Category: QandA

  • We Move Our Past Experiences Forward in Present Moments

    We Move Our Past Experiences Forward in Present Moments

    A Tool for Disentangling Clients from Intergenerational and Vicarious Trauma

    We are now in the second month of a new decade! As we find ourselves solidifying goals and looking to the future, may we stay grounded in the knowledge that our forward growth is dependent upon unwinding past experiences in present moments. One of the great difficulties of personal change is learning to use present feelings, like the stuck sense of a situation (felt sense), and trace them back to their earlier roots. Accordingly, helping clients re-experience uncomfortable memory places safely is a key aspect of facilitating the change they so desire. As we take a look at such memory places, in ourselves and others, one thing we may find is that what we’re holding extends beyond the edges of our own autonomous experience.

    I recently taught a unit on Intergenerational and Vicarious Trauma to my second-year Focusing students. It is both fascinating work and essential knowledge for anyone assisting another on a journey of transformation. Trauma often occurs in situations involving other human beings, and families are unfortunately a common venue. Children “pick-up” disowned aspects of parents’ depression, anxiety, anger, hopelessness and much more. As clinicians, we sometimes pick up our clients’ “stuff” as well. It is essential that we know how to both help our clients find, be-with and unwind their trauma, as well as identify and set down what we pick up during our time with them.

     

    Let me share with you a clinical example and tool I use.

    My client is frustrated with herself for having become so overwhelmed with the “simple” errands she had run the morning of our session. She says, “I went to yoga afterwords and felt so pulled in and tight.” We explore this clear body sensation and the intense emotion of, “It’s too much. I feel overwhelmed.” She describes the way she works with people and is successful, yet something in her still feels so compromised. She explores the part of her that pushes ahead by working hard and also the part that wants to be more present and calm. After spending some time allowing her to get a felt sense (body-mind awareness) of the whole situation, it becomes clear her feelings are out of proportion to the present events. The “too much” feeling carries a sense of something already there from a prior time, and it seems there are other people’s feelings held here. This is not all hers, it is vicarious.

    I gently ask, “does this big feeling, the way this whole thing feels in your body, seem like it is just about this morning or is it perhaps an older feeling?” She says, “It is an old feeling…it has been around a long time.” She looks off to the side as if remembering something (re-experiencing one or many memories from her youth). I explain a little about how we take on others’ emotions and energy. This makes sense to her and she begins to tell me about being 7 or 8 years old.

    Her adult self is present and she is not in a regressed state, so I know we can work here without much difficultly. Out pours anger and sadness, something of her father, mother, brother and a family friend. It is a lot, and understandably becomes too much. She feels overwhelmed. She has been holding in so many big feelings for so long. There is catharsis in what she shares but what is needed is more than that. Her mind and body need to experience their disowned trauma distinctly, with others’ experience separate from what is/was hers. She needs a way to set down the vicarious aspects of the trauma and release the overwhelming burden.

    There is a rather simple exercise I use to accomplish setting down vicarious trauma. It does not take long, however complex trauma may require different rounds of setting down and differentiating between “mine” and “yours.” I ask her to get a blank piece of paper. The paper represents the whole thing, all the overwhelm, heavy body sensations, and “too much” feelings about when she was 7 or 8 years old. I ask her to sense inwardly and see if she can differentiate between what is hers and what is others’. Then I invite her to rip the paper, symbolically separating these aspects. She rips the paper easily into pieces that are mother’s, father’s, brother’s and hers. I ask her to check in with the little girl and sense how it is for her. A big smile comes to her face and she says, “She is so happy and free, she is skipping on the playground.” Clearly something big has already shifted, and still there are a couple more steps in the process.

    The first, is to take some time to do something with the pieces of paper that represent what is not hers. Sometimes people like to find a place to put the actual paper or to place the energetic quality in a known or imagined place. Sometimes people like to burn the paper. Once a workshop participant placed her paper in my compost bin! My client had the feeling that some ritual was called for but was not yet ready to complete this step. Sometimes people need to simply pause here, do some writing, or get clearer on how to set things down.

