Out of all the things you could Focus with, how do you know which one to go with? Read on…
Jenna writes:
How do you know what to Focus with? There are so many dissatisfactory areas of my day and my thinking. All of them could use attention.
I worry that I’ll be “favoring” a part over another part if I Focus with it, so sometimes I just keep saying hello to many things throughout the session. Your advice please?
Dear Jenna:
Saying hello to a number of things is a good way to start, when there’s a lot clamoring for your attention.
I remember an exercise that Gene Gendlin led us through, about 50 years ago. He said,
“Imagine you are holding a lot of packages, too many to deal with at once. Now imagine you’re going to set each one down, and as you do, take a peek inside each one. Just enough to get a feel for what that one is about.”
Another time, he said,
“Imagine you’re in a crowd of children and they all want your attention. Now just touch each one on the head, with a hello and a smile.”
Ideally that doesn’t take too long. Maybe five or ten minutes of a thirty minute Focusing session.
Now the key question: Which one to return to, to be with for the rest of the session? (And notice, these are not “parts” you’ve said hello to. These are issues, situations. Each one will have more than one part involved.)
There are several ways to choose. Is there one issue which is clamoring for your attention so much that if you be with anything else, this one will still be clamoring? Then it has to be this one.
Another possibility is that you know one of them is more urgent, for example, “I need a decision on this before Saturday.” That’s a good reason to choose that one.
Just remember… this isn’t a matter of favoring or not favoring parts, because every one of these issues has more than one part. It’s you, the whole self, who makes a space in which choosing happens. Because spending time with one of these issues is what feels right — to all of you.
