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Posts tagged: self-reflection

INTUITIVE FOCUSING: THE ONE MINUTE PAUSE — REFLECTING, NOT REACTING

By Kathy McGuire, April 10, 2009 5:02 pm

Self-Reflection

We like to think of ourselves as free. But, most of the time, we are actually simply reacting to the stimuli around us. Something happens, and we REACT. We do not usually STOP, even for a moment, to REFLECT upon what is happening. We are not “free” but quite controlled by the situations around us. And, most importantly, we are also controlled by the residue left by our past experiences in similar situations.

Human beings have the special capacity to be self-reflective. We are able to take a step back and look at what we are doing, ponder, “Why am I acting like this in this situation?”, and change our future actions. But too seldom do we take this “one minute pause” before reacting.

The capacity for self-reflection becomes urgently important when our “reactions” are not serving us well. It is then that we seek psychotherapy or other help — to figure out why we act as we do and how we might act differently.

True change comes from INSIDE and cannot be given as advice by another. Change from advice is short-term. Through self-reflection, change becomes lasting. Internal patterns change, like a kaleidoscope turning. THEN new thoughts, emotions, and action steps become possible.

Before a crisis leads to therapy, self-reflection can be learned as the simple self-help skill, Intuitive Focusing. Based upon Eugene Gendlin’s six-step Focusing process (Focusing, Bantam, 1981, 1984), Intuitive Focusing is the disciplined “practice” of self-reflection. Intuitive Focusing makes productive use of the PAUSE for self-reflection.

During the pause, the Focuser turns inward and pays attention to the “intuitive feel,” the “something-more-than-words” which underlies thoughts, behaviors, actions. During this quiet inner attention, the Focuser looks for words or images that are “just right” in capturing the “intuitive feel.” When “just right” symbolizations are found, the “bodily-felt sense” opens and shifts, is carried forward to new understandings. The kaleidoscope turns, and a whole new pattern of possibilities arises.

The PRISMS/S PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESS begins with the PAUSE and goes through the Intuitive Focusing steps needed for paradigm shifts, for the kaleidoscope to turn.

While Intuitive Focusing can be practiced alone, the quiet time for self-reflection can be greatly facilitated by the company of a Focused Listener. The Focused Listener says back the Focusers words, with special attention to the “feeling tone,” the “something more than words.” In a Focusing Community, people take turns as the Focuser and Listener, helping each other with problem solving.

Experiential Focusing Therapy also places emphasis upon teaching this self-help skill of productive self-reflection, so that clients can continue to solve their own problems throughout their life.

For application in business settings, see my article, “Creative Edge Organizations: Businesses and Organizations As A ‘Kind’ Of Focusing Community” from The Folio: Thirtieth Anniversity Tribute edition at The Focusing Institute, www.focusing.org .

You can learn all about Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening with the many resources listed below:

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

experiential focusing therapy, Intuitive Focusing, LISTENING, self-help skills | Active Listening, behavior change, depression, experiential focusing therapy, Focused Listening, Focusing-Oriented Therapy, Gendlin's Focusing, Getting A Felt Sense, Intuitive Focusing, paradigm shifts, self-help skills, self-reflection

INTUITIVE FOCUSING: “FELT SENSE’ OF A SITUATION DISCLOSES LIFE MEANING AND DIRECTION

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By Kathy McGuire, January 12, 2009 3:14 pm

SITUATION DISCLOSES LIFE DIRECTION: FELT SENSE OF A POSITIVE SITUATION

It’s so easy to see using Intuitive Focusing to unravel the “felt residue” of a situation only when the feelings are negative, unsettling, confusing. However, Focusing can be used just as fruitfully to make words for, to articulate positive experiences.

Free Downloads:

Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

If we live in a Focusing/Felt-Sensing way, we will be able to use our “intuitive feel” of situations that touch us or matter to us to uncover, to unfold our most important life meanings and directions. Here is an experience I had and how, taking time later to “sense into” and make words for “the whole intuitive feel” left by the situation guided and enriched me.

Context of the day: I went to a Women-In-Networking (WIN) holiday luncheon. This is a gathering of small business owners and other “Women in Business.” I had fallen just before needing to leave and severely bruised several boney parts. I iced them a little, but had to rush off — I am turning 62 on Dec. 24, and this enters into “feeling more fragile.”

At the meeting, the Emcee, one of few men involved in the organization, told a story about how his single-mother mom had worked and sacrificed to make a home, a living, a life for her children. Throughout the entire telling, he kept completely choking up, being almost unable to speak, tearing up, but he continued on. Noone freaked out. Many people teared up along with him. Occasionally he would make a joke or articulate a point. It did not seem to phase him at all. His main point: (and this made him cry/choke up a lot!) That we here at WIN were supporting each other in a way that his mother did not have support, and how precious and important that was.

