The power (and the challenge) of taking enough time…

Recently I taught Focusing in Shanghai, China. I had a great time, and met lovely people – not to mention the food!

One question I was asked several times while I was there is something I’d like to share with all of you. Several people told me that, although they had been practicing Focusing for months, it was hard to feel anything in the body – or body feelings were fleeting and would disappear easily.

This is an issue that can have a number of causes, but my instinct was, in this case, that they were not allowing enough time.

For felt senses to come, we need a steady and unhurried inner environment, like a kind of “I’m not pushing AND I’m not going away.”

To test my hypothesis, I asked one of these young women to do a demo with me in front of the group. I would be her Companion, and see if I could help her find and stay with a felt sense.

I had two translators sitting on either side of me, one to translate my English into Chinese for the Focuser (and the rest of the group) to hear, and one to whisper English into my ear when the Focuser spoke in Chinese. Despite these complex conditions, the Presence in the room as the other participants held the space for both of us allowed a beautiful Focusing session to unfold.

There were long silences. I invited into inner contact and then didn’t move a muscle, sensing and supporting her own commitment to making a safe place for what wanted to emerge. After four or five reports of feeling “nothing,” which I respected and welcomed, she quietly said, pointing to the stomach, “There is an aching here.” The rest of the session built on that tender inner contact.

The Gift of Silent Presence

When we are Focusing partners for each other, let’s never underestimate the power of what we offer when we offer silence. Anxious newbies can think they need to be active, doing something, anything, to help. But sometimes the greatest help is in the willingness to be silent.

I’m not talking about a silence where one is absent, thinking about what will be for dinner or the like. I’m talking about a totally present, attentive silence, with one’s attention in one’s own body as well as with the other person’s process.

From that kind of place I can sense the quality of the other person’s inner attention, I can sense that he or she is as attentively present to her own inner space as I am to her. I wouldn’t want to move a muscle, if moving meant leaving that delicious spacious contact.

After the demo, one of the other participants asked me how I had been feeling during those silences. “Weren’t you bored?” he asked.

“Not at all!” I replied with a grin. “I was blissfully happy!” That’s my message to you today: In total contact, listening is bliss.