What is Focusing?
Focusing is a body-oriented process of self-awareness and emotional healing, in which we learn to become aware of the subtle level of knowing that speaks to us through the body.
When we use the word “body” we do not mean the body we can see from the outside, but the inwardly felt body.
Focusing offers a way of enabling us to attend to a “felt sense” of at first unclear physical sensations or impressions until they become meaningful and clear.
Focusing is a naturally occurring skill that we all have but may be out of touch with. In our society that values the logical and intellectual over experiencing, the ability to receive and confirm inner knowing has been lost and forgotten. However, we can remember. The art of Focusing shows us how.
THE FELT SENSE
The key concept of Focusing is the Felt sense: a body sensation that is meaningful like “butterflies in the stomach”, a “gut feeling”, “heart ache” or “choked’ at the throat.
The felt sense is often elusive, unclear and vague, often beyond descriptive words.
Focusing teaches us a particular way of inner listening and attention to the felt sense that is non-invasive, open and curious. This open, non judging empathic listening towards something which is directly experienced but is not yet in words allows a meaningful communication from the felt sense to be received and acknowledged.
Often a felt shift of relief or release or relaxation or deep knowing results from this gentle sensing from the felt sense’s point of view. This can lead to new words or new insights into a situation.
THE WISDOM OF THE BODY
Our bodies “know” what good health is and can show us the steps to optimise our complete wellbeing.
Learning Focusing is way of regaining a kind of non-analytic knowing that connects us to our wholeness.
Through Focusing we build a better relationship with our emotional life. Trust in our own process deepens. Focusing becomes an inner “compass’ that points the way more and more reliably the more it is used.
APPLICATIONS OF FOCUSING
Focusing can be applied to all manner of processes where something new is being formed; for example in creative process, learning, thinking, and decision making.
It is a wonderful tool for relaxation and pain relief and is also an effective adjunct to therapy.
“The body is not just a pipeline for incoming sensory data.
It’s not a safe deposit box where you put something in
and expect to get the same thing out.
There’s something more. The body can imply something new-a right next step.
It’s more like you put a worm into a cocoon and get a butterfly back.”