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Getting A Felt Sense: Caring Feeling Presence
How Can I Heal My Own Aloneness?
Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director Week Four |
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"I Can't Fix Myself! It's too late! My parents should have done it! I don't have an Inner Nurturer!"
For this four weeks, we are working on perhaps the most essential aspect for successful Intuitive Focusing, creating a positive attitude, inside of yourself, for whatever might arise during a Focusing turn.This is The Focusing Attitude.In Week One, I talked about turning a Caring Feeling Presence toward your inner experiencing, finding an Inner Nurturer and an Inner Woundedness. In Week Two, I talked about establishing an inner, trusting relationship between "parts" of the Self that had perhaps been at war for years and didn't really like each other. In Week Three, I talked about dealing with the Inner Abuser, Inner Critics, and Inner Conflicts.
Now, we take on a common "Inner Child Focusing" problem. As Focused Listener or Focusing-Oriented Therapist, I might say, when a Focuser is sobbing with shame, emptiness, being unlovable, having a hole inside of themselves, "Can you find a way that your Inner Nurturer can comfort, can put her arms around that unloved part and let her know she is okay, she is loveable?" And the Focuser might say, "I don't have an Inner Nurturer!!!" or "I can't fix that! It's too late. It needed to happen when I was a child, come from my parents." Or "I don't have a lover or a spouse, someone who can hold me so I can feel better."
Everyone Has An Inner Nurturer, and Healing Can Begin NOW
If this were true, then people really would be trapped. There would be no way they could heal their own aloneness, their own emptiness.
However, this really isn't true. Almost all of us (and those who really can't need the help of an external Nurturing Therapist until they can incorporate this outer presence inside of themselves) can find a "part" of ourself that knows how to love someone else, knows how to be a friend, would know what to do if confronted by an actual sobbing child or wounded animal, for many of us, a part that is a wonderful counselor/therapist/guide for many other people!!!
And it is perfectly possible, once you find images for these nurturing parts of yourself and "sense into" the whole bodily-felt sense, the "intuitive feel" of how these parts of yourself offer Caring Feeling Presence to others, then you CAN turn this inner nurturing attention toward the wounded, empty, hurting parts of yourself and heal them NOW, hold them NOW, tell them NOW that they are perfectly loveable and acceptable and wanted and deserving.
And this is a most hopeful possibility, a way of healing your own inner aloneness, your own emptiness, your own "unworthiness" without a desperate and, usually unsuccesful, search for some "outer lover" to do this for you.
Try The Caring Feeling Exercise Again With Special Attention To Believing That You Can Heal Your Own Inner Aloneness, To Finding Some Representation of Your Own Inner Nurturer
Please try out again Pete and Ed's introductory Biospiritual Focusing exercise for finding a "felt sense," an "intuitive feel" for developing Caring Feeling Relationship inside. It involves learning how it feels, in your body, when you are trying to show complete love and safety to someone. Then, turning that same loving attention, that Caring Feeling Presence, toward your own inner experiences. And, at this point, also noticing any Inner Voices that say, "Its too late. I can't fix this myself. I can't fill myself up," and turning a Caring Feeling Inner Nurturer towards those parts: "I can hold you right now." Email me with experiences, questions that come up:
A CARING FEELING PRESENCE INSIDE
"Take a moment to find a comfortable sitting position---
Loosen any clothing that is too tight---
And begin to come quietly inside by closing your eyes and starting to just notice your breathing---
Just noticing your breathing---going in---and out---in---and out---Let any sighs or deeper breathing arise naturally---
(one minute)
Now, notice your body, how it feels in the chair ---
Massage any spots that feel sore---
Massage your head---
Wrinkle up your face and stretch your jaw---and relax!!!!!
Make a few circles with your shoulders, bringing them up to your ears, around toward the back, and dropping them down---and repeating four or five times---
(one minute)
And now bring your attention inside, to the place where you find a "felt sense" or an "intuitive feel" when you are using Focusing, often in the center of your body, around the chest/heart area----
(one minute)
And now, imagine that you work in a hospital---
An infant has been left on the hospital steps---
Let yourself feel the impact of this situation in your body---
It is your job to pick up that infant and to convey to it, through your body, your way of holding it, that it is safe, that it is perfectly and truly wanted in this world. Imagine picking up that infant---
Now, imagine what you would do in your body to convey to that infant that it is prefectly safe, that it is truly wanted in this world---
(one minute)
Notice what you do in your body to convey this loving attention, without words---
(one minute)
Now, imagine turning that same kind of Caring Feeling Presence toward your own inner places, whatever they may be---
(one minute)
Bring to your mind times in your life went you felt loved and valued in this way. Look for particular places or people or animals or situations where you felt completely safe, completely wanted, basking in the warmth of loving attention. Make a special effort to find the part of you that knows how to nurture others, and to turn that toward yourself---
(one to three minutes)
Choose one of these images/places/people/situations that could stand as such a strong symbol of this kind of safety that you could use the memory of it as an anchor or talisman to bring you to that sense of Caring Feeling Presence to your own inside experiences. We'll call that your Inner Nurturer---
(one to three minutes)
Now, look through your life and store of memories and images and see if you can find an image of a part of yourself that is now or was at some point very much in need of that kind of Caring Feeling Presence. It could be an Inner Child, yourself at a certain age or time of life. But it could be another kind of image: like "a wounded animal" or "a butterfly with a crumpled wing" or "a gangrenous leg---I just want to cut it off" or a particular physical tension (headache, tight jaw, stomach knot) that you often suffer from. We'll call that your Inner Woundedness---
(one to three minutes)
Now, imagine taking your Inner Nurturer and turning that Caring Feeling Presence toward your Inner Woundedness---
(one to three minutes)
Just spend some time seeing if you can touch your Inner Woundedness with that Inner Nurturing---
(one to three minutes)
And come back into the room when you are ready.
BOOKS AIDING HEALING YOUR INNER ALONENESS, INNER CHILD
When using exercises from any of these books, be sure to take the extra step of "sitting with" the "felt sense," the "intuitive feel" that comes with images, and using Focusing to go deeper in a non-linear way. Going from image to image, in a linear way, is not the same as letting the "intuitive feel" of an image arise, and using Focusing to find the something new, the something "more than words" that can come from the "felt sense":
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QUICK LINKS TO E-SUPPORT, CLASSES, BLOG, ARTICLES, ETC.
Self-Help Package, CDs, DVD, manual English and espanol
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| About Creative Edge Focusing (TM)
Mission: bring Core Skills of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, and The Creative Edge Pyramid of applications from individual to interpersonal to organizational, to all audiences throughout the world.
Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director
Location: Beaver Lake in Rogers, AR
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These materials are offered purely as self-help skills. In providing them, Dr. McGuire is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought. | |
| Creative Edge Focusing (TM)
Dr. Kathy McGuire
Director | |
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