How do we help someone do Focusing with legitimate fears, like about climate change? Read on…
Krisztina writes:
My questions concerns climate fears. If a client comes (and they do!) saying they are terrified that their kids will have unimaginable suffering from climate change, what can I say to them? Based on the research, their fears are really valid.
As a human being, I share the same fears. How can I guide them if this fear occurs in the Focusing process?
Dear Krisztina:
Climate is a hugely complex issue, so no wonder you have clients who struggle with feelings about it. The issue is complex… but the response of a Focusing guide doesn’t have to be.
It all comes down to empathy.
Your client is terrified that his kids will suffer from living in a more dangerous world than we live in now. But in a way, it doesn’t matter (for the purpose of Focusing) whether those fears are valid, or whether you share them.
First you’ll give an empathic reflection, like this: “You’re aware of how very scared you are for your kids, for them having to live in an even scarier world than this one.”
Every difficult feeling becomes a little easier to bear when someone can simply hear it.
How do we deepen into Focusing from here? Through inner relationship with the body felt sense of the scared feeling.
“Maybe you can sense how that scared feeling lives in your body right now.”
“You might say to it, ‘Yes, I know you’re there, and I’m listening.'”
“Perhaps you can say to it: ‘So there’s something about what’s happening to the climate that feels especially scary to it.'”
No matter how universal the experience, there is always something unique about each person’s response. Even the fear of dying has a different quality for each person. Just as it matters for you to hear what your client is saying, it also matters for your client to hear what his inner felt experience is saying.
What can be heard, can also move to a next step… whatever that might be.
Additional resources:
Focusing Tip #383 – When Focusing Just Isn’t Possible
