Creative Edge Focusing E-Newsletter

Complete Focusing Session 

"Sitting With" The Creative Edge of an Interpersonal Situation

                                                                   
 Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director                                Week One
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
 
This is the beginning of a new four week cycle. For four weeks, we practice an actual exercise in three different categories: An Instant "Ahah!" to integrate into your every day life at work and at home, a Felt Sensing exercise to practice this step of Focusing, and a Complete Focusing Session. Actually doing the exercise which  arrives in each e-newsletter insures that you can call upon these new skills when needed!

COMPLETE FOCUSING SESSION: SITTING WITH THE CREATIVE EDGE OF AN INTERPERSONAL SITUATION

 

Earlier this week you received Interpersonal Focusing : "This flower is beautiful To ME", showing how owning our own reactions, instead of blaming them on the other, actually empowers us to begin to change interpersonal situations, and Interpersonal Felt Sensing Exercise, inviting you to find the bodily, "intuitive feel" of five unresolved interpersonal situations.

 
In the Complete Focusing Session for each of the next four weeks, you will be invited to take one of these interpersonal situations and sense into, "sit with" it in a Focusing way, seeing what new information about yourself-in-this-situation can unfold. 
 
Throughout the month, we will also explore methods for communicating and using Listening/Focusing turns with the actual other person as a way of resolving interpersonal conflict. The "felt sense" in each person in an interpersonal situation contains a Creative Edge which, when shared,  can carry both problem solving and relationship forward.
 
But, in Complete Focusing, you are going more deeply into "owning" the personal dimension of the interaction for yourself, given the person that you are.
 

Focusing On A Specific Interpersonal Situation (20 minutes)

 

---Get comfortable in a chair or lying on the floor, letting your weight fall into the surface under you, trusting it to support you ---

 

---Turn inward by closing your eyes and beginning to just notice your breathing, noticing the breath going in --- and out --- in --- and out--- in --- and out ---

1 minute

---Notice where you have tension in your body, perhaps your neck, shoulders, legs, face   30 seconds

 

---Imagine that the tension is a stream of water, flowing out of your body, down your arms and legs, out through your fingertips and toes---30 seconds

 

---Imagine the tension flowing like water, down your body and out of your arms and legs --- 30 seconds

 

---Let yourself travel inside of your body to a place of peace --- 30 seconds

 

---Now, bring to mind a specific interpersonal situation about which you want to know more ---

1 minute

---Bring back the detailed memory of being there, in that situation ---

1 minute

---Now, set aside all of your thoughts about the situation, and just try to remember what it felt like to be there---not words but the bodily feel of being there ---

1 minute

---Now, carefully try to find words for the bodily feel, or an image or gesture.  Go carefully back and forth between the symbols and the feel of the whole thing until you find words or an image or a gesture that are just right.

1 minute

---Now, gently ask yourself, "What's the meaning of this for me?", and see what comes in the center of your body, the place where you experience "intuitions" ---

1 minute

---Again, carefully find words or an image that exactly fit that feeling ---

1 minute

---And ask yourself, "And why does that matter to me?" and see what comes as an "intuitive feel," somewhere in the center of your body ---

1 minute

---Find words or an image that are just right ---

1 minute

---Now, imagine what the situation would look like if it were perfectly okay ---

1 minute

---And ask your body, "What's in the way of that?" and see what comes as an "intuitive feel."

1 minute

---Find words or an image to capture that "intuitive feel" ---

1 minute

---And ask yourself, "Why is that hard for me?" and see what comes as an "intuitive feel" ---

1 minute

---Find words or an image that are just right in capturing that "intuitive feel" ---

1 minute

---See if you can imagine some small step you could take to make the situation better ---

1 minute

---And check with the "intuitive feel" in your body to see if that would be possible ---

1 minute

---Keep imagining a step, and checking with your body, until some step feels "okay."

 

---And, when you're ready, stop Focusing for today.
 

--- If you find yourself "stirred up" be reflecting upon these situations, use the "Present Time" exercise to separate from that reactivity and come fully back to the present:  Choose a  shape, like round or rectangular, or a color, like black or orange, and name everything in the room that falls into that category, looking very carefully at everything around you. This "outer focus" should allow you to put the "internal focus" aside until another day.

 

--- If that is actually impossible for you, then take out Instant "Ahah!" #1: Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You and follow the Complete Focusing Instructions included, until something "shifts" inside ---

 QUICK LINKS TO E-SUPPORT, CLASSES, BLOG, ARTICLES, ETC.
 
Two Yahoo E-Groups, Creative Edge Practice and Creative Edge Collaboration, for Ongoing Support and Learning
 
 
Self-Help Package, CDs, DVD, manual English and espanol
 
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
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