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By Kathy McGuire, June 14, 2008 12:27 pm

Interest Areas: Seven Places To Start Practice Groups !!!

The Interest Areas under “Is This You” at The Creative Edge Focusing website (www.cefocusing.com ) give the First Ten Steps you might take to bring the model of Listening/Focusing into seven whole different areas of living: Organizations, Support Groups and Communities, Relationships, Parenting, Education, Spiritual Communities, and Helping Professions (psychotherapy, counselling, medicine, body work, etc.).

I am introducing you to each of these Interest Areas and possible First Steps so that you might start a Listening/Focusing practice group in any of these areas.

INTEREST AREA: CONSCIOUS RELATIONSHIP

Below you will find the Introduction to the Conscious Relationships Interest Area at www.cefocusing.com  . Just as one might undertake an ongoing, disciplined “practice” in yoga or meditation or piano or public speaking, I suggest that we turn the same kind of “conscious, disciplined practice” to our intimate relationships and friendships. Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, the Listening/Focusing Partnership Exchange skills, makes the perfect tool for growing through The Way of Relationship:

The Way of Relationship

Intimate relationships can be seen as a spiritual path, The Way of Relationship. Relationships can be a self-therapy. Relationships will point up your “blind spots” or “shadow sides” more effectively (or shall I say more quickly, anyway!) than psychotherapy.

The Way of Relationship can be practiced between lovers. The experiences of empathy which arise during the exchange of Listening/Focusing turns lead to increased emotional and physical intimacy.

The Way of Relationship can also be practiced between friends or in a spiritual or other community. The experiences of empathy, of individual uniqueness as well as common humanity common in Listening/Focusing Exchanges, can be a spiritual experience of the love called Agape, or Buber’s “I-Thou” vs. “I-It” relationship.

Harville Hendrix’ book, Getting The Love You Want, was an early one stating that it’s okay for your relationship to be “therapy.” We are attracted to people who have the capacity to heal us in some way, to move us on our journey toward wholeness. Hendricks calls it The Imago, a kind of template of the kind of person needed for your healing. Ideally, you will find a person enough like your parent to offer the experiences needed for healing but also capable of going through this healing journey with you . At www.gettingtheloveyouwant.com  , you will find more books and training programs connecting you to a network of people, through Imago Relationships International, who are committed to conscious relationship.

Gay and Kathleen Hendricks’ book, Conscious Loving: The Journey To Co-Commitment, names the bedrock of good relationship as complete, absolute, and utter honesty at all times. This book and their many other books and workshops through the Hendricks Institute, www.hendricks.com  , give many concrete techniques and practices for conscious relationship.

Although there are many wonderful, established programs for Conscious Relationship such as the two above, Intuitive Focusing, as aided by Focused Listening, is the missing link in almost every program, the one thing that is usually not taught but makes all the difference in terms of whether people actually succeed in the programs or not.

Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, used in Focusing Partnerships and Interpersonal Focusing, are the bedrock self-help skills which provide a way through. They help you to stick with it when buttons get pushed. They tell you how to mine the treasure in “confrontations.” These are really confrontations with your own shadow side– the parts of yourself you can’t see – the positive aspects you devalue as well as negative aspects you do not want to accept.

The goal for everyone is “wholeness,” the integration of positive and negative shadow aspects, and we choose friends and partners who will push us toward wholeness.

Love Relationships

Perhaps there is no more important place for the use of Empathic Listening and Experiential Focusing skills than in love relationships.

When we “fall in love,” we are drawn to something in the Other that intrigues and fascinates us—CLICK HERE TO GO TO INTEREST AREA: CONSCIOUS RELATIONSHIP AT OUR WEBSITE AND READ ON, INCLUDING FIND THE FIRST TEN STEPS FOR BRINGING LISTENING/FOCUSING INTO INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS AND FRIENDSHIPS.

Go to Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete Mini-Course on increasing emotional and sexual intimacy.

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

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 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.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website

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