would it feel to be a “sane” person.
How does it feel in your body, especially in your chest and central body area?
Invite an image or metaphor or gesture or a phrase to come to you that captures that. Take your time.

They each had a very meaningful sense of what “sanity” meant to them in that moment.
I can recall how their faces looked, the dignity they were feeling.
Unfortunately, I did not take notes.
The only one I do recall is E. who saw himself on a beach, with a girlfriend, with a diploma from having studied.

(Note: A few have gotten unmistakable “in the body” felt senses, but often they get images. I allow whatever comes to come. I plan on furthering their Focusing by inviting them to check that image with their middle area, to feel it inside, but right now I do not wish to “pressure” or add too much more to what they are already getting.)

I sometimes Clear a Space with the group, especially asking “What is in the way of working this Step?”. Then, we pick one and hold that.

I have asked them to “recall a happy time in their past” so they re-experience a body sense of that memory before going into the “Powerlessness” of Step One.

As a matter of fact, I am glad I followed my sense that it was best to precede work on Step One with a positive sober experience (some of them had to look way back in their past). This allowed me to compare and contrast and to bring them closer to that positive experience at the end of the session.

Focusing into their Powerlessness and unmanageability gave them a disturbing body sense of that — which is actually a good thing in recovery. We do not wish to forget where we came from, but we do wish to have courage to change and hope & faith that there is a “solution”.

It’s exciting work.

Focusing appears to calm them down. There is an intimacy and quietness and sense of wellness when we come together for Focusing. Most of the other classes jangle, are full of distractions.

It is very challenging, especially when new people arrive.
There are many difficulties involved with the environment itself. For my last class, I locked us all into the small kitchen. 🙂

Yes, challenging and difficult, but I feel blessed to be able to share with them my — and their — “experience”, strength, and hope, all of which seem more — hmm — FELT through Focusing!

Thanks again.

Blessings to all.

Suzanne Noel
www.innerwisdoms.com

Read Suzanne’s article on “Recovery Focusing” at The Creative Edge Focusing (TM) website.

The Power of Focusing Partnership Exchange

At Creative Edge Focusing ^TM, I place an emphasis upon the power of Focusing Partnerships, Focusing Groups/Teams, and Focusing Communities to transform, not only the Self, but relationships, the workplace, and the local, national, and international community. Here are two articles from Ann Weiser Cornell’s The Focusing Connection newsletter, Sept., 2008) (subscribe here and also find back issues), where people report on the surprising gifts they received when they went from Focusing Alone to Focusing Partnership Exchange:

Some Insight and Reflection on the Role of Companion in Focusing by John Sabbage

I have noticed that Focusing with a companion is not just easier, it is richer, it offers a treasure that is different and seems more whole than Focusing alone. And it is this sense of wholeness that I want to explore —

There is a ceasing of ‘I’ or ‘you’ in this perspective, a kind of acceptance that something is Focusing and something is listening and there is a wondering in me about that whole thing. What is happening here? Two sparks of humanity finding ways to hold within themselves often apparently polar opposites of parts. All the parts of ourselves seek to live forward, to protect and make safe the precious aliveness. Often these seem at the outset to present opposite and sometimes quite painful and conflicting answers to the how of living forward. Yet through the patient questioning and accepting of what a something is not
wanting and what it is wanting, so its desire to live forward into all that Life implies is revealed and felt. As companion, there is a truly wonder-full sense of gratitude and awe to be witness. As though another’s shift in felt sense towards self-acceptance is also my own, and by implication Life’s own.
John Sabbage may be reached at johnsabbage@btinternet.com

The Power of a Focusing Partnership by Jo Hainsworth

— Focusing is being with someone while they process. In sitting with someone in this way, I’m experiencing how powerful it can be, and it’s proving to be an invitation to me to find within me the ability to be with my own feelings in the same way. As I sat on Skype, simply listening and reflecting back the key content of what my partner was saying, initially I felt disempowered, and wondered how on earth he could possibly resolve the issues he was facing in his life. I just kept on listening and reflecting back, and by the end of the 25 minute session, I had tears come to my eyes as I listened to my partner enthuse about how amazed he was at what he had learned about himself, how the process had unfolded, as someone simply listened to him and reflected back some of what he was saying —

I believe that the Focusing Partnership model is one of the most sustainable
models that can help us to move forward in our lives. After completing a simple
course and learning how to Focus and how to be a Focusing Partner, you can form a partnership with someone that doesn’t cost a cent, and gives you ongoing support to go within and find your own answers for the rest of your life. In this world of high tech, fast moving specialization, it’s a relief to find that we all have the ability to help each other to move forward, not by offering advice or trying to help them to resolve their issues, but by doing something any human can learn to do – shut up and listen!!!! —

Quoting her teacher Suzanne Noel:

“Keeping someone company as they learn Focusing is such an honor for me – it’s like following someone as they journey into their deepest self, a space of not only aliveness, but creativity as well. I only hope more and more people are able to fully experience the power of focusing partnership, this unique relationship with ourselves and with another that redefines authentic intimacy and may be the next evolutionary “carrying forward” of human beingness.”

Jo Hainsworth established the Self Healing Portal last year to get free information out to people to assist them on their healing journey. You can find the SelfHealing Portal at www.selfheal4me.com

The Self-Help Package from Creative Edge Focusing ^TM, with manual, CDs, and DVD, gives you everything you need to start your own Focusing Partnership and, perhaps, build from there to a Focusing Group or Focusing Community.

