“I noticed that my Focusing was a lot like a shamanic journey.”
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A Reader writes: “In my Focusing I get LOTS of pictures and images. They are connected to bodily signals and sensations, but I notice that my Focusing proceeds differently than my Focusing partners. Everything seems to happen within the context of pictures, shapes and landscapes. I didn’t think much of it until about a month ago I took a seminar, an introduction to shamanism. A few days after the seminar I had a Focusing session. As it proceeded I noticed that it was a lot like a shamanic journey. And also at that point I just wanted my privacy for it, no involvement from the Focusing partner. I was surprised that I tapped into something so similar to a shamanic journey while Focusing. Where does one ‘go’ inside during Focusing?”
Dear Reader,
I don’t want to have you stop doing something that you are enjoying, but I suspect that it’s possible that the sessions that you have been having are more “shamanic journey” than “Focusing.”
For sure, images and pictures are very welcome as a part of Focusing. But you need to have a relationship with what your body is showing you, which means that YOU need to be outside of the imagery world, able to interact there, yes, but not being swept along in it or by it.
One simple definition of Focusing is “sensing a felt sense, sensing for symbols that match it, sensing in the body if those symbols do in fact match the felt sense.” (Focusing Student’s and Companion’s Manual, Part One, p. 45)
An image can be a felt sense, or it can be the description of a felt sense. The key is the checking back, sensing “Is this right, does this fit, is there more to this?”
You as the Focuser need to go slowly enough that you can feel your relationship with what is there, and you can check for a sense of fitting or rightness. The difficult thing about images is that they can start to become the story or the drama or the movie themselves… but then what do you check and where do you check it?
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I’d suggest you start your Focusing process with a life issue. That way you can be more connected with how a felt sense is your body’s sense about something in your life.
Let’s say you start with a decision you need to make. “Should I move or stay?” You bring awareness into your body and remember the decision. Invite your body’s sense of that decision, or any part of that decision.
Now, for example, an image comes. You see an ancient well, with a bucket. We have two routes: the Focusing way, and the “shamanic” way. (I don’t know if this is really “shamanic” but I’m using that word right now to refer to a process of immersion in an imaginal world.) Let’s also contrast a third
way, the analytical way.
Imaginal (“shamanic”) way: You go up to the well and dip the bucket in the water. It comes up, and there is a fairy swimming in the bucket. She invites you to come with her down into the well. You go down the well… (etc.)
Analytical way: You think, “What could a well mean? What could a bucket mean?”
Focusing way: You say “Hello” to the well and the bucket. You assume that “something about” that decision feels like this well and bucket, but you don’t think about what. As you stay with it, you start to sense a feeling of “generous.” Like there is a generous abundance of something, a feeling of flow. You realize that one of the choices in your decision feels like this, “generous flow.” You check in your body if that feels right.
The Focusing way takes a bit more discipline than either of the other ways, especially if you’re not used to it. Some of us like to think. Others of us like to follow stories unfolding in pictures. But the Focusing approach is richly rewarding if you slow down and don’t follow those familiar routes.
You can still get images. Just don’t follow them down the rabbit hole.
