Thanks to all of you who responded to our call for Burning Questions about Focusing! We have a rich array of questions to respond to in future issues of Weekly Tips… and the offer is still open! Send in your Burning Questions (or even your lukewarm questions!) and they will get responses…
Our theme this week is starting a Focusing session, especially if an active mind is keeping us away from the body. Read on!
Ann Weiser Cornell
How Do Get Calm Enough to Start Focusing?
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Suzanne from Quebec writes:
“I would like to know your point of view on a ‘pre focusing period’. Let’s say I want to focus on a special issue that troubles me. But when I try, I get all sorts of thoughts and end up planning my next day at work. I need to calm the activities going on in my brain before, by doing meditation or writing in my journal, or simply relaxing with music. I haven’t heard anyone talk about this.”
Dear Suzanne,
It’s great that you’ve found something that works for you! If calming yourself by listening to music or writing in your journal or doing meditation helps you to do Focusing, wonderful! I would think especially writing in your journal about the issue you want to focus on would be a fine way to start.
Why not keep your journal open in front of you, with your pen in your hand, as you begin sensing into your body? The writing can be a kind of Focusing partner, helping you to stay with the issue you chose. You write a few sentences about the issue, then pause to sense if you feel something about that. If not, write a little more.
When you DO find a felt sense about your issue, stay with it until you have a description, and then write the description on the paper.
Heavy in my stomach…
Now you can offer the description back to your body, to sense if it fits, or if it’s partly right but there’s more… And you’re Focusing.
Taking Time for Body Sensing
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The other thing I often do before starting to Focus on an issue is to take time to really feel my body. If I just start working on an issue, I am too close to my ordinary “thinking” mode.
So first, I take myself through a coming-into-the-body which takes about two minutes. If you have a Focusing partner, your partner can lead you through this as well.
I usually start by being aware of my whole body, in whatever way I can feel it now. Then I become aware of my breathing, and allow the breath to be as full as it wants. When I exhale, I imagine that I am sinking and settling into the chair where I’m sitting. I feel the chair holding me, and feel the sensation of body contact with the chair.
Still being aware of my whole body, I begin to sense inwardly, into my throat, chest, stomach and belly. (Although I am sensing in these inner places, I am also aware of my whole body.)
Then I invite the issue, like: “What comes in here as I sense that whole thing about _______?” And I wait.
This is the time when I need to be careful not to start thinking. I am waiting for a whole sense of something. It will be vaguer and less clear than my thoughts.
This is one of the places where Focusing alone can be harder than Focusing with a partner! For a great article about Focusing alone: