One day when I was reading through some of Ann Weiser Cornell’s Focusing Tips, I read about how a woman she knows speaks into some voice recognition software on her computer while Focusing, and it types out what she is saying for her. While I’m not aware of having any software like that on our computer, it gave me the idea that I could record myself Focusing using the Audacity program I do have. I didn’t know whether it would work, but I had a feeling that since I am used to getting great results Focusing sitting by my computer, with my headset on, with a Focusing Partner on the other end of the Skype line, it may just set the scene enough for it to work.

What unfolded was truly amazing. I not only had an incredibly successful Focusing session, which lasted for about as long as they do when I have a partner listening in on the other end of the line, but it also felt like for the first time in my life, I was truly sitting down and listening to myself. I’ve long known the benefit of truly listening to someone for their own healing, but I hadn’t realised that while I regularly make myself available to others in that capacity, I’ve been failing to do that for myself!!! As I sat, speaking aloud into the microphone, knowing the computer was recording everything I said, parts of me that I have never before heard from tentatively started coming forward. In the privacy of my own home, with no-one as witness except myself, all barriers came down, and emotions tumbled out. The issue itself was a big one, one I hadn’t even considered Focusing on, but that was only part of the benefit, the other part of the magic was that I felt like I was truly hearing myself in a totally accepting and non-judgmental way, possibly for the first time in my life.

While I still benefit greatly from Focusing with my Focusing Partner, I now also regularly tune in and Focus alone, recording the session and watching the magic unfold. One of the benefits of Focusing alone are that I can do a session any time I have a few spare minutes, or have the need to get to the bottom of something, instead of waiting for when I next have a session scheduled with someone else. I read once that the word intimacy means “into-me-see” and that we can only ever be truly intimate with another, if we can see clearly into ourselves. Doing Focusing with myself in this way feels like the most wonderful way of getting to know myself better. So the main benefit is that I am actually spending time with myself, strengthening the most important relationship that any of us have – with myself.

Perhaps an analogy is the easiest way to understand this. Imagine you are the father of several children, and for the last few years you’ve been rather preoccupied with other aspects of life, and haven’t been taking the time to really listen to your kids. As far as you know, all is well in the family, you haven’t noticed anything to give you real cause for concern.

One day a very good friend, someone who you really trust has your and your family’s best interests at heart, comes to visit you at your office. Your friend is concerned - he’s seen signs that your children are having difficulties with various aspects of life, and wonders whether you are aware of it. Not having noticed these signs yourself, you are dubious at best, but he’s one of your oldest and most trusted friends, and you know he wouldn’t have said something without reason.

So you go home that night, sit all the kids down and ask them how things are going. A chorus of “fine” is their response. Unaccustomed to being with the kids in this way, you are at a loss to know what to do next.

Now imagine for a moment how the kids must be feeling. Dad hasn’t noticed anything up over the last few months, despite repeated attempts on your parts to spend time with him and get his attention. On the occasions when he does seem to have heard that you have a problem, he’s either dismissed it with “I’m too busy right now”, or “Don’t worry about it, it’ll work out OK.” Worse still, some days he’s so tired after work that he gets angry when you want his attention, and your feelings just wind up getting hurt even more.

So now he’s sat you down, together with your brothers and sisters, and asked you how things are going. Are you going to sit up right away and tell him all your troubles? Do you trust that he’ll be able to hear it all and help you with your issues? Or do you sit back, quietly affirming that all is well, so as not to rock the boat?

Each one of us, to one degree or another, is like this family. We have parts of us that haven’t been heard for years, or that have been dismissed because we didn’t have the time or feel comfortable dealing with them. Old childhood wounds and the stresses of daily life as an adult all build up inside us, creating parts of us that remain unheard. When we first sit down to Focus, it’s like the father sitting down and suddenly expecting the kids to tell him everything on their minds.

So what can we do about this? If we are determined to get in touch with any unhealed aspects of ourselves, we proceed in the way a wise father would, having finally realised there is something that needs attention. We sit down regularly with “the kids”, allowing the opportunity for their trust to be built, simply listening and ensuring we don’t minimise how they are feeling, and over time they will gradually open up to us more and more. While this process can at first seem impossible at worst, or frustratingly slow at best, until we can truly acknowledge those unheard hurts and feelings inside of us, they will continue to control our behaviour, without us even realising it. Focusing regularly gives us the opportunity to simply hang out with them, building the trust needed for them to finally open up and talk. And as any experienced Focuser knows, there is the most incredible magic and liberation in simply being heard. We don’t need to find ways to fix past hurts, unlived dreams; all we need to do is simply hear them, truly hear them.

If you are serious about building this relationship with yourself, I wholeheartedly recommend doing a course with a Focusing Teacher, and establishing a Focusing Partnership with someone else who has done the training. While it requires an initial investment of some money and time to do the training, it gives you a long term sustainable (and free!) way to truly listen to those unhealed parts of yourself, in a way that they will no longer stand between you and where you want to be in life. In being truly heard by the Focusing Teacher and Focusing Partner, and learning how to truly hear them as they Focus, you will learn how to truly hear your own Focusing process.

