“And how was that for you?”
There is something more interesting than your email, more fascinating than a World Cup Soccer game, more thrilling than the next episode of Game of Thrones…
…and that is the person sitting next to you.
That person sitting next to you (your friend, your family member, your colleague) is endlessly interesting – just as you are – but they don’t know it.
Why? Because every one of us is profoundly more than all that we have been and thought up until now. We are more than our culture, more than our roles, more even than the experiences we have had.
Focusing teaches us that we have the possibility at every moment of tapping into that “more” that we are…by the very act of getting curious and looking in.
I remember how my life profoundly changed when I began spending time with the people who were learning Focusing from Gene Gendlin, in the early 70s. Instead of just chatting superficially, they would turn to each other and ask, with real interest, “And how was that for you?”
The first time someone asked me that question…and then kept gazing at me expectantly…I couldn’t believe my ears. Someone was assuming that I had my own unique reaction to a shared event, and they were interested enough to ask me and wait for the answer? Unbelievable.
One always has to wait, of course, because the answer to that kind of question isn’t canned and ready. It has to form. We have to pause.
There is infinite richness in ourselves, and in the others around us. We just need to look in.
