When is the best time to bring awareness to your feelings – when they are strong, or when you have quiet time? Read on…
Terry writes:
I am experiencing a lot of grief and sadness over something that happened. When is the best time to focus on these feelings? Sometimes they come up when I am in the middle of talking to people or in the middle of busy activity. Would that be a time when I go in a corner and start Focusing?
I’ve been trying to do Focusing every morning, but it can take a long time as the body doesn’t always give out information straight away. So I am trying to find out if there is such a thing as a best time.
Dear Terry:
I admire your dedication to spending time with your grief and sadness. Definitely Focusing can help.
The best time to do Focusing is whenever it is possible to do Focusing.
It sounds like you are finding that if you don’t do Focusing with your feelings when they are fresh and strong, then they don’t come up easily when you have more time.
I wonder if there might be another part of you that is pushing. Like a kind of impatience, “Come on, let’s get to work on this!” Perhaps this is a part of you that wants to get moving, get these feelings taken care of.
That part has the best of intentions, but it can make the feelings want to hide, because they need an atmosphere of acceptance from you. (Including acceptance if they are slow and quiet.)
The thing to do is say Hello to the pushing part, and sense if it is worried about something. Maybe that you won’t get through this time of grief?
What I love about Focusing is that our feelings do not have to be strong in order to “speak” to us. It’s not so much their intensity that matters, as the subtle, not-yet-in-words quality around them. When we do Focusing regularly, our feelings don’t have to knock us down to get our attention. They can whisper if they want to… because we will be there, hearing the whispers.
