What is Focusing ?
Focusing is a process of deep listening which allows us to access and navigate our inner being. By learning how to bring our awareness inside and listen there we can bring into ‘focus’ something that is not yet clear. This gives us a line of connection to our inner knowing. A way to welcome, hold, be with and contact everything that exists within. It is a process that can bring us more spaciousness and groundedness , give us a lived experience of inner transformation and provide clear directives for ways forward in our lives.
Focusing
“When an individual expresses accurately for the first time how he is, just then and precisely in so doing he is no longer that way.... The physically sensed release of the words which feel exactly right-this very feeling is the feeling of change, or resolution, of experiencing moving a step forward... To say how it is [going for the individual] does not simply represent, but it creates, it moves, it carries forward; it is a process of living.”
— Eugene Gendlin, Existentialism and Experimental Psychotherapy 1966
The Origins of Focusing
While Eugene Genldin was studying with renowned psychologist Carl Rogers , founder of person centered psychology, he became interested in what makes for a successful therapy. He discovered that there were elements, within the therapy session, that when present resulted in positive change and growth for the participants. A way of being and listening to oneself that created conditions where stuck places could shift and new information could emerge. Some people knew how to do this naturally, while for others it was not available. Gendlin was able to translate this ability, innate in some, into something that everyone could learn and practice. It was through this investigation the process of focusing was unearthed.
My understanding is that this type of deep inner listening has been at the centre of many civilisations throughout history and, like other crucial elements of our culture, was lost, forgotten or banished. It was Genldin that rediscovered it, researched it and gave it form for our modern psyches to comprehend and reintegrate into our lives. Like an archeologist for the soul, rediscovering something long buried and bringing it back to life for the present time. An alchemist.
“One must go to that place where there are not words but only feeling “
— Eugene Gendlin , Focusing 1978
“…one can feel more than one understands…”
— Eugene Gendlin, Focusing 1978