Then a woman minister spoke about her ministry, about “women who live dangerously,” meaning “women who are willing to ‘lose’ their life in order to ‘find’ it” (I tear up a little here right now). She told stories of her own widowhood at age 45, about women in third world countries struggling to raise, not only their own, but children orphaned by AIDS. She told stories of how women seem to have a special talent for rising to the occasion in the midst of adversity, being able to pick up the pieces and go on, helping themselves and others. Again, many people were wiping their eyes and sniffling.

And I am sitting there thinking/feeling: this is what I am working on.

And, later, at home, I took time to relax into my body by paying attention to my body, then asked myself in a Focusing way, “What was it about that meeting that is so ‘crux’ to me?” and waited for “the feel of it all” to form in the center of my body. And these are the words that came as I went back-and-forth between words and “the intuitive feel” until the words were “just right”:

This calling of mine about integrating masculine and feminine, work and home, about the way in which “tears of being touched and moved” are our body’s “signposts that we are on the path to profound meaning—and I wondered how I could remind these people of this teary and heartfelt experience they all went through, happily, in a holiday mood, when I proposed (which I was getting clarity on doing as a next step) that we add real Listening/Focusing Support Groups (for creative thinking, problem solving, and emotional clarity — that these two things are not separate but go hand in hand) to the networking meetings that we have and to creating Creative Edge Organizations.

And, in there, is the crux of my work (at least in this area — that leaves parenting support groups, relationship support groups, etc., etc.) — but this thing right here is the crux about bringing work and home, masculine and feminine, thinking and feeling together in a business setting—

Moral of The Story: Living In a Self-Reflective Way Enriches Meaning

So here we see that simply paying attention to what is happening in our “bodily felt sense” or “intuitive feel” while we live our life situations, and taking a few moments to give Focusing attention to make words for “the feel of it all” enriches our life with meaning. Not just for difficulties and problem solving, but in terms of positive, profound indications that we are on the “right track” in terms of life directions.

Pre-Focusing Practice B. Getting A Felt Sense #4: “Finding the Felt Senses of A Situation”

(from Complete Focusing Instructions, free download link at top of this blog) Week Four of four weeks of practice

Remember, especially at the beginning, time those “1 minute” pauses. You will be amazed at how long a minute is, how seldom we ever pause for a whole minute!!! And it is exactly in the PAUSE that the Creative Edge comes.

4. The “Felt Sense,” The “Intuitive Feel” of a Situation-Allow 15 to 20 minutes

In this exercise, you are going through a first round of Intuitive Focusing, looking for The Creative Edge, the something-new-that-is-more-than-words about an actual situation during the week that felt unfinished.

Although you may have gone around and around in your head, trying to find a solution, to figure out what happened that was strange, now you will set aside that left-brain problem solving and consult your “right-brain wisdom, the bodily “intuitive feel” of “that whole thing.” First, we use a Relaxation exercise as a way of clearing some space inside for Focusing:

—Let’s start with The Counting Meditation for initial Relaxation:

—First, stretch—and relax, stretch—and relax, stretch—and relax—-30 sec.

—Now, begin noticing your breathing, just noticing the breath going in—and out—in—and out—30 sec.

—Now, on each exhale, count starting with “1” and continuing, on each exhale, until you reach “9”—1—2—3—4—5—6—7—8—9
2 minutes
—If you lose track, just start counting over again with “1”. When you get to “9,” start over and count to “9” one more time—
2 minutes
—Spend a few minutes coming to a peaceful place inside, noticing your breathing—
2 minutes
—Now, bring to mind an incident or a situation from the past week which feels unfinished, left behind an uncomfortable or confusing feeling or even a positve feeling—
2 minutes
—Set aside all your ready-made words or images, and try to get a fresh “intuitive feel” for how you felt in that situation, paying attention to the center of your body, around the heart/chest area—
1 minute
—Try to find some words or an image to describe the “intuitive feel” of it, The Creative Edge before words—
1 minute
—Keep checking until the words or image are just right.
1 minute
—Ask yourself, “What’s that about for me?” and wait for a felt sense, an “intuitive feel” that is more than words, to form—
1 minute
—Find some words or an image to capture that “intuitive sense”. You are letting your body’s Wisdom tell you about the situation, instead of answering with everything you already know.
1 minute
—When you are ready, come slowly back into the room.

If you wanted to continue with another round of Focusing, you would simply ask again, “And why is this important to me?”, wait to see what comes as an “intuitive feel,” look for words or an image that are “just right,” checking and resonating until something shifts inside. You can find full Focusing Instructions in Complete Focusing Instructions, p.12-17, download from the link at the top of this blog.