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December 20 2005
- by Ann Weiser CornellFocusing and Gift Shopping Around this time of year many of us buy more gifts for more people than at any other time of year. That’s true for me, anyway. And I love the feeling that comes when I find just the right gift for that person, and see their face light up, or get interested… I used to be a terrible gift shopper. Something in me would get anxious and I’d buy the first thing remotely suitable, just to have it over with. This year I’m reflecting on how gift buying feels to me now, and what has changed.…
Ann Weiser CornellDecember 13 2005
- by Ann Weiser CornellMore on Focusing in the Midst of Life Last week in Weekly Tips I wrote about the possibility of Focusing in the midst of life — when having a conversation with my daughter, or in a business meeting. I talked about taking time to feel my body’s contact with what I’m sitting on, and how that helps me get in touch with what I feel in those situations. That brought some questions for Weekly Tips reader Edwin Holloway: “Do you do this while holding the issue in awareness simultaneously? And, what if what comes suggests something that’s not easy to…
Ann Weiser CornellDecember 6 2005
- by Ann Weiser CornellThe Fastest Way to Get Back to Myself All day long I encounter situations that need me to be in touch with myself. I need to be centered for a conversation with my daughter. Or I’m making a business decision–shall I offer a new type of workshop? Or someone I don’t know well asks me for a favor. I want to be in touch with myself for such situations–knowing how I feel, what I want, how the other person or circumstance is impacting me. I’ve found that the fastest, surest way to get back to myself, no matter what is…
Ann Weiser CornellNovember 29 2005
- by Ann Weiser CornellFocusing allows us to be a friend to a part of us that is in pain. “Something in Me” Doesn’t Want the Pain Chronic pain can be stressful and preoccupying, and seriously decrease our quality of life. I can’t promise you that Focusing can make your pain go away. But Focusing can help you shift remarkably your relationship with the place in you that has to bear the pain… and in the process, the pain may shift as well. Even to be able to be with a chronic pain at all, we’ll probably first need to acknowledge all the feelings…
Ann Weiser CornellNovember 22 2005
- by Ann Weiser CornellFocusing allows us to experience physical symptoms in a different way. “I Bumped My Toe!” People think I’m strange. When I’m out walking, and I bump my toe or bang my knee on something, I stop, hold still, and close my eyes. My friends have learned to wait, and not worry. What am I doing? I’m bringing awareness to the place that hurts, just sensing it as it is, right now. Just allowing the feeling to be there, and taking the time it needs. At first it feels worse, and there’s a temptation to move on and try to ignore…
Ann Weiser CornellNovember 15 2005
- by Ann Weiser CornellFocusing is a fresh entering into our experience of life and situations, right now, just as we are. Describing Not Labeling Imagine that I’m asking you to close your eyes and hold out your hands. A surprise? Don’t peek! You feel something being placed in your hands… an object of some kind. Notice what it feels like… soft? cool? smooth or rough? Notice if it’s possible to keep describing it without trying to say WHAT the object is. Hard to do? Yes, if you’re like the students in my latest Path to Lasting Change, Part One workshop who tried this…
Ann Weiser CornellNovember 8 2005
- by Ann Weiser CornellFocusing is different from our usual way of being because it is a pause, a slowing down, and a sensing from a more wholistic perspective. Slowing Down While Focusing One tip that will make all your Focusing go better is this one: Slow down. Slowing down helps you sense into your body, into your being at this moment. (And, in a delightful synergy, sensing into your body also helps you slow down!) If you say to yourself “I’m taking time to…” that’s a great reminder to take time. For example: “I’m taking time to sense into my body.” “I’m taking…
Ann Weiser CornellNovember 1 2005
- by Ann Weiser CornellFocusing let’s us experience strong emotions in a different way, from a larger perspective, not being caught up in our feelings but being WITH them. What a difference! I Am Not My Feelings I remember when my brother Mark told me that he had been diagnosed with late-stage, untreatable stomach cancer. I felt so full of sorrow for him, his daughters, our mother… I could hardly stand how much feeling there was in me. Mark was calmer than I was! I called up one of my closest friends Jane, also a Focusing teacher. Her warm, listening voice, just saying back…
Ann Weiser CornellOctober 25 2005
- by Ann Weiser CornellFocusing offers a fresh way of approaching all the issues in our lives, not mired in the familiar stuck process, but sensing how it is NOW… and letting ourselves be surprised! It’s Not What You Think Julie came to the second day of a Focusing workshop and told us an exciting story. That morning, she had felt grumpy and irritated, thinking about all the things her husband wasn’t doing “right.” In the shower she realized she was stuck in an old routine — and she decided to do some Focusing. She acknowledged what she was feeling and asked her body…
Ann Weiser CornellOctober 18 2005
- by Ann Weiser CornellFuture Weekly Tips could answer YOUR burning questions about Focusing! Just reply to this email and let me know what you’re wondering… An Inner Relationship Our experienced world is relational. No one is alone. “No man is an island,” the poet John Donne wrote. We live immersed in language and action, and our inter-relationships with others permeate our lives. Yet we are also capable of an inner relationship that enhances and improves those outer relationships. The inner relationship is a deep listening to what we feel, how we are, what we (and various parts of us) need and want. My…
Ann Weiser Cornell