    The final step of the session was to take this new open, fresh, calm, joyful space into herself and return to the present. The past shows up to inform us and help us with the present as we move into the future. She could now see how her overwork followed by overwhelm was like driving a car by pressing the gas pedal down all the way and then slamming on the break. There was a “lightness and calm” that was deeply felt. She knows now that overwhelm is not a defect or shortcoming but rather an indication she needs to say hello to that little girl and support her letting go. Something essential about her did not get to function and be expressed as a young girl and was held frozen into adulthood. Now it is free to move forward into her life. Parts of her that have felt separate will more easily begin to integrate. She will more easily be her biggest, fully grown self.

    Is our work done? It is my experience these things take time. What I hope to have highlighted here is that we could have gotten stuck on problem solving or coping with overwhelm but nothing really would have changed. I have enough experience, I am able to see how the current situation is an enactment or expression of past events and vicarious in nature, and help her find that element and let it go. That is a huge step forward and did occur in a single session.

    Reading a client’s body and responding to them so they can enter uncomfortable somatic experience safely, and work with it, takes time to learn to do well. I offer a two-year training program in Focusing-Oriented Therapy and Complex Trauma for those who would like to learn. Please explore my training pages for dates and details!

  • Focusing Oriented Therapy Q & A: How is Focusing an evidence based process of change? 

    Focusing Oriented Therapy Q & A: How is Focusing an evidence based process of change? 

    Focusing evolved from research that has influenced much of the somatically-oriented, mindfulness-based work being done today. It has been linked to over 50 studies* with positive therapeutic outcomes and continues to develop new applications in psychotherapy and related fields. Continue reading to learn about how Focusing was discovered through research conducted by Carl Rogers, Eugene Gendlin and others at the University of Chicago.

    The research:

    Eugene Gendlin was a philosophy student at the University of Chicago in 1952. Influenced by existential phenomenology, hermeneutics, and the early pragmatists, he was curious about human experience, idea formation, and expression. Gendlin was specifically curious about “…how an experience that comes before words becomes an idea framed in words.” (Cornell, 2013, loc. 84). Gendlin held his own felt-belief that people have a kind of experience inside, which more than being spoken about, is spoken directly from. In such a manner of experiential-speaking, Gendlin firmly believed that meaning preceded concepts and the language to describe the experience. But how does one study the phenomenon of a person articulating their experience?

    For Gendlin, it meant stepping outside his philosophical roots and making a visit to the psychology department. At that time, Carl Rogers was the head of the University of Chicago Counseling Center and was continually engaged in research on client-centered therapy, or as it was later known, person-centered therapy. Desirous of better helping both others and himself, Gendlin joined Roger’s team of therapists and researchers. By being a student of the therapy process and at the same time also a client in it, he was able to more deeply explore the question that gnawed at him. Notably, while remaining a philosopher at heart, Gendlin became a well-reputed psychotherapist receiving numerous awards and honors including: the American Psychological Association’s first ever Distinguished Professional Psychologist of the Year award, a Viktor Frankl award for outstanding achievement in meaning-oriented psychotherapy, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Body Psychotherapy also known as The Hub of Somatic Psychology.

    During his training with Rogers, Gendlin and his teacher began researching the question: Why is it that some people get better in psychotherapy and others do not? Cornell (2013) tells us, they identified two key interdependent variables: first off, the therapist’s quality of being with the client and second, the client’s quality of being with their own present experiencing. Hendricks (2001) further explains that Gendlin and a colleague developed an “Experiencing Level Variable” (n.p.) along with a scale to measure it.

    Next, Rogers and Gendlin along with their research team, recorded hundreds of therapy sessions by many different therapists from many different orientations. From those tapes, they were able to predict very accurately which clients would get better after a year of psychotherapy as determined by certain outcome measures including the client’s self-report and the therapist’s report. Strikingly, this prediction, based on their experiencing scale, could be made after listening to the very first session. Gendlin and his colleagues found that improvements in therapy had very little to do with a therapist’s orientation, specific techniques, or with the type of problems being addressed. Instead, the important element of positive change had to do with how clients processed their experience internally and was evidenced by the quality of their expression.

    The clients who got better did so because they could speak from their present/emerging experiencing process: as they spoke they slowed down, became less articulate, and checked their words with how the whole of a situation felt inside their body. This back and forth process of going between noticing the whole way something is felt in the body and searching for how to express that through symbols (words, images, gestures, and memories) produces change! Focusing is the formalization of what the successful clients did in therapy, and the product of its development into a teachable process that everyone can learn and benefit from. Subsequent studies* have shown that people who learn to Focus (learn to speak from their experiencing in this profoundly changing way) have better outcomes in psychotherapy than those who do not.

