“What IS Focusing?”–and why is that question so hard to answer!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Focusing is a simple matter of holding a kind of open, non-judging attention to something which is directly experienced but not yet in words.” –from the introduction to The Focusing Student’s and Companion’s Manual by Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin
Something which is directly experienced but not yet in words? What is that?
Well, that’s what we call a “felt sense,” and it’s really the heart of the matter.
A “felt sense” is what a problem or a situation “feels like” when you pause and get a sense of the whole thing. It’s not your usual emotions or thoughts–which can get stuck and keep you going around in circles–but rather it’s fresh, immediate, and often contains new information or a new perspective.
People are not used to pausing and getting felt senses. If more people would do this, I believe the world would be quite different!
Focusing starts with that pause…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We can get stuck in our usual, repetitive thoughts and feelings. We lose touch with ourselves, we feel small in the face of our problems, we forget our resources. We see only a part of the whole picture. We find ways to push away or cover up what we feel because feeling it is too much.
The “pause” of Focusing lets everything start to shift. We’re no longer driven, no longer rushed along. By pausing and getting a felt sense of it all, we are in a new place. True, it’s not a completely known place–it’s a new territory, in many ways. But that’s good.
And is Focusing more than pausing and “felt sensing”?
Yes… and no. The rest of Focusing is essentially more of this: staying with what you feel — sensing it — describing it — sensing if that description feels right…
Amazingly, this non-pressured, non-doing kind of contact allows something to happen that wasn’t able to happen if we’re trying to fix ourselves, trying to talk ourselves into something, analyzing, solving, understanding…
That’s because the stuff we’re made of (so to speak) loves to live forward.
We’re made of life. We don’t need to do anything TO ourselves in order for living forward to happen. We just need to come into gentle contact with ourselves.
