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Focusing Tip #943 – IRF + Parts Work – “It doesn’t help to ask it what it needs”

Three men in heated discussion around a table with documents, expressing emotions and ideas.

“I don’t know which one to ask about its needs because I get opposite answers….”

What if asking the body what it needs brings up an inner argument? Read on…


Jo writes:

Could you clarify the step where we feel what ‘it’ needs?

In my case I have a bad digestion and sleepless nights which urge me to take action and change the situation, i.e change the place where I live and work. But then I realize that there are many insecurities and there is great difficulty in finding a new place and a new job.

I don’t know which one to ask about its needs because I get opposite answers.

Dear Jo:

Some Focusing teachers recommend asking “What does it need?” when finding a feeling in the body.

But I don’t recommend that. A question like that brings up the very trouble that you’re talking about.

Parts respond to “What does it need?” with strategies, even though strategies are not needs. They are anxious urges to take action, or they are anxious fears about taking action.

And as you know, conflicting parts like that can leave us stuck, frustrated, and tangled.

Instead, invite each part to let you know what it is worried will happen if you don’t …… for example, change the place where you live.

And then, when it responds, let it know you hear it… and then invite what it doesn’t want to have happen if THAT happens. And so on.

This way we get “below” the recommendations for action, and into the true feelings of the parts.

What they most need — always — is to know that you are there with them, steady, calm, a good listener to their fears. Wise action from your whole self will emerge from that.


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