“If change happens in the moment, then why does it take days to show up?”
Dean writes:
I’ve noticed that after a Focusing session, the healing response can be postponed and start much later than I originally anticipated. For example, I’m thinking of your experience with releasing your writing block. Yes, you spent time with the rebellious teenager, but isn’t it correct to say that you weren’t aware of the release until the next day when you started writing? Similarly, I’m noticing that one to three days can pass before I recognize how Focusing work is impacting my life. But I thought the main message of Inner Relationship Focusing is that release is in the moment. Can you help me understand?
Dear Dean,
You’re right about what happened in my last, most transformational session on my writer’s block. I spent the whole Focusing session listening to a feisty teenage part of me who was saying, “I don’t want to do anything that I HAVE to do!” That was the last piece of the writer’s block that hadn’t released, the teenage part of me who refused to be told what to do, even if it was writing a book about a topic I loved.
I didn’t try to change her at all! I just admired her strength and determination, and kept saying back to her what she was saying. At the end of the session, I wasn’t aware that anything had changed…because my body felt good, just as it had at the start of the session.
The next day, when I showed up at my planned writing time expecting the usual struggle to try to get myself to write, it was a total surprise when instead of a struggle I felt “teenage energy” pulling me toward the computer, saying “Oh boy, let’s write!”
And you are asking, why didn’t I know that the change had happened during the Focusing session? Why did I not know until the next day, when I went to write?
Well, how would I know? If I wasn’t trying to write, how would I know that the writing situation had changed?
“Actually, we don’t know yet if you still have the problem, do we?”
There’s a funny thing I’ve seen happen often. I’ll be taking someone through a Focusing session. It feels to me like something has really changed for them — there are shifts in body feelings, insights, relief. But then after the session they open their eyes and say, “I feel better — but too bad I still have the problem…the problem is…” and they’re talking to me they same way they did at the start of the session.
So I interrupt them. I say with a gentle smile, “Actually, we don’t know yet if you still have the problem, do we?”
They pause. They look at me in astonishment…because it’s true! They don’t know. They have to go out and live in the situation, and see if it’s changed. (I’ll bet it has…)
So there you have it. Instant change in the moment…that we have to live our way into over time because our bodies live in situations. Both are true.