The Creative Edge Practice e-group provides active support and advise.

Of course, taking a Level One Listening/Focusing class or workshop from a Certified Focusing Professional in your local area can speed you on your way and also perhaps provide the core group for carrying on as a self-help group.

Subscribe to Cornell’s Focusing Connection newsletter at her website. www.focusingresources.com . Ann has been publishing it for well over twenty years, for a very reasonable cost, and always with the cutting edge in short articles on Focusing and Listening.

A Poem on The Power of Focusing Partnership Exchange

I have written about the experiences of “agape,” love for the unique Otherness of another person, which arise frequently during Focusing Partnership Exchanges. The boundary between the Focuser and Listener seems to drop as they enter into a space of “We and Something Greater”:

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. For me, there is no more sacred experience. (from Creative Edge Website: Spirituality)

In closing for this month, a beautiful poem, again from Suzanne Noel, created out of her “felt sense” as she tries to articulate this sense of participation in Focusing Partnerships:

FALLING FROM HEAVEN

Be quiet for me.
Behold me.

As the quivering sea beholds the silent moon
and transforms her
into dancing rivulets of color.

Move me like that. Just like that.

I will sway
until I sing myself
into my song.

I have been calling for you
since long ago,
long before the fog embraced my shores,
before day and night
were squeezed rigid with noise,
long before
my silence fell into its own silence.

As I behold you now,
I have finally heard you.

Sing your song.

I will sway with you
as you sing yourself into it.

You see,

It really is all about me.
It really is all about you.

We are
luminous and liquid,
together. Falling from Heaven.
The vast space between us
is insignificant
in this clear cool air.

Be quiet for me.
Behold me.

Suzanne Noel
www.innerwisdoms.com

Tell me what you think at cefocusing@gmail.com or comment on this blog below !

Click here to subscribe to our Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

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

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

CEF news and goods | 12-step groups, anxiety, Art Therapy, Creativity, depression, Empathic Listening, Enneagram, Focusing, Focusing Classes, Focusing Partnerships, Gendlin, Intuitive Focusing, LISTENING, self-help skills, support groups

PRE-FOCUSING PRACTICE: THE BODY RESPONDS TO EVERYTHING!

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

By Kathy McGuire, September 30, 2008 11:00 am

Free Downloads:

Click here to subscribe to our Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

From Creative Edge Focusing: This month’s Getting A Felt Sense Exercise :

The “Intuitive Feel” of Two Different People : “Good” vs. “Uncomfortable” Feeling

DO THIS EXERCISE OVER AND OVER — THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW THAT ARISES, SOMETIMES A MIRACULOUS CHANGE IN PERCEPTION. You’ll find it at the bottom of this e-newsletter.

In this exercise, you are learning to recognize an “intuitive feel” or “bodily felt sense” by having strong bodily responses brought up by different imagery. When you repeat the exercise, with different people behind each door, different “bodily felt senses” or “intuitive feels” arising in response to each person, you will gain more and more experience with, and confidence in, the body’s response as a source of information (and Intuitive Focusing as the method for symbolizing all this preverbal information into useable knowledge!)

You can also have a similar experience of recognizing your body’s response to various events, and the endless information held “preverbally” in this “intuitive feel,” by, for instance:

(1) playing an up-beat and then a slow piece of music, and noticing the difference in the “bodily-feel” of each. This is, of course, the basis of the success of the symphonic form in music, each section calling up a different “mood” or bodily-response. You can practice using Focusing to look for words and images to describe the “intuitive feel” of the two different pieces of music. You will begin to see that the “felt sense” can be an endless source of new verbalizations, new symbolizations about anything that comes to the body’s attention. You could write a poem, create a dance, describe the music to a friend, write your own piece of music, and create many more symbolizations to describe the effect on your body of the two different pieces of music, all from the one “bodily felt-sense.”

(2) Putting your body into a posture or gesture that seems to capture how you feel right now. Then, putting your body into a posture or gesture that captures “How I would like to be feeling.” Pay attention to the “intuitive feel” of each posture, using Focusing to make words or images for the bodily-feel of each posture, with Checking and Resonating until the symbols feel “just right” in capturing the bodily-feel. Now, go back and forth between the two body postures, paying attention to the bodily-feel of each, and see what happens. New words or images, or a new posture, may emerge!

(3) Reading different pieces of poetry, and noticing the “intuitive feel” that arises in your body to each different poem. Use Focusing, with Checking and Resonating, to find some words or an image for the “intuive feel” that comes in response to each different poem.

(4) Looking at pieces of art and, again, noticing the “intuitive feel” of each which arises in the center of your body, and using Intuitive Focusing, with Checking and Resonating, to create words or images to describe your “body’s response” to each different piece of art.

You see that, whenever we create meaning, or articulate the meaning of something to us, we begin by referring to our “bodily felt sense,” our “intuitive feel,” and creating descriptive words or images to capture that “bodily feel.” Meaning is created from The Creative Edge, the non-linear, right-brain, “intuitive feel” that comes in our body when we turn our attention to “pondering” on something.

