Good Boundaries and Your Focusing Partnership
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As far as I can tell, one of the two commonest reasons for a Focusing partnership to fail is when it feels unsafe for at least one of the partners. And the commonest reason for THAT to happen is not what happens in the Focusing session itself, but in the talking before and especially after the session.
The safest agreement is to NOT TALK ABOUT the content or topic of the session, not refer to it, not chat about it, either that same day or whenever your next session is.
Why not? Because the Focuser is in new territory here, delicate, intricate. The Focuser is exploring something that is felt but hard to put into words. We want the contact from the partner to be content-free–no opinions, no judgment, not even agreement! That’s what creates the space for the Focusing process to happen.
So after the session, that talking too needs to be a “content- free zone” for the topic of that session. Yes, you CAN take away from the safety of the session by what you say after it.
This means going against the social tendency to chat about what you’ve just experienced together. It means being disciplined, and doing this with clarity and intention.
The reward: a safe and empowering Focusing partnership that will let both people explore deeply what each needs to explore.
Time Boundaries Matter Too
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The other common reason I’ve heard for Focusing partnerships to fail has to do with time and keeping commitments. Either one person didn’t return phone calls, or one person kept needing to cancel the sessions, or one person went over the agreed time repeatedly…
When the partner doesn’t feel respected by the other person’s use of time, this often leads to a lack of safety. And lack of safety doesn’t work, when it comes to Focusing partnership.
It doesn’t take a genius to be a good Focusing partner. You don’t have to be brilliant or wise, not even a little. You just need to show up, be there, and hold a content-free space for your partner’s Focusing… even after the session is over.