“I went inward to the feeling of the whole thing about that.”
A Reader writes:
Something extraordinary happened this morning when I was in a state of near sleep, and I’m curious if this was a Focusing event, or just a beautiful realization.
For a long time I’ve been aware of a part of me that holds back from fully embracing and being open to my loved ones… while there is also a wish to open fully to love and embrace.
The evening before with my wife I had experienced this holding back part and also this wanting to open and let go and love. This morning, just beginning to awaken early, I became aware that something was bothering me. I went inward to the feeling of the whole thing about all that. I became aware of something that I felt in my belly area, something not willing to completely allow me to be vulnerable and fully open to loving. It felt afraid and cringes away from my wife, remembering times when she suddenly blew up in anger at me– and not wanting me to experience that pain. I let it know I really understood how it feels.
Dear Reader,
Yes, absolutely, this is Focusing! And what a beautiful example. I have a feeling that the part of the experience you were wondering about is the second part, which I’ll comment on below. But let me just point to the elements of Focusing in what you told already:
- You became aware of something in you needing attention.
- You found it in your body feeling – in this case, your belly area.
- You paid attention with interested curiosity, wanting to know how it felt from its point of view
- You could tell that it was something holding you back from being open and loving, and with empathy you could sense that that had to do with being afraid to experience the pain of an angry blow-up.
Let’s see what happened next…
“I decided I could be big enough to hold both….”
A Reader goes on:
I then decided I could be big enough to hold both what wants love and what cringes away from love and there is room in me for both. In the next moment something beautiful happened! I had the distinct inner vision of something strong and energetic about my wife joining with all else I have been able to embrace about her up until then. I felt an immediate relaxation and joy as I filled with love and enjoyment of this more interesting, complete and rich person I love. It was as if I’d needed and wanted for her to have all her energies, including this which I had been resisting. It feels so good to stop resisting anything about my wife, it is such a relief and so satisfying to love all her and value that energy a part of me had been trying to partition away from her!
Dear Reader,
I see why you are wondering if this is a Focusing experience. Such a beautiful experience of wholeness might feel like a spiritual experience rather than Focusing. But you being big enough to hold both seemingly contradictory parts is what you do when you are Self-in-Presence. And what can happen then is this remarkable shift where you step outside the pre-set patterns, and experience the whole-bodied joy and relief when something that has been waiting to happen … that your organism knows would be right… can finally happen. Notice all the feedback you get from your body that this is life-energy moving forward!
Oh, it’s Focusing all right!