I am a very kinesthetic person and an NF (iNtuitive Feeler) on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (you’ll find free versions on this test at the link. Please also see my paper,”The Body As A Source Of Knowledge” for an introduction to Thinking and Feeling as ways-of-being in the world). Getting a “bodily felt sense” comes easily to me. I learned Focusing naturally and easily, simply saying, “Thank goodness Eugene Gendlin (Focusing, Bantam, 1981) finally put into words the way I have been living all along.” But others, perhaps less kinesthetic, perhaps Thinkers rather than Feelers on the MBTI, have great difficulty in knowing what it means to “check with your body and see what comes.”

If none of these Getting A Felt Sense exercises are working for you, if you find yourself saying, “I have no idea what she is talking about! I don’t get a ‘bodily feel’ when I listen to music, read poetry, look at art”, then you might want to check into the writings and books about Focusing by Ann Weiser Cornell at www.focusingresources.com . Ann describes herself as someone who had no idea what a “bodily felt sense” was, and she developed her methods of teaching Focusing with a lot of awareness of people with a similar problem.

Pre-Focusing Practice

B. Getting A Felt Sense #1: The “Intuitive Feel” of Each Person
(from Complete Focusing Instructions download at top of page)

Here you are learning the difference between thinking up an answer in your head and the second Step of Intuitive Focusing: Getting A Felt Sense. (download Complete Focusing Instructions above to find this exercise, or follow this link to my blog introducing it)

Tell me what you think at cefocusing@gmail.com or comment on this blog below !

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

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

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

Intuitive Focusing | anxiety, breathing exercise, depression, Empathic Listening, Focusing, Focusing Classes, Gendlin, Intuitive Focusing, LISTENING, relaxation exercise, self-help skills, stress reduction, support groups

INTUITIVE FOCUSING IS NOT THE SAME AS MEDITATION

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By Kathy McGuire, September 27, 2008 9:41 am

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Focusing, Relaxation, and Meditation

In general, the goal of meditation is to still and clear the constant activity of the mind, to “let go” of controlling thoughts and ego, to rest in a peaceful state of “non-attachment.” With repeated practice, this meditative state of meeting life’s events with “non-attachment” becomes more and more present during the events of everyday living, leading to stress reduction and action from a place of peaceful awareness. Meditation is the OPPOSITE of a problem-solving strategy. Its goal is “emptiness” as a healing state in itself. You can find links to many forms of meditation in blog Week Three: Noticing — Focusing, Relaxation, and Meditation.

Intuitive Focusing IS a problem-solving method. After using meditations like Noticing Your Breathing to “clear a space,” to get to that space of “emptiness,” in Intuitive Focusing, we then turn ourselves toward a more ACTIVE way of engaging and interacting with actual real-life concerns. We ask ourselves an open-ended question, like “What is the feel of this whole thing?”, and then we wait, as long as a minute, for a “felt sense” of an issue or idea to appear in the center of our body. We allow something to arise in that “empty stage” of the body/mind.

However, different from normal intellectual problem-solving, in Focusing, we are not arguing lists of pros and cons. We are finding a way to engage with the “bodily felt sense,” the right-brain “intuitive feel” of an issue or idea, The Creative Edge from which new, non-linear information can unfold. We are engaging in a back-and-forth between this “intuitive feel” and any words, images, or gestures that arise in relation to it. The “body-feel” is the final judge of “rightness.” Through a release of tension, the body tells us, “Yes, that is exactly right. That’s it.”

So, Focusing and meditation are two very different kinds of “Inner Actions,” specific activities we can engage in inside of ourselves.

But we are using meditation as a first step, a way of opening up enough “free attention” in the body for the deeper process of Intuitive Focusing, which involves a more active back-and-forth between the “intuitive feel” of an issue or idea and symbolizations (words, images, gestures) that arise from it.

Relaxation Exercise: Noticing Your Breathing

Here is your relaxation exercise for this month. Print it out, keep it handy, and take those few moments to relax every day, if you can, or as often as possible. Or, you can just open this weekly reminder and walk through the exercise online. Relaxing is one way to “clear a space” inside for a longer-term Focusing Problem Solving session.

Tell me what you think at cefocusing@gmail.com or comment on this blog below !

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

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

relaxation exercises | anxiety, breathing exercise, depression, Empathic Listening, Focusing, Focusing Classes, Gendlin, Intuitive Focusing, LISTENING, relaxation exercise, self-help skills, stress reduction, support groups

INTUITIVE FOCUSING: A “RECIPE” OF INNER ACTIONS

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

By Kathy McGuire, September 24, 2008 3:08 pm

FREE DOWNLOADS:

Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

In the First Week of this four weeks practice of Instant “Ahah!” #1: FOCUSING — Find Out What Is Bothering You, I introduced Gendlin’s Six Step Focusing Process and gave the Complete Focusing Exercise. If you are just joining us, go to e-newsletter archive to read this blog before proceeding so you will understand the basic steps of Focusing and prepared to do the practice exercise below.

It may help to view the Six Steps of Focusing just like any “recipe” that you try to follow — in baking a cake, learning to hit a tennis ball, turning on a complicated piece of machinery. Each Step is a specific activity that you do, like “break open the eggs, then separate the whites from the yolks” or “First, pump up the oil, then set the choke, then turn on the ignition.”

You have to know how to do each action before you can carry out the recipe and get to the goal. After you have done the recipe a lot of times, you can go very smoothly and even make your own intuitive adjustments.

