Focusing is an awareness practice that's both gentle and transformational.
It's a practice of attending to a subtle yet profound inner feeling called a felt sense.
Now that may sound simple.
But it turns out to be the key to opening all kinds of doors.
When you do focusing.
Your critical self-talk softens.
Habits that kept you stuck start to shift naturally.
You respond to difficult situations with compassion and calm.
Where did focusing come from?
Well,
Over 70 years ago at the University of Chicago.
Research into outcomes of therapy showed that successful therapy clients were naturally able to pause and directly feel the felt sense of their issues instead of just talking about them.
Clients who just talked about what they already knew?
Tended to stay stuck.
In therapy and in their lives.
Eugene Gendlin,
A psychotherapist who was one of the researchers,
Created a method he called focusing to help everyone get felt senses,
Not just those who were doing it naturally.
And I'm very lucky he did because I would have been one of those unsuccessful clients.
When I met Gendlin in my early 20s.
I was really struggling in my emotional life.
Coming from an alcoholic family background.
Longing to be loved and accepted but out of touch with those feelings?
I did reckless stuff.
And narrowly escaped getting in really big trouble.
And it turns out I needed exactly what focusing had to offer.
I needed a way to turn toward my feelings.
And have my feelings without getting taken over by them.
I needed a way to sort out what I wanted.
From what other people were pressuring me to do.
I needed a way to start to trust myself.
Focusing gave me all of that,
Plus a way to listen to other people.
To make real connections instead of just staying at the superficial level.
Progressing changed my life.
And that's why I became a focusing practitioner and teacher.
Because I want to live in a world where more people listen deeply to themselves and other people.
What is focusing?
Focusing is non-judgmental awareness.
Feeling without judging what you feel is good or bad.
And staying with it.
To further insights and further life change.
I invite you to get interested in focusing.
Another thing I love about it.
Focusing goes well with anything else you do.
And most of all.
.
.
Focusing encourages you to trust your own sense of what's right and what works for you.
So enjoy!
