“When my friends ask me what Focusing is, I don’t know what to say.”
A Reader writes:
This might seem like a simple question but, what is Focusing?
I love Focusing, and I do Focusing with the people I meet through your classes, but when my friends ask me what it is, I don’t know what to say.
How do you tell people what it is?
Dear Reader:
It’s not a simple question! I’ve always had trouble telling people what Focusing is, to the point where I’ve become interested in why Focusing is so hard to talk about.
I think it’s because it’s not like anything else. You can’t put it in a category. It’s not a type of meditation, or a type of therapy.
Since it’s hard to say what it “is,” I try to put the emphasis on what it does.
Here is what my website says now:
Focusing is a mind-body awareness method that helps you find greater ease, clarity, and freedom from old emotional patterns.
I like to talk about how Focusing is something people can learn to do themselves, rather than something they need to keep getting from someone else.
I like to say that Focusing is based on research into the very essence of what is happening when people change.
And I like to talk about how it helps us release blocks, stay centered, make decisions from the heart and head at the same time, and become more and more glowingly self-accepting.
And by the way, the name “Focusing” is not very helpful, is it? People’s first thought is that this helps you concentrate better, “get focused,” but that’s not the central idea of this process. That’s why I sometimes call it IRF, or “Inner Relationship Focusing.” Under any name, it’s something radical, empowering, and life changing.