But we are not used to “inner actions,” knowing lots of different activities we can carry on inside. So, in learning Focusing, you are learning a set of actions to take inside of yourself:

(1) Clearing A Space: Using a relaxation technique, a guided fantasy, or a formal Taking an Inventory exercise to go from the intellectualization and tension of the day into a more peaceful contact with your body and its wisdom

(2) Getting A Felt Sense: Now, having set aside everything you already know, you ask an Open-Ended Question, like “How am I today?” or “What am I carrying?” , or, if you have chosen a specific issue to work on, “What is this all about?”, AND THEN YOU PAUSE AND WAIT, FOR AS LONG AS A MINUTE, FOR THE VAGUE, PREVERBAL, SUBTLE “BODILY FELT SENSE” OR “INTUITIVE FEEL” OF AN ISSUE OR IDEA TO ARISE.

This “pausing” and paying attention for the preverbal “feel” is a totally new Inner Activity, one that anyone hardly ever does until they learn Intuitive Focusing, and the actual way to access The Creative Edge, the “bodily feel” that is the wellspring of the “new.”

(3) Finding A Handle: In this Inner Activity, you look for words or an image or a gesture that begins to capture the “quality” (“jumpy,” “black,” “a concrete block,” “sad,” “all knotted up,” “joyful,”) of the”felt sense.”

(4) Resonating And Checking: And, in order to find the exactly right symbolizations to capture this new Creative Edge, you have to GO BACK-AND-FORTH BETWEEN ANY SYMBOLS AND THE “INTUITIVE FEEL” UNTIL YOU FIND THE SYMBOLS THAT ARE “EXACTLY RIGHT,” EXPERIENCED AS A PHYSICAL RELEASE OF TENSION, A LARGE OR SMALL “AHAH! THAT IS IT EXACTLY, FROM YOUR BODY.

(4) Asking: Asking open-ended questions of the “intuitive feel” (“And what is so hard about that?” or “And why is this so important to me?” or “And what is the crux of that anger?” and, again, doing the Inner Actions of Steps 2, 3, and 4 :Pausing to get a Felt Sense, looking for Handle words or images, and Resonating and Checking until the body says, through tension release, “Yes, that is exactly it.” The open-ended question allows a new “felt sense” to form in response, during the pause, and further unfolding happens through resonating and checking.

Inner Actions repeated over and over: Asking, PAUSING, looking for Symbolizations, Checking and Resonating whatever comes until the body says “Yes! That is it.”

(5) Receiving: after a “felt shift,” a step of unfolding or “Ahah!,” stopping just for a moment and letting the new realization “sink in.” Pausing to let the new information get “lived into” by your body, taking it in at a cellular level. And appreciating your body, so often ignored and turned away from during the usual day, for sharing its wisdom with you.

And, then, if you like, you can start another cycle of the Inner Actions of Focusing, looking for further unfolding on the issue or idea: Asking, Pausing for Felt Sense, Looking for Handle symbols, Resonating and Checking until the body-sense says, “Yes, that is exactly right.”

You can try out Intuitive Focusing and receive a Listening Response by joining The Creative Edge Practice e-group here.

INSTANT “AHAH!” # 1 Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You

Focusing On the Creative Edge

And here, again, is your practice exercise. Please take time to walk through the Complete Focusing Session in this blog.

Tell me what you think at cefocusing@gmail.com or comment on this blog below !

Click here to subscribe to our Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

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

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

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

FOCUSING, RELAXATION, AND MEDITATION

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By Kathy McGuire, September 22, 2008 11:42 am

Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual

“Ajas” Instantaneos

Some people find it easy to drop all their stress and enter into an interior Focusing space. But, many people need easy first steps of practice for “going quietly inside.” And even experienced Focusers get caught up in stress and business and welcome a reminder to take a moment to….pause…..(sigh!)…pay attention to their breathing…….(ahhhhhh!)……and…relax…

While many people use meditation techniques as an end in themselves, a way of healing mind and body, we are using them as a way of “clearing a space” in the body for the specific problem-solving process of Intuitive Focusing.

FREE MEDITATION EXPLANATIONS AND PRACTICE ON THE WEB!

Just “Google” “meditation techniques” and a number of excellent websites offering free explanations and practice exercises will pop up. In general, meditation is a way of escaping from and stilling the endless “go-around” of our thoughts and worries, the endless activity of “the monkey mind.” Our Noticing Your Breathing exercise, as a form of “clearing a space” for Focusing, is similar to this breathing process described at the free Meditation Handbook website, which explains seven basic approaches:

“Another useful method is to lend special awareness to the breathing process felt in the belly. Just behind and below your navel (belly button) lies the hara, which is felt as an ethereal ball of energy. The hara is a natural balancing point of your consciousness which can be thought of as the center of your being. Subjectively and poetically speaking, the hara is where man and universe meet. It is the gateway where we merge and become man-universe and universe-man. No one really knows what the hara actually is, but we can use it to our full advantage. Consciously developing a powerful hara center is the most important secret of meditation.

When your consciousness is centered in the hara instead of the head, your thinking process slows down and you can relax in the expanded world of being. Trying to stop distracting thoughts through will power alone leads to more thoughts and a self-defeating inner struggle. By transferring your center of awareness to the hara, thoughts gradually disappear on their own without inner conflict. That is why you see Buddha statues with a big belly. It is an esoteric message that the hara is the key to meditation.

