Creative Edge Focusing E-Newsletter

Instant "Ahah!"s #4:  Five-Minute Grieving 

Medical Change Event: From Migraine To Tears of Meaning                                                                 
 
 Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director                                Week Four 
Creative Edge Focusing E-Newsletter Weekly Support
 
For four weeks, we practice one Instant "Ahah!,", one Relaxation Exercise, and one Getting A Felt Sense Exercise, with e-reminders and tips each week. Our purpose:Helping you incorporate Listening and Focusing into your everyday life.

This month: From Instant "Ahah!" Mini-Manual, p. 13, #4.Five Minute