    It is key to note that when the successful clients slowed down, they checked for the words that best fit their inner experience. What is this “experience” they were they checking in with? They were sensing the whole way a situation felt in their body. In Focusing we call that a felt sense. In the August newsletter I will discuss what a felt sense is and why Focusing is referred to as the essence of change.

    References:

    Cornell, A. W. (2013). Focusing in Clinical Practice: The Essence of Change. New York: W. W. Norton & Company and Kindle Edition.

    Hendricks, M.N. (2001). Focusing-Oriented/Experiential Psychotherapy. In Cain, D.J. and Seeman, J. (Eds.), Humanistic Psychotherapy: Handbook of Research and Practice. Washington DC: American Psychological Association. Retrieved from http://previous.focusing.org/research_basis.html


    *For a list of research studies on Focusing visit:

    www.focusing.org/research.html
    www.focusing.org/research_basis.html

  • Focusing-Oriented Therapy Q and A: What are the two most common therapeutic dead ends and how do we avoid them?

    Focusing-Oriented Therapy Q and A: What are the two most common therapeutic dead ends and how do we avoid them?

    Two kinds of dead ends can happen in psychotherapy: The first occurs when the therapy consists only of interpretation and inference without an experiential process. The second dead end happens when there are [clearly felt] emotions, but they are repeated over and over. (Gendlin, p. 7, 1996)

    Therapy often becomes an attempt to understand a situation like, “why am I so anxious?” Therapists and clients engage in detective work about causes, beliefs and behaviors that lead to anxiety. This investigation can be interesting but seldom leads to change unless there is time spent touching into the bodily felt experience of being anxious.

    This first dead end could be called staying in your head or as Gendlin (1996), whose research led to the discovery of Focusing, referred to it,  “dead-end discussion” (p. 7). We are taught both to know the answer to things (we assume one already exists) and to use our intellect to figure things out. We say things like, “It must be because I am so hard on myself. You would think by now I would have grown up and made these changes.” Notice the word must. “It must be” is an inference about something without ever sensing into it. This intellectually jumped to conclusion doesn’t lead to anything new.

    The way out of this mental ping-pong match is to slow down and notice what effect anything that is said or done has on how the problem is directly experienced. In the example above the client says, “It must be because I’m so hard on myself.” What would you say in response? I might say, “You’re sensing something about the way you treat yourself that feels hard. Can you sense in here (hand on my chest) how it feels when you’re hard on yourself?” I am directing the client to sense their experience directly, bodily, in the moment. From there, little steps of change can arise because the client has the issue as a living something to be explored further. Without directly experiencing it, an issue remains static and conceptual, waiting for some outside pressure to make it better.

    The second dead end is one of unchanging feelings. Clients often have strong emotions, but rather than resolving the feelings repeat and nothing changes. Dead end feelings remain the same because they seem rather clear and final. While emotions include a somatic awareness, most clients don’t know how to stay with it and explore the unclear murky edge of their experience. Moreover, most schools of therapy do not provide training in how to help clients with this process.

    The way out of this dead end is by helping the client sense into and below the emotion that seems clear to a place of something felt, yet unclear. Focusing emerged from research, which showed that clients who made changes in therapy did so because they were already able to sense and explore the unclear edge of their experience. A client may say, “I’m so frustrated with him… (groping for words and hesitates) …well it’s more like a feeling of deep disappointment. I was hoping it would be different this time.” You can see in this example how the content of the experience begins to change as the client explores the vague edge in her relationship. This occurs because the client is in touch with the felt living process of their experience.

    Every experience and event contains implicit further movement. To find it one must sense its unclear edge. Every experience can be carried forward. Given a little help one can sense an “edge” in the experience more intricate than one’s words or concepts can convey. One must attend to such sensed edges because steps of change come at those edges. (Gendlin, p. 15 1996)

    Reference:

    Gendlin, E. (1996). Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: A Manual of the Experiential Method.New York: The Guilford Press.

  • FOT Q&A: During the holidays I feel like I’m drinking from a fire hose. How can I change that?

    FOT Q&A: During the holidays I feel like I’m drinking from a fire hose. How can I change that?

