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"How can Focusing be used to transform our relationships?"
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Charles asks, "How can Focusing be used to
transform our relationships--making them
closer, more intimate, creative,
satisfactory?"
Dear Charles
There's so much to say about relationships,
isn't there? I love your list: "Closer, more
intimate, creative, satisfactory." Sure, I
want that in my relationships. And I can see,
looking back, that I've experienced that,
more and more, over the 35 years I've done
Focusing.
So I ask myself, what has made the
difference, what has contributed to that
change? And I would have to say: love for
myself, comfort with who I am, the feeling of
being on my own path, and knowing what I feel
and what I want.
When I love myself, I still enjoy and want
love from the other person, but I don't feel
desperate for it, like I'd disappear if I
didn't get it. I don't feel like I'd do
anything, even try to be someone I'm not,
just to be loved.
When I feel comfort with who I am, I can feel
right away if I'm still comfortable when I'm
with this other person. I can judge a
potential partner not by looks or
achievements, but by whether I feel even more
myself when I am with him.
When I have the feeling of being on my own
path, satisfied with and excited by what I am
doing in my life, I'm not going to be jealous
of my partner's accomplishments or needing
him to be smaller so I don't get too anxious.
Nor will I need him to accomplish more so I
can ride along on the accomplishment wagon.
When I know what I feel and what I want, then
I can communicate my desires -- and be open
to hearing what my partner wants as well.
When I know what I want and I trust that, I
don't end up resenting the other person
because I haven't said what I needed and they
didn't read my mind.
Of course all these things came from Focusing.
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My Feelings Are Mine, Your Feelings Are Yours
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Perhaps the biggest gift I've received in the
relationship area was the certainty that grew
in me after many years of Focusing, that the
other person's feelings belong to them.
Growing up in an alcoholic/codependent
family, I soaked up the idea that when Dad
was depressed, it was the job of all the rest
of us to handle his feelings for him. My
mother didn't show her feelings at all, so I
had her feelings for her too.
When I started getting into relationships, it
was nearly automatic to believe my partner's
fears and angers were my fault and my
responsibility. In the resulting tangle, no
wonder it was hard to feel myself.
I even thought that's what "love" meant!
Many years of Focusing -- and Focusing
partnership -- have shifted all this for me.
I can sit with my partner when he's upset,
but it doesn't become my upset. It
belongs to him. When my nephew is in tears
over his own relationship woes, I am there...
but I don't offer advice unless he asks,
because that's his feeling, not mine.
The space I have for connecting with others
is much bigger now, because I am myself, not
all the people around me. Thanks to Focusing!
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