Sit quietly and focus on your belly as it moves in and out as you breathe. Over time the hara point will become more noticeable as your meditation grows stronger. Sudden emergencies, such as near collisions on the highway, tend to activate the hara center. We often get a “gut reaction” from sudden danger. You can nourish the feeling of the hara by simply paying passive attention to it. This relaxed concentration is very close to doing nothing, yet it is still a subtle effort. Drinking herb tea or hot water before meditation sessions relaxes the gut and facilitates awareness of the hara. Overeating and consuming cold drinks tends to make hara awareness more difficult.”

The bolding is mine, showing how this meditation practice is seen as strengthening your ability to notice “gut feelings,” “intuitions,” a great companion to Intuitive Focusing.

If you are really intrigued, you can go to Free Meditations website and find several different versions of a Buddhist breath meditation and many, many more meditation techniques.

And, last but not least, at The Meditation Society website, you can find links to 108 different meditations on the web!

But we are using meditation as a first step, a way of opening up enough “free attention” in the body for the deeper process of Intuitive Focusing, which involves a more active back-and-forth between the “intuitive feel” of an issue or idea and symbolizations (words, images, gestures) that arise from it.

Print and Practice!!!!!

Here is your relaxation exercise for this month. Print it out, keep it handy, and take those few moments to relax every day, if you can, or as often as possible.

If you order our Self-Help Package, , you can listen on audio CD Intuitive Focusing: Disk one, Track 2, with Dr, McGuire’s peaceful voice to keep you company — and help you stay on track!!

PRE-FOCUSING PRACTICE
A. RELAXATION SUGGESTIONS (from Complete Focusing Instructions, which you can download from the link at the top of this blog)

The quiet time between instructions is an important time for just breathing—and relaxing.

You can lie on the floor or, for most exercises, sit in a chair. If you fall asleep, it’s okay! Means you need more rest! But you may also want to practice sitting up to avoid sleeping.

Especially at the beginning, time those “1 minute” pauses for breathing in—and out— You will be amazed at how long a minute is, how seldom we ever pause for a whole minute!!!

1. Noticing-Allow 10-15 minutes

Lie down and make yourself comfortable—Loosen any clothing that is too tight—
Massage your own neck and face, making small circles with your fingertips over small areas at a time—Find at least five different spots on your neck and five on your face to massage in this way— Feel the tension leaving—
1 minute
Stretch your whole body three times, reaching your arms out over your head, arching your back, and pointing your toes— After each stretch, collapse into the floor and breath deeply, relaxing—stretch—and relax—stretch—and relax—stretch—and relax
10 seconds
Now, lie there and notice your breathing. Don’t try to change it,just notice the breath going in and out—in—and out—in—and out—in—and out
10 seconds
Now, begin to notice any thoughts or pictures you are having. JUST NOTICE THEM—and keep breathing, in—and out—in—and out—
1 minute
Just notice your thoughts going by, like a movie—don’t think or problem solve—just notice—and keep breathing, in—and out—in and out—
1 minute
If you realize that you have started thinking about something and are trying to solve a problem or have started worrying about something, just allow yourself to leave that thought and to come back to noticing your breathing, going in—and out—in—and out—
1 minute
If you have started thinking and problem solving, just leave that thought—and come back to noticing your breath, going in—and out—in—and out—
1 minute
Just noticing your thoughts, like a movie, letting them go, returning to noticing your breath, going in—and out—in—and out
3 minutes
Now, massage any parts of your body that seem tense or uncomfortable—
1 minute
Stretch one more time, and get up when you are ready.

Free Resources

Want to share your experience, do Focusing online and get an actual Listening Response, ask questions? Join The Creative Edge Practive yahoo e-support group.

Tell me what you think at cefocusing@gmail.com or comment on this blog below !

Click here to subscribe to our Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

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

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 | anxiety, breathing exercise, depression, Empathic Listening, Focusing, Focusing Classes, Gendlin, Intuitive Focusing, LISTENING, meditation, relaxation exercise, self-help skills, stress reduction, support groups

FOCUSING AND ANXIETY

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By Kathy McGuire, September 19, 2008 11:49 am

Download Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

In the First Week of this four weeks practice of Instant “Ahah!” #1: FOCUSING — Find Out What Is Bothering You, I introduced Gendlin’s Six Step Focusing Process and gave the Complete Focusing Exercise. If you are just joining us, go to blog Complete Focusing Session before proceeding so you will understand the basic steps of Focusing and prepared to do the practice exercise below.

In my personal/work life, I am caught up in a situation generating a lot of anxiety. I often use the Relaxation: Noticing Your Breathing exercise to help break through the wall of anxiety so that I can fall asleep or, at other times, to “Clear A Space” for a deeper Focusing Turn.

I also sometimes add the basic energy meridian tapping sequence from Emotional Freedom Techniques (www.emofree.com ), another free self-help method which often allows the deep sighs and tension release of the relaxation response.

And, really most successfully, I turn to The Creative Edge Practice E-Group — just knowing there are Listeners out there in cyberspace usually allows me to shift immediately from overwhelming anxiety to relieving tears, even sobbing, about the deeper fears and issues underlying the anxiety. As actual research with brain waves and galvanic skin response (GSR) has shown, simply using Focusing to find a “name,” to find words and images for what the body is carrying subconsciously, actually brings about relaxation. It is better to know what you are facing, even if the words seem bad to others!

Here is a recent example of a Focusing Turn on “Debilitating Anxiety” which I did on The Creative Edge Practice E-Group, getting a lot of “felt shifting” and release of my anxiety (and the ability to sleep for two nights after the Turn) as well as, in a few hours, several comforting, empathic Listening Responses from group members throughout the world. I include only a small part of the Turn, demonstrating the initial shift from “free-floating anxiety” to relieving tears and sobbing as words come as a “Handle” on the felt sense:

Hello, Group,

I am suffering from “debilitating anxiety,” frozen neck and shoulders and jaw, sleeplessness or restless sleeping. I am reaching out to your friendly comfort in hopes of “touching” the edge of this anxiety, and allowing it to unfold its message. I find anxiety especially difficult to “disidentify from”, when trying to do Focusing alone, so I reach for your compassion — just knowing you are out there usually helps!

So, I am stopping to “sense in,” to try to stand at the edge of this anxiety, instead of being paralyzed inside of it — I imagine I will do some Clearing A Space, naming the various issues I am carrying, seeing which wants attention — or perhaps not! We’ll see what happens in this non-linear Focusing process! But, first, just turning toward my body with some noticing of my breathing as a way to come into my body, and with the general Focusing question, “What is this ‘anxiety’ all about?” —

(eyes closed, sigh, breathing—) Words come up almost immediately, with tears (and the words completely surprise me!): “I feel so alone. I am so lonely.” (sobbing comes, as I ask myself, “What is this lonely?” and wait for the fuller “felt sense” of “it all” to come —so I am asking, “What is this sobbing about lonely, and related somehow to anxiety? (still surprised at the words) (more sobbing, don’t know “why”) —anxiety is somehow related to “feeling so lonely” — “What is ‘all of this’?” and Focusing on the “feel of it all” —

Some thinking comes: “Perhaps it is the sense of ‘battle’ involved in a lot of work and family things on my plate — the “uphill struggle” so commonly created around herself by an 8 on the Enneagram: The Challenger — hostility all around — so, I will stop and do Focusing, sensing into what comes in the ‘center of my body’ in response to this ‘guess’ —

(deep breath, quiet pause for inner ‘reflection’) —(shoulders go up and down in spasm of “fear” — so I decided to “accentuate,” to repeat this body motion, see if something comes as a “felt sense,” larger “feel” of “all of that fear in my shoulders) — (lots of sobbing comes as I repeat this “spasm of fear” and the words, again, “I feel so alone; I am so alone” (“What is this ‘alone’?, I ask myself. These words still surprise me) —

(long pause for Focusing on the “feel of it all”)— Words: “It seems, or perhaps, it is that I am seeing negative possibilities in areas where other people don’t want to think about them or hear about them, and this leaves me alone with my fears, perhaps” — knowing this is just a “guess,” again, I will stop and “resonate” these words against the “bodily felt sense” that is MORE than any of these words — “Is it that?”, I ask, and wait quietly, reflecting inward, and see what comes —–

(big sigh, breath, and another) — (moving my head back and forth on my neck rapidly, trying to break through this tension) —(big breath) — (shoulders spasming again) —

“And isn’t this what I always do, catastrophize, intuit the worst that can happen — and sometimes I am right, sometimes wrong (and these new words come) — but always I am prepared! I am prepared for the worst! Prepared for the battle, the disillusionment, the failure —- (big sigh)

This is just the beginning, but you can see how quickly the even distant presence of Listening Others helped me to “relate to” the anxiety, instead of being frozen inside it, and allowed new steps of forward motion, of intuitive problem solving to arise.

You can explore joining The Creative Edge Practice e-group here.

INSTANT “AHAH!” # 1 Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You

Focusing On the Creative Edge

And here, again, is your practice exercise. Please take time to walk through the Complete Focusing Session as I did in the example above. You will find it in this blog, along with the opportunity to download the Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual in English or Spanish.

Free Resources

Want to share your experience, do Focusing online and get an actual Listening Response, ask questions? Join The Creative Edge Practive yahoo e-support group.

Tell me what you think at cefocusing@gmail.com or comment on this blog below !

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

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

Click here to subscribe to our Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

Pre-Focusing Practice: The Felt Sense of Two Different People

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By Kathy McGuire, September 18, 2008 1:45 pm

Download Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

GETTING A “FELT SENSE,” AN “INTUITIVE FEEL”

Gendlin’s Focusing (Bantam, 1981, 1984), and my Intuitive Focusing, is a procedure for going back-and-forth between the bodily-feel of an issue or idea or creative project and words/images/gestures until symbolizations are found which are “just right” in capturing this “intuitive feel” of “the whole thing. In this series of blogs, I am teaching you the six steps of the Focusing process (see blog Complete Focusing Session for a sample Focusing Session).

In the first Step of Focusing, you “Clear A Space” with relaxation or other exercises, setting aside already-known intellectualizations and coming in touch with your body. See Relaxation #1 Noticing for a sample relaxation exercise.

In the second Step of Focusing, Getting A Felt Sense, you wait quietly, for as much as a minute, for a subtle “feel” of the whole thing, an “intuition,” to form in the center of your body. Then, you create words or images that are just right to capture it. You are looking for the “intuitive feel,” the Creative Edge, the right-brain information that is more than you can put into words. Gendlin (Focusing, Bantam, 1981, 1984) calls it “the felt sense” of the whole thing.

In this Pre-Focusing Practice exercise, I try to give you guided imagery that will evoke some strong, hard-to-miss bodily “felt senses.”

