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Relaxation #1: Noticing Your Breathing ---
The Difference Between Intuitive Focusing and Meditation
Week Four Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director |
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| From Creative Edge Focusing: This month's Relaxation Exercise :
Week Four ---"Ahhhhh....pause with me for ten minutes....and just relax!!! I will send this exercise each week as a reminder to pause...
Some people find it easy to drop all their stress and enter into an interior Focusing space. But, many people need easy first steps of practice for "going quietly inside." And even experienced Focusers get caught up in stress and business and welcome a reminder to take a moment to....pause.....(sigh!)...pay attention to their breathing.......(ahhhhhh!)......and...relax...
While many people use meditation techniques as an end in themselves, a way of healing mind and body, we are using them as a way of "clearing a space" in the body for the specific problem-solving process of Intuitive Focusing.
INTUITIVE FOCUSING IS NOT THE SAME AS MEDITATION
In general, the goal of meditation is to still and clear the constant activity of the mind, to "let go" of controlling thoughts and ego, to rest in a peaceful state of "non-attachment." With repeated practice, this meditative state of meeting life's events with "non-attachment" becomes more and more present during the events of everyday living, leading to stress reduction and action from a place of peaceful awareness. Meditation is the OPPOSITE of a problem-solving strategy. Its goal is "emptiness" as a healing state in itself. You can find links to many forms of meditation in Week Three: Noticing The Monkey Mind.
Intuitive Focusing IS a problem-solving method. After using meditations like Noticing Your Breathing to "clear a space," to get to that space of "emptiness," in Intuitive Focusing, we then turn ourselves toward a more ACTIVE way of engaging and interacting with actual real-life concerns. We ask ourselves an open-ended question, like "What is the feel of this whole thing?", and then we wait, as long as a minute, for a "felt sense" of an issue or idea to appear in the center of our body. We allow something to arise in that "empty stage" of the body/mind.
However, different from normal intellectual problem-solving, in Focusing, we are not arguing lists of pros and cons. We are finding a way to engage with the "bodily felt sense," the right-brain "intuitive feel" of an issue or idea, The Creative Edge from which new, non-linear information can unfold. We are engaging in a back-and-forth between this "intuitive feel" and any words, images, or gestures that arise in relation to it. The "body-feel" is the final judge of "rightness." Through a release of tension, the body tells us, "Yes, that is exactly right. That's it."
So, Focusing and meditation are two very different kinds of "Inner Actions," specific activities we can engage in inside of ourselves. But we are using meditation as a first step, a way of opening up enough "free attention" in the body for the deeper process of Intuitive Focusing, which involves a more active back-and-forth between the "intuitive feel" of an issue or idea and symbolizations (words, images, gestures) that arise from it.
Print and Practice!!!!!
Here is your relaxation exercise for this month. Print it out, keep it handy, and take those few moments to relax every day, if you can, or as often as possible. Or, you can just open this weekly reminder and walk through the exercise online. Relaxing is one way to "clear a space" inside for a longer-term Focusing Problem Solving session.
You will also find this in the Complete Focusing Instructions download at Creative Edge Focusing, p.3: Pre-Focusing Practice A. Relaxation Suggestions #1: Noticing. You get it by joining our e-support group for further support in practicing Listening and Focusing.
And, if you order our Self-Help Package, also in the sidebar icons of our website, you can listen on audio CD Intuitive Focusing: Disk one, Track 2, with Dr, McGuire's peaceful voice to keep you company -- and help you stay on track!! |
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PRE-FOCUSING PRACTICE
A. RELAXATION SUGGESTIONS (from Complete Focusing Instructions)
The quiet time between instructions is an important time for just breathing---and relaxing.
You can lie on the floor or, for most exercises, sit in a chair. If you fall asleep, it's okay! Means you need more rest! But you may also want to practice sitting up to avoid sleeping.
Especially at the beginning, time those "1 minute" pauses for breathing in---and out--- You will be amazed at how long a minute is, how seldom we ever pause for a whole minute!!!
1. Noticing-Allow 10-15 minutes
Lie down and make yourself comfortable---Loosen any clothing that is too tight---
Massage your own neck and face, making small circles with your fingertips over small areas at a time---Find at least five different spots on your neck and five on your face to massage in this way--- Feel the tension leaving---
1 minute
Stretch your whole body three times, reaching your arms out over your head, arching your back, and pointing your toes--- After each stretch, collapse into the floor and breath deeply, relaxing---stretch---and relax---stretch---and relax---stretch---and relax
10 seconds
Now, lie there and notice your breathing. Don't try to change it,just notice the breath going in and out---in---and out---in---and out---in---and out
10 seconds
Now, begin to notice any thoughts or pictures you are having. JUST NOTICE THEM---and keep breathing, in---and out---in---and out---
1 minute
Just notice your thoughts going by, like a movie---don't think or problem solve---just notice---and keep breathing, in---and out---in and out---
1 minute
If you realize that you have started thinking about something and are trying to solve a problem or have started worrying about something, just allow yourself to leave that thought and to come back to noticing your breathing, going in---and out---in---and out---
1 minute
If you have started thinking and problem solving, just leave that thought---and come back to noticing your breath, going in---and out---in---and out---
1 minute
Just noticing your thoughts, like a movie, letting them go, returning to noticing your breath, going in---and out---in---and out
3 minutes
Now, massage any parts of your body that seem tense or uncomfortable---
1 minute
Stretch one more time, and get up when you are ready. |
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| About Creative Edge Focusing
Located by Beaver Lake in Rogers, AR, our goal is to support people in the practice of listening/focusing skills, throughout the world, and for personal growth, interpersonal conflict resolution, and creative individual and group problem solving.
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| Creative Edge Focusing (TM)
Dr. Kathy McGuire
Director | |
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