Focusing will enable you to find and change where your life is stuck, cramped, hemmed in, slowed down.
And it will enable you to change - to live from a deeper place than just your thoughts and feelings
Gene Gendlin
What is Focusing?
Focusing is a mind ~ body awareness approach which helps us make contact with areas where perhaps we feel stuck and encourages healing of long established emotional and physical patterns which prevent us from feeling fully engaged with life.
Focusing in a natural skill which was identified by Gene Gendlin - It is a skill which can be learned. It is a way of being rather than doing.
See Origins and Development of Focusing page for more details about Gendlin's work.
By developing our capacity to listen to and trust the wisdom of our bodies, Focusing allows us to go beyond our day to day thinking. We can learn to access and trust parts of ourselves which we may have been told were not acceptable and have perhaps worked for many years to keep hidden.
As we learn to Focus we become increasingly able to tune into, hear and listen to the knowing which is held in our bodies about what is right for us. We develop a deeper inner relationship with all parts of ourselves and make contact with our life energy. As we do this, it enables us to live life more fully.
When we Focus, we allow our bodies communicate their inner knowing by paying attention to our Felt Sense. The Felt Sense is not a specific physical sensation such as a pain, nor it is an emotion. We will encounter these sensations and feelings as we focus, however the Felt Sense is more than just these familiar sensations, it is a whole sense of something,
To get a flavour of what the Felt Sense is like - try this.
Don't think about it, just bring to mind a sense of being in a favourite place or a warm sunny day or just look at the picture above. Take a moment to notice what comes, how and where you experience that in your body and you will have an idea of a Felt Sense. The Felt Sense communicates with us, in a way that goes beyond just body sensations, images, emotions/feelings or words, it gives us an "all about this thing" sense. When we Focus we listen to and engage with what makes itself known in this way.
Focusing in a natural skill which was identified by Gene Gendlin - It is a skill which can be learned. It is a way of being rather than doing.
See Origins and Development of Focusing page for more details about Gendlin's work.
By developing our capacity to listen to and trust the wisdom of our bodies, Focusing allows us to go beyond our day to day thinking. We can learn to access and trust parts of ourselves which we may have been told were not acceptable and have perhaps worked for many years to keep hidden.
As we learn to Focus we become increasingly able to tune into, hear and listen to the knowing which is held in our bodies about what is right for us. We develop a deeper inner relationship with all parts of ourselves and make contact with our life energy. As we do this, it enables us to live life more fully.
When we Focus, we allow our bodies communicate their inner knowing by paying attention to our Felt Sense. The Felt Sense is not a specific physical sensation such as a pain, nor it is an emotion. We will encounter these sensations and feelings as we focus, however the Felt Sense is more than just these familiar sensations, it is a whole sense of something,
To get a flavour of what the Felt Sense is like - try this.
Don't think about it, just bring to mind a sense of being in a favourite place or a warm sunny day or just look at the picture above. Take a moment to notice what comes, how and where you experience that in your body and you will have an idea of a Felt Sense. The Felt Sense communicates with us, in a way that goes beyond just body sensations, images, emotions/feelings or words, it gives us an "all about this thing" sense. When we Focus we listen to and engage with what makes itself known in this way.
What Can Focusing Help With?These are just a few examples of things Focusing can help with
However, you don't have to have a specific issue to gain the benefits that Focusing brings. We can simply invite our inner parts to let us know what wants our attention right now and work with what we discover. Once you have learned the art of Focusing, it can be a regular practice which you incorporate into daily life. it something you can do anywhere at anytime. You don't need a therapist to practice Focusing. The Focusing Attitude is one of Interested Curiosity to everything our bodies want to let us know. We turn to whatever we meet with gentle acceptance and allow ourselves to be more interested in what we don't know, than what we believe we do know. When we take this stance, our inner places begin to trust they will be heard and when they have that trust, then they start to let us know some astonishing things. How is Focusing Different from Therapy and Self Help Approaches?
Focusing takes a very different view about the way change happens from that of many therapy and self help approaches.
Most approaches start from the point of view that something is not okay and needs to be fixed. To make that fix possible something has to change or be changed. In Focusing we learn to be in presence with our Felt Sense. We simply welcome, be with, and allow whatever we encounter within us, to be accepted just as it is. The paradox of Focusing is, when the knowing which is held in our bodies feels truly heard and accepted - so it will change, if it needs to. Sometimes no change is needed, being heard is enough. Focusing Orientated Therapy
Some therapists who have trained in Focusing offer Focusing Orientated therapy. This is a way of working which combines Focusing with another theraputic approach. Details of Focusing Orientated therapists can be found on the BFA website.
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During my second session, I recognised the paradox of Focusing – that there is nothing ‘to do’. Its power lies simply in being. After that session I had the best night’s sleep I’ve had in weeks which was such a relief Catherine S Gene Gendlin summed it up in this way: What is split off remains the same. Most people don't know this. They think that by not permitting the feeling of their negative ways they make themselves good. On the contrary, that keeps these negatives static, the same from year to year. A few moments of feeling it in your body allows it to change. If there is in you something bad or sick or unsound, let it inwardly be and breathe. That's the only way it can evolve and change into the form it needs. |
Find Out More
On the My Approach page - Find out more about One to One Focusing sessions and how I work
On the Workshops page - Find out more about the Focusing workshops I offer
On the Resources page there are links to videos where you can see examples of Focusing sessions, along with links to useful websites and details of suggested reading
On the Workshops page - Find out more about the Focusing workshops I offer
On the Resources page there are links to videos where you can see examples of Focusing sessions, along with links to useful websites and details of suggested reading
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