Especially at the beginning, time those “1 minute” pauses for breathing in—and out— You will be amazed at how long a minute is, how seldom we ever pause for a whole minute!!!

You can lie on the floor or, for most exercises, sit in a chair. If you fall asleep, it’s okay! Means you need more rest! But you may also want to practice sitting up to avoid sleeping.

1. The “Intuitive Feel” of Each Person-Allow 10 minutes
(Joan Klagsbrun invented this exercise)

I’m going to invite you to imagine two doors. Behind the first will be someone that you feel good about. Behind the second will be someone who upsets you.

You will notice that you have a different experience of each person in the center of your body, around the chest and heart area. This experience, this “intuitive feel” without words, is the Creative Edge.

Although initially this experience comes as an “intuition,” or a “feeling,” without words, by paying attention to this “intuitive feel,” you can create many new words and images, truly innovative ideas.

—Close your eyes and get comfortable—loosen any clothing that is too tight—
1 minute
—Just follow your breathing for a little while, noticing the breath going in—and out—
1 minute
—Now take a few moments to think about who the two people will be, one that you feel good about, one who upsets you.
1 minute
—And think about the kind of door you’ll put each behind, the decorations, color — 30 seconds

—Now, imagine yourself walking up to the first door and opening it—Here is the person that you feel good about—10 seconds

—Let yourself notice the “feel” of that person in your body—10 seconds

—Find some words or an image to describe it—30 seconds

—Next, bid that person “Goodbye,” close the door, and walk away—10 seconds

—Now, imagine yourself walking up to the other door and opening it—Here is the person who upsets you—10 seconds

—Again, notice the “experience” of that person in the center of your body, the “intuitive feel—10 seconds

—Find some words or an image to describe it—30 seconds

—Next, bid that person “Goodbye,” close the door, and walk away—10 seconds

—Now, spend a few moments comparing the two “felt senses,” the good feelings and the uncomfortable feelings — 30 seconds

—These are the “bodily felt senses,” the “intuitive feel” you have, of the two people involved. They are more than you could ever put into words, but you can make many words and images from them—30 seconds

— Spend as long as you wish exploring these two experiences, going back and forth between the two “intuitive feels” and looking for words or images to describe the difference—
3 minutes
—And when you are ready, slowly bring your attention back into the room.

DOWNLOAD COMPLETE FOCUSING INSTRUCTIONS MANUAL FROM LINK AT TOP OF THIS BLOG

Remember, it can be much easier to learn Intuitive Focusing in the company of a Focused Listener. You can learn all about Focusing Listening, and find resources, at the website for Creative Edge Focusing (TM), www.cefocusing.com . And you will find additional Complete Focusing Instructions, for personal growth, creativity, and spirituality, in the Instant “Ahah!”s Mini-Manual, available along with newsletter subscription.

If you subscribe to our e-newsletter, you will receive three exercises a week by email to help you learn and practice Listening and Focusing at home and work.

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

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

Click here to subscribe to our Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

PRE-FOCUSING PRACTICE: #1 RELAXATION: NOTICING YOUR BREATHING

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By Kathy McGuire, September 6, 2008 1:58 pm

From Creative Edge Focusing: This week’s Relaxation Exercise

Print and Practice!!!!!

Here is your relaxation exercise for this week, which we will actually practice for four weeks until it becomes natural to you. Print it out, keep it handy, and take those few moments to relax every day, if you can, or as often as possible. Relaxing is one way to “clear a space” inside for a longer-term Focusing Problem Solving session (see blog Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You for a complete introduction to Focusing) .

You will also find this in the Complete Focusing Instructions download at Creative Edge Focusing, p.3: Pre-Focusing Practice A. Relaxation Suggestions #1: Noticing. You get it by joining our e-support group for further support in practicing Listening and Focusing.

And, if you order our Self-Help Package, you can listen on audio CD Intuitive Focusing: Disk one, Track 2, with Dr, McGuire’s peaceful voice to keep you company — and help you stay on track!!

PRE-FOCUSING PRACTICE

A. RELAXATION SUGGESTIONS (from Complete Focusing Instructions)

Use a gentle, slowly-paced voice, leaving time as suggested between parts of the instruction (time those 1 minute pauses — they are way longer than you can imagine!). The quiet time between instructions is an important time for just breathing—and relaxing.

You can lie on the floor or, for most exercises, sit in a chair. If you fall asleep, it’s okay! Means you need more rest! But you may also want to practice sitting up to avoid sleeping.

Especially at the beginning, time those “1 minute” pauses for breathing in—and out— You will be amazed at how long a minute is, how seldom we ever pause for a whole minute!!!

I turn to this simple relaxation exercise when I am having trouble sleeping or am otherwise overwhelmed with stress, anxiety, tension. It is a great first step to a more lengthy Complete Focusing session.

