A focusing session is an experience of deep contact with yourself and with the unknown aspects of yourself.

It is grounding and presence based process of coming to a more intimate relationship with all facets of ourselves through deep listening, inviting and staying with the body and its many messages. Focusing involves having a different kind of relationship with emotions and feelings. It’s as if you are becoming your own good listener. The result is greater calm, wiser choices and a deeper sense of connection to your own life and being. It is an amazingly simple and powerful approach to self-discovery, to acknowledge, welcome and enter into relationship with what is there. It is pausing and bringing forth non-judging awareness to a special kind of body sense called a “felt sense” and then staying present with it. It does not require any special expertise or beliefs. It is not psychotherapy nor coaching. It is something you can learn to do by yourself with a little training.

How it works ?

Typically when something is distressing us, and we feel upset and agitated, we have a tendency to want to figure out a solution.   Our reasoning is, if we can figure it out intellectually, we think that means we’ll be able to solve the problem and implement the solution.  And this work well …. until it doesn’t.  Life’s toughest problems, especially the ones involving sensations, emotions and other people, cannot be solved this way.

In an Inner Relationship Focusing session, you learn a series of steps of inner contact, from describing what something feels like, to saying hello to it, to sensing what it has to show you. You learn how to pause and feel in the here and now what is going on inside your body.  You develop how to be with a sensation that you know is connected to something in your life.  You may or may not know what it refers to, but it definitely has a sense of meaning to it.  With an interesting curiosity you give it space and keep it company.  You learn to recognize and welcome whatever emerges in the same manner, as you would welcome a guest in your house.  It is like a conversation with yourself, a conversation where you do all the listening.  This way of doing, being with what is there, opens to an invaluable inner landscape, made of nuances, opportunities, wealth, immeasurable treasures.  Situations that felt completely stuck will start to release and change.  You discover that you have an inner compass of knowing that can guide you through changing times.

There is wisdom and life energy in what IS…. but to tap into it, we also need not to be overwhelmed by it.  Focusing is about BEING WITH the wholeness of how we are, allowing space and movement to emerge and move forward.  Focusing reminds us who we are.  Focusing helps us to reconnect to our Being, be present with it and come from it.  Focusing is about the state of Presence and its power, this ability to be with any inner experience with interested curiosity and void of judgment.  Focusing reminds us that we are this vast container, a safe space where the various parts of our inquiry can be fully heard.

What are the essential qualities of Focusing ?

• Focusing is gentle and respectful.  We think that we need to be forceful with ourselves in order to make something change – but force just creates resistance.  Gentleness can be the most powerful force in the inner world.  Likewise, self-criticism sets up resistance to change.  Treating ourselves with kindness and respect is key.

• Focusing is inclusive. All our feelings and aspects of ourselves are welcomed.   There is no «getting rid of» anything.  You learn a way of being with your emotional states from a larger, calmer state.

• Focusing is positive.  It carries in itself your next step.  You don’t have to tell your story again or get sunk in what’s wrong.   Focusing let’s you get in touch with the forward-moving energy that belongs to you, but without pushing anything away.

What Focusing will help you with ?

• Focusing will help you to
• Get connected to what is
• Be gentle with yourself
• Have your feelings… but your feelings don’t have you
• Know what your “gut” is telling you
• Trust yourself
• Discover the treasure in inner conflict
• Find the gifts in your symptoms
• Heal more quickly from illness and injury
• Get past shame
• Nurturing a sense of self worth
• Quiet your inner critic and turning it into a friend
• Radically accept everything in yourself
• Stop addictions without forcing yourself
• Resolve traumatic issues from the past
• Release blocks to action
• Make clear decisions easily
• Know what you really feel
• Wake up to subtle cues.