    Good question! It starts with a pause….

    We are bombarded with information, requests and internal dialogue that never seems to stop. We become distracted, anxious and ungrounded. We lose touch with our own natural ability to be present and sense how we feel in a given situation.

    If we can simply pause and notice how we are in any given moment that gives us information we lacked just a moment before. In the act of pausing we begin to listen to our own experience. We begin to listen to our body and its GPS system for orienting our awareness.

    All mindfulness is pausing and shifting the focus of our awareness from the left hemisphere of our brain to the right hemisphere. Both hemispheres have amazing operating systems, and each accomplishes different things. Healthy living requires both sides to be integrated and accessible. We are so busy managing information, working and doing in our left hemisphere way of being, that we risk being cut off from what the other half of our brain is richly trying to tell us.

    Focusing is a deliberate pausing and turning toward our right hemispheres’ take on the world. This is a slower embodied sensing, feeling, and noticing of implicit emerging experience. Implicit knowing is a different kind of living process and awareness. It needs time to come into focus. Focusing is the natural way we can listen to our bodily knowing and bring it into focus, thus making it explicit and actionable. We have two brains in one container, and we might as well learn to use them both!

    To help you take this to the next step, I am offering a new course that will teach you to embrace this pause, listen deeply to yourself and in so doing find an ease you might not have thought possible in the midst of your holiday pressures.

    See: Peaceful and Present through the Holidays: A NEW Focusing Course with Jeffrey Morrison

  • FOT Q&A: What do Bessel van der Kolk, mythology, and spiritual perspectives on healing have in common? 

    FOT Q&A: What do Bessel van der Kolk, mythology, and spiritual perspectives on healing have in common? 

    FOT Q&A:

    What do Bessel van der Kolk, mythology, and spiritual perspectives on healing have in common? 

    Focusing is about a kind of experiencing– one that is embodied, works with the implicit (bodily sensed emerging experience), and is relational. Neuroscience provides a map, but learning to navigate the complexities of trauma takes knowing the territory. The healing journey of working with trauma is an off-road experience. Maps help, but a feel for the territory and walking with others through their dark night of the soul requires experience and understanding outside of the reductionistic models that permeate our field.

    My vision is one of a journey taken with a small group of people dedicated to our own unique unfolding, while we explore working with trauma and post traumatic growth together. We integrate neuroscience scholars like Bessel van der Kolk, with mythology (our own and others’), indigenous perspectives of land and healing, philosophy, spirituality, and of course Focusing-Oriented Therapy. All of which offer wisdom and support in the healing journey for both practitioner and patient. As we deepen our skills and understanding, we gain confidence in how to help clients release embodied trauma and chronic stress and we learn that attending to our own wounds reveals our own unique gifts. This work touches on the spiritual as it enables each person to trust their unique way forward.

    Perhaps what is most special about my program is the people doing it! The process of going through this journey together as a small group of amazing people is not only educational but deeply meaningful and fun. As we explore our humanness, vulnerability, and growing edges, we come to see how relational healing really is. We learn to be Present and to use our Focusing skills to facilitate the body’s filling-in of what was blocked by trauma and allow our gifts to come forward.

  • FOT Q&A: What is a felt sense?

    FOT Q&A: What is a felt sense?

    In my July newsletter I discussed the research that led to the discovery of a natural human process that became known as Focusing. The key research finding pointed to something successful clients (those who found fulfilling change) were already doing. Find out more here.

    Successful clients slowed down and sensed into the felt quality of what they were trying to articulate, a process which often brought forth fresh language and expression. What were they sensing into? In Focusing we call this somatic (felt) knowing (sense): a felt sense. It is bodily felt, and it has a “knowing” that makes sense and feels right.

    Neuroscience of the cerebral hemispheres suggests that whole body knowing is first felt and sensed in the right hemisphere as a vague implicit awareness. This kind of knowing is bodily felt and slow to form. As it is sensed directly and felt into, our experiencing carries over or connects with left hemisphere processing that controls symbol formation and expression (words, metaphor, gesture, images). As we find the right words to express a complex sense of a situation the experience comes into focus.

    We have all had the experience of struggling to find the right words or way to express something. We stumble and grope for words. We may say something and immediately know it kind of fits but still doesn’t feel right. When the right words/expressions do come there is a bodily relief, a kind of shift in how that whole situation is for us.

    Check out this brief summary from my training program of what a felt sense is and how it is so different from our usual way of experiencing.

    A Felt Sense Is…

    “A felt sense is a freshly forming, wholistic sense of a situation that has a ‘more than words can say’ quality to it.” (Cornell, 2013, p. 42)

    “A felt sense is the right hemisphere’s take on our here and now inner experience, a subtle quality of feeling. It is holistic (raw perception, before the left hemisphere divides it into separate units), non-verbal and informed by the ongoing state of the body.” (Afford, 2014, p. 249)

    Clients speaking from a felt sense:
    • After a recent loss: “I feel like 100 bricks are on my chest that contains a broken heart.”
    • The feeling of being stuck in life: “It’s like being in snow up to my waist.”
    • Describing a part of her life that is not being taken care of: “It’s like there is a glass bubble over the part of me that is starving.”

    How clients may appear when they have (are speaking from) a felt sense:
    • Groping for words while becoming inarticulate saying things like, “I’m not sure how to say this.”
    • Becoming quiet, looking down or away (while attending to inner experience)
    • Gesturing toward the middle of their body
    • Using words like “kind of” or something” or “here”

    Felt senses are:
    • Emergent process (in the process of becoming), and therefore experienced in the here and now
    • A hard to describe emergence of “more than” can be cognitively expressed, which often need fresh metaphorical language
    • About a life situation but contain more (implicitly) than has been previously known.
    • Experienced in a bodily way
    • An intricate whole that sums up, captures, includes, contains, all the aspects of a situation at once: a picture is worth a thousand words!
    • An opening where strands can unfold bringing steps of change, and a gateway for something completely new to happen!

    Felt sense take time to form, a pausing, inviting, and allowing it to emerge. When we ask inside “How was that for me?” and pause in this way, we do not discover what was already there, but rather we allow something implicit to begin to come into focus explicitly which allows it to now function in a new way.

    There are many descriptions of the felt sense, here are a few of my favorites:

    “Felt senses can form when we pause …when we are not feeling overwhelmed or identified with emotional states …when we let go of familiar words or concepts for a while …when we sense at the body level of awareness …when we can stand it that what we feel is vague, unclear, hard to describe, impossible to explain.” (Cornell, 2013, p. 44)

    “Focusing is a mode of inward bodily attention that is not yet known to most people…. It differs from the usual attention we pay to feelings because it begins with the body and occurs in the zone between the conscious and the unconscious. Most people don’t know that a bodily sense of any topic can be invited to come in that zone, and that one can enter into such a sense. At first it is only a vague discomfort, but soon it becomes a distinct sense with which one can work, and in which one can sort out many strands … Focusing is a way to enter regularly and deliberately there where therapeutic movement arises.” (Gendlin, 1996, p. 1)

    “Focusing is the process whereby the concept that fits the felt sense becomes clear. Felt sense is a more complex phenomenon than emotion. It may be the inner ‘place’ (body and right hemisphere) from where emotion seems to arise. Emotion, on the other hand, can be left hemisphere biased (such as anger), and it can involve the right hemisphere overwhelming the left with high arousal (such as anxiety, upset) that disrupts cognition – neither of which are focusing experiences. The ease with which we can ignore felt senses reflects the left hemisphere’s ability to inhibit the signals coming from the right. Focusing is a practice that aims to overcome this inhibition.” (Afford, 2014, p. 249)

    References:
    Afford, P. (2014) Neuroscience and Psychological Change in Focusing. In Madison, G. (Ed.), Theory and Practice of Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: Beyond the Talking Cure (245 – 258). London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

    Cornell, A. W. (2013). Focusing in Clinical Practice: The Essence of Change. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

    Gendlin, E. (1996). Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: A Manual of the Experiential Method. New York: Guilford Publications. Print and Kindle Editions.

  • FOT Q&A: What makes my training program unique?

    FOT Q&A: What makes my training program unique?