1. Noticing-Allow 10-15 minutes

Lie down and make yourself comfortable—Loosen any clothing that is too tight—
Massage your own neck and face, making small circles with your fingertips over small areas at a time—Find at least five different spots on your neck and five on your face to massage in this way— Feel the tension leaving—
1 minute
Stretch your whole body three times, reaching your arms out over your head, arching your back, and pointing your toes— After each stretch, collapse into the floor and breath deeply, relaxing—stretch—and relax—stretch—and relax—stretch—and relax
10 seconds
Now, lie there and notice your breathing. Don’t try to change it,just notice the breath going in and out—in—and out—in—and out—in—and out
10 seconds
Now, begin to notice any thoughts or pictures you are having. JUST NOTICE THEM—and keep breathing, in—and out—in—and out—
1 minute
Just notice your thoughts going by, like a movie—don’t think or problem solve—just notice—and keep breathing, in—and out—in and out—
1 minute
If you realize that you have started thinking about something and are trying to solve a problem or have started worrying about something, just allow yourself to leave that thought and to come back to noticing your breathing, going in—and out—in—and out—
1 minute
If you have started thinking and problem solving, just leave that thought—and come back to noticing your breath, going in—and out—in—and out—
1 minute
Just noticing your thoughts, like a movie, letting them go, returning to noticing your breath, going in—and out—in—and out
3 minutes
Now, massage any parts of your body that seem tense or uncomfortable—
1 minute
Stretch one more time, and get up when you are ready.

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Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Intuitive Focusing, self-help skills | breathing exercise, Empathic Listening, Focusing, Focusing Classes, Gendlin, Intuitive Focusing, LISTENING, relaxation exercise, self-help skills, stress reduction, support groups

CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS: LEVEL ONE PHONE CLASS

http://www.innerrelationship.com/teachers/hirsch.html

By Kathy McGuire, September 1, 2008 12:31 pm

OFFERED BY CREATIVE EDGE ASSOCIATE AND INNER RELATIONSHIP TEACHER RUTH HIRSCH:

One must not search outside nature,
but within oneself,
where the keys to harmony and happiness lie.
Marc Chagall

Following is information on a new Level One Inner Relationship Focusing Telephone course that will be starting in the coming month. Please feel free to pass this information on to others who you think might benefit from it.

The classes are largely experiential, with plenty of time for questions and practice. The trainings have been described as clear, comprehensive, enjoyable, and significantly growth enhancing at the same time.

All this from the comfort and safety of your own home or office!

Focusing offers a way to enhance all aspects of your personal and professional life, including quality of relationships, increased effectiveness in your work, and even improved quality of life.

Here are a few quotes from former Focusing students:

“From this work I’ve been able to know what really brings me joy. The process feels sacred.
It’s like listening to that quiet inner voice that knows.”

“The work … was a watershed experience for me. It allowed me to connect with my emotions.
All the talking from years of therapy didn’t let me reach my feelings the way this work did.”

“This process has made a huge difference in how I treat myself. No longer is my harsh inner critic in control!”

Here’s the flyer for the course:

FROM THE BODY COMES OUR NEXT MOVES
A quote from Eugene Gendlin, Discoverer/Creator of Focusing

The body is not just a pipeline for incoming sensory data.
It’s not a safe deposit box where you put something in
and expect to get the same thing out.
There’s something more. The body can imply something new-a right next step.
It’s more like you put a worm into a cocoon and get a butterfly back.

Level 1: Focusing Basics: Self Guiding, and Empathic Listening
4 Thursdays: 9.11, 18, 25, & 10.2 10 am – 12:30 pm EDT Eastern Time

This is a great opportunity to learn the basics of Focusing: How to Focus alone & with a partner, as well as how to facilitate focusing for another focuser- And to reap the benefits of enhanced relationships with yourself and others, stress reduction, ease of decision making, and much more! All this from the comfort and safety of your own home or office.

For more information regarding how Focusing might benefit you and your life, feel free to write or call Ruth (see below for contact info.)

Level One is the prerequisite for all advanced Focusing courses.

The only pre-requisite for this course is to have a Focusing session facilitated by a Certified Focusing Trainer. I am offering individual sessions by phone, toll-free for residents of the US, Canada, Ireland, UK, Italy, Spain, and France.

About the Trainer: Ruth is a Certified Focusing trainer and Certifying Coordinator for The Focusing Institute. For the past 18 years she has maintained a private practice in which she works with people individually, and in groups. Ruth began Focusing 16 years ago, and is now in her 14th year of training others in using this wonderful process for themselves and with others.

In her individual work, she specializes in balancing and bringing peace, comfort, and insight to body, mind, heart and spirit. In her teaching, she delights in sharing Focusing with others as an individual life-enhancing practice, and as an adjunct to enhance the work of other healing professions.

General Info: This course is limited to a maximum of 6 participants. The training is largely experiential, and is taught in a clear, compassionate, enjoyable manner. Registration fees include the course, unlimited questions between sessions (to be answered via email or at the next class session), and a manual specific to each level.

The fee for each level is $250, payable by credit card, or US check. There is a 10% Discount for pre-payment of all 4 levels. Also, space permitting, those who have already taken a Level One course with any certified Inner Relationship Focusing trainer and would like to review the level may do so for half price. The class size is limited to a maximum of 6 participants.

The course will be taught via a Conference line to a US telephone number.

VERY IMPORTANT: To register, or for any questions, comments, or to just say hello, please contact Ruth directly at rhirsch@netvision.net.il (i.e. not by pressing return to this email if you’ve received it from the Focusing Discussion List), and/or by calling 510.868.0885.

If these dates and/or times don’t work for you, please let me know what would work so that your needs might be considered in future scheduling.
—
RUTH HIRSCH MSW, MPH, CMT
Focusing Trainer & Certifying Coordinator

Israel 02. 563.0999
U.S. 510-868-0885

What lies behind us and what lies before us
are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

From Creative Edge Focusing (TM): Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director