How Do I Start Focusing without Awkwardness?
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Marti from Illinois writes: “I’m focusing by phone with someone each week. When one of us dials up the other, there’s an awkwardness about how to begin. In other phone connections, I’d “chitchat” a bit before getting down to the business we’ve called about, like easing ourselves into it. But with Focusing, this feels like a wrong direction, like we’d begin approaching our weeks’ experiences from a left brain way and then, perhaps, not be able to hear our bodies’ honest truths as well. It feels awkward to jump right into Focusing without “greeting” each other adequately, yet it feels distracting to start talking about trivials in order to establish a feeling of connection. How do others warm up to each other, especially if you’re focusing with someone far away that you don’t even know out of this context and never see in person?”
Dear Marti
It’s an interesting question, and you’ve put your finger on an important point: by getting into “chat,” we’d be going away from a Focusing process, not into one.
And don’t think that only people who don’t know each other have difficulty with this. Sometimes it seems almost harder to focus with a good friend with whom you have so much you could say!
The key, it seems to me, is to have some social contact, but without getting into issues. Something like this:
“Hello?”
“Hi, this is Marti.”
“Hi Marti, you’re right on time.”
“So how are you?”
“I’m good, a little tired. How are you doing?”
“Fine, it’s hot here though.”
“Oh, yes, it’s hot here too.”
“Do you feel like starting?”
“I was wondering if you could go first today.”
“Yes, I could do that.”
“And you’re ready?”
“Just let me get my notebook and my kleenex… OK, I’m ready.”
“And you can hear me OK?”
“Fine.”
“How many minutes do you want to know before the end?”
“Three and one would be fine.”
“OK, and anything special you’d like from me today?”
“I feel like I’m dealing with something that needs me to go slow, so I might be silent a lot. If that’s OK.”
“Sure. And do you want a leading-in?”
“Just a short one…”
As you can see, that’s actually quite a lot of contact, but without getting into “what happened this week.”
The Four Questions
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Let me say a bit more about the four questions that I teach my students to ask at the start of every session. These are questions that the Companion asks the Focuser, and I think they help to make the transition into the session itself.
First, if we are in person, we ask “How is this distance betwen us?” or “How is the way we are sitting?” The Focuser gets to adjust the chairs just the way they would like. On the telephone, this question becomes “Can you hear me OK?” or “Are you sitting comfortably?”
The second question has to do with the time signal before the end of the session. The Companion will give the time signal that the Focuser asked for. “We have about two more minutes.”
Third, the Companion asks something like “What would you like from me as your Companion today?”
And finally, the Companion offers a “leading-in”… a way of starting the session by sensing the body. The Focuser can say yes to this, or say, “I’ll lead myself in.”
There are many other ways of starting but my students generally find that these four questions give a form that supports the session and honors the Focuser as the one whose session it is.