    Focusing, the process of being experientially present with one’s own unique felt quality of life, is at the heart of most somatic and mindfulness approaches being taught in the psychotherapy field today. Focusing is psychological, philosophical, and touches spiritual edges as it takes a person deep into their own experiencing. It facilitates relational presence in the therapeutic encounter as it helps clients regulate emotional states, enter into their felt sense awareness of stuck patterns, and bring about bodily felt steps of change. Students of my Focusing training series come to profoundly know and practice this naturally occurring, innately powerful, self-healing process, which allows you to be with both your clients and yourself in a completely new way. They have described my training as “deeply satisfying,” both personally and professionally.

    The healing of trauma is a sacred journey. The word sacredhere speaks to the gravity of what clients bring into the room when they entrust us with helping them. To lead another on a journey, you must know the landscape. Therefore, a core value of my Focusing training program is your development as a healing professional. As a student, you learn to be a good listener to your inner process as you develop the skills to bring Focusing into your work with others. This self-cultivation not only helps you learn and apply a strong foundation of skill; it also bolsters your own sense of presence and solid ground while guiding your clients on the journey of healing from trauma.

    The program begins by creating a safe space where participants can grow and explore securely. I use a small group, cohort model to maximize a sense of trust and community. We practice all Focusing skills during the workshops so that you learn experientially. Throughout the learning series, you’ll experience a widening sense of your own authenticity. Within partner exchanges and supervised sessions, you further develop a strong inner relationship with your biggestself and build confidence in facilitating that growth with your clients.

    As therapists, we all need a variety of ways to care for ourselves and our “stuff.” Focusing partnerships are a great way to support ourselves and each other in the work we do. Partnerships are not only a good way to learn Focusing, but become for many the best self-care and professional-care practice they have ever experienced.

    Please come and join me for what students describe as “retreat-like” weekends, in the natural setting of my workshop space on Vashon Island, the safety of community, and the emphasis we place on personal care and growth.

     

     

    See: Jeffrey Morrison Focusing Oriented Therapy Training Program

     

  • Giving Thanks

    Giving Thanks

    As we prepare to sit around festive tables with abundant food, beverages and seasonal decorations perhaps we can pause and reflect on where it all came from. In most cases a store, but before the store? Most of what we consume begins in the soil, raised by the sun, encouraged by the rain, and cared for by the farmer. When we look at our food, we may become aware of the interconnection to all of life that created it and brought it to our table. We paid for it, yes, but is it not more satisfying to imagine it as a gift which includes the star dust that falls to earth and enters the soil? Perhaps it includes a thunderstorm or two! Our bodies are not separate from the eco-system that supports our existence. Are not groceries turned into a human being by a mother who eats to support two?

    Now that we are aware of our connectedness to all can we bring our attention to the people at the table? Can we look around, see the eyes of others, and be thankful for their presence? Can we share the gift of listening and what Gene Gendlin refers to as interhuman attention? Are we not enacting a creation story, of giving birth and nurturing consciousness, at this very meal? “Perhaps I am a dreamer but I’m not the only one” says John Lennon. I am beginning to think the most precious gifts are the ones that give something of our self through attention to the other. I give thanks for my connection to All and to my relationships with each opening of consciousness we call a human being.

    In truth, I am a bit slow. I took for granted my mother’s gift of life to me, her home-grown vegetables and holiday decorations. I grew up with many things and the expectation there would always be more. As I grow into my elder-hood, I have come to feel blessed by my adult children’s gifts of writings, art or hand-made gifts and the loving touch from my wife, her garden harvest and flowers on the table. I get to listen to their joys and sorrows and dreams and I feel thanks for their attention and listening as the seeds I have sowed come back to me. I have so much to give thanks for!

    It may seem simple, but I do believe we all feel grateful when we experience being connected to the earth and the people that make up our lives through this abundance that is there all the time. We only have to pause and bring our attention to our food and the eyes of those around us.

    Blessings during the holiday season.

  • Q & A: How are mindfulness and Focusing similar and different?

    Q & A: How are mindfulness and Focusing similar and different?

    Mindfulness and Focusing share the characteristics of observing our experiencing in the present moment, having a somatic grounding, and requiring a certain quality of presence that I might call dis-identification. Dis-identification is the awareness that I am not my “stuff.”  My stuff might be past experiences, present problems, worries, strong emotions, daydreams, etc.

    In mindfulness practices, I observe all of that “stuff” and let it go by as I sit. When I become aware that I’m thinking of things again, I use the simple tools of Sound, Ground and Breath to gently return to the present moment. Another way to picture this is: I let my experience go by like clouds floating across the sky. I am not my clouds, but I have clouds. I do this for 30 minutes each morning and sometimes with clients in my office.

    Focusing begins with grounding in the physical body as mentioned above. In Focusing, dis-identification is realizing I am an “I” with no content, or again “I” am not my stuff. Up to here it is quite similar, we can say Focusing is mindfulness —and it is something more! In Focusing we become interested in our stuff. Not all of the clouds or worries but one, which will tug on us until we turn toward it with interested curiosity. I like to use a phrase borrowed from my friend and Focusing teacher Ann Weiser Cornell, “I’m sensing something in me that feels…” (has a certain fuzzy but noticeable felt quality to it). Then I describe it and say, “Hello” to it. In other words, my experiencing becomes relational. I am with an “it” or a “something” that is emerging freshly from my implicit awareness.

    All mindfulness activities are a process of orienting our awareness to our implicit right hemisphere. It is present moment engagement with the world, through the body. We take time to let our left hemisphere (concrete) awareness take a break. It often doesn’t like this and is referred to as “monkey mind” in its repeated angling for our attention. In meditation we keep coming back to the body and our breathing because they are in the present moment. Thoughts and feelings (left brain) and murky implicit felt qualities (right brain) are just noticed and let go of.

    In Focusing, implicit awareness is the royal road of emerging experience: it is where new fresh information comes from. Here, we drop below what is explicit and known, below thoughts and feelings that we are identified with. Here, is how “that whole thing you are worried about” feels in your chest and quivers in your throat. Here, is mind-body knowing before the split. As we sit with this “cloud” we listen to it and let it show us what it needs to let go and move on. This happens as we let the left hemisphere bring symbols that capture the felt quality of the whole. Symbols can be words, images, somatic sensations, memories, gestures, movement and more. Focusing is a weaving back and forth between body-sensing and mindful-symbolizing of our experience. When this happens the stuck place or problem unwinds and releases in a forward direction of new possibilities and growth.

    I have two Focusing partners who I exchange Focusing turns with. It is free therapy and can change the world. If you enjoyed this, you might also like: Searching for the Truth that is Far Below the Search.

     

  • Q & A: What did Brené Brown discover is the key ingredient for overcoming failure and why is it so important in the process of change?

    Q & A: What did Brené Brown discover is the key ingredient for overcoming failure and why is it so important in the process of change?

    “He or she who is the most capable of being uncomfortable rises the fastest. There is a huge correlation between a capacity for discomfort and wholeheartedness. If you cannot manage discomfort, that sends you barreling into perfectionism, blame, rationalizing–without taking away key learnings.”
         (Brené Brown to Time Magazine, September 2015)

    The notion of being with what’s uncomfortable feels oxymoronic to most clients. Naturally, people think, “I don’t like this feeling; I need to make it go away by doing or thinking something else!” This avoidant reaction, however, leads to irrational processes that circumvent the actual learning that’s available in the pain and adjourns its resolution. I lead clients into sitting next to what’s uncomfortable while remaining emotionally regulated. Maintaining emotional regulation is key or our clients will miss the value of being with the experience by immediately trying to fix the discomfort.

    Key phrases you will hear a client say are, “I feel angry and frustrated…” or “I don’t like this part of me…” In these moments we want to guide our clients by saying, “You are sensing something in you that is really angry, let’s pause here for a moment.”  We want to encourage them to take a moment to be with what is making them upset. From there we want to encourage them to realize their mood does not define them. They can keep company with their negative feeling/sense, and just be. This regulated way of staying with uncomfortable feelings, Brené Brown says, is the beginning of the true ability to overcome failure and pain, and to heal.

    Being with and not defined by pain, distress, fear, etc. is also a key aspect in change itself. Being able to turn toward discomfort without drowning in it or fleeing from it is the first big step in the change process. Clients are not able to do this very well unless they have someone who knows how to bring them up to the edge of discomfort and safely guide them into their bodily experience. Here is where clients can begin to tap into and learn to trust what they bodily know but have turned away from in the past. This process is not a kind of pushing through the discomfort. It is a way of being with the discomfort, so the body can proceed with its natural healing process.

    Would you like to be able to do this smoothly and confidently with clients?
    Check out my training page for upcoming FOT-1 workshops.