Focusing as a way of moving forward with an issue

One of the themes that has kept recurring throughout my healing journey is the need to be able to bring compassion to myself, in particular to those parts of myself that are holding beliefs that I’m not aware of.  This is a continual work in progress for me, each time I think I’ve mastered it I carry on with life only to hit some block or find that something isn’t clearing in my healing, and I’m jolted back to the reality that I’m not treating myself with the compassion that I could be. 

One of the resources that I have found so useful on this journey is Ann Weiser Cornell’s website, www.focusingresources.com.  Ann is a Focusing teacher and generously shares her skills via many articles and some teleseminars, and time and again I’ve found them to be very useful to me.

For those who are not familiar with Focusing, here’s a little background on how this skill came to be known and why it can be an important one to have on our healing journey. 

Over 35 years ago, at the University of Chicago, a psychotherapist and philosopher by the name of Eugene Gendlin was studying what makes therapy successful. Contrary to what he was expecting to find, he was amazed to discover that the answer lay not in something that the therapist did, but rather, was a skill that the client did or didn’t have. Gendlin found that he was able to predict whether or not a series of therapy sessions would be successful simply by viewing a recording of the first two sessions with a client. When he went back and checked what he had discovered against his own practice, he found that contrary to what he had believed, those of his clients who were successful all had the skill to start with, and simply became better at tapping into it as the sessions went by. Those clients who didn’t have the skill, continued to flounder and not get the answers they needed to resolve their issues, no matter how many sessions he had with them.

So what is this skill that makes all the difference? Gendlin found that those who were successful in therapy at different times stopped talking, and appeared to be going inward, searching for the right word to use to describe a feeling. He discovered that it was a process that went on inside of them that made all the difference, and later went on to study the process to the point of being able to develop teachable steps, so that everyone can learn it. He called the skill Focusing, and there is now a worldwide Focusing movement with people from all walks of life successfully tapping into this skill to enhance whatever other methods they use for healing and their own growth.

If you have been working on healing an issue in your life and are struggling to make headway with it, this skill could make all the difference for you.

Two of the resources on Ann’s website that I come back to time and again are her writing and teleseminar of Focusing and Action Blocks, and Radical Gentleness: Transformation of the Inner Critic. 

Focusing and Action Blocks

Ann’s writing and teleseminar on this are specifically addressing when there is something in your life that you want to do but you find you just don’t do it.  I have found that this can extend to a lot more areas than I originally considered.  It can be very helpful any time there is anything in my life that I am working on healing and finding that I am not making real progress.  In any issue that we want to heal but aren’t, there is clearly something in us that wants to let go of the issue/symptoms/behaviour and something in us that doesn’t!  As Focusing is such a powerful skill, which can make the difference between any type of therapy or self-healing working or not working, Ann’s teleseminar could be of use to many people.  In it she gives an introduction to Focusing and shares a great story from her own life that shows how helpful it can be to our process of moving forward with something.  She also takes the listeners through a mini Focusing process to help them to experience the process and start to learn how to use it. 

You can download the teleseminar from here.  If you are on a slow internet connection and unable to download the MP3 file, you can instead read an article by Ann on the same topic, however it is not as comprehensive so I would suggest listening to the seminar if at all possible. 

Radical Gentleness: Transformation of the Inner Critic

This chapter from Ann’s second book is available to read free of charge, you can download the PDF file here.  This article really helped me to start to see the relationship that I had with the critical voice in my head, and how learning to hear what is behind what it is saying is a very important part of my healing process. 

Whenever there is something in our life that we want to change that isn’t changing, there is usually a part of us that has something to say on the matter that at first glance appears to be very negative and unhelpful. Since being introduced to Focusing in 2007 I have found that time and time again, hearing what is driving that critical voice turns out to be the key to resolving major issues.  I highly recommend downloading and printing out this chapter from Ann’s book and reading it several times no matter what method of healing you are using.

Note:

I understand that some people who discover the skill of Focusing are put off learning it because of the price some teachers are charging for classes.  I understand that many of the teachers’ prices put learning this skill beyond quite a few peoples’ means.  There is however a teacher who teaches Focusing via Skype to anyone anywhere in the world for a very reasonable rate.  For the cost of only two or three sessions with a practitioner using EFT or other methods of healing, Suzanne will teach an 8 week course that allows you to use this skill for life.  If you would like to get in touch with Suzanne, you can contact her via www.innerwisdoms.com.  While this skill can be learnt on your own, most people find it is much easier to learn with the aid of an experienced Focusing teacher.

To learn more about Focusing, visit the Focusing Pages on the Self Healing Portal.

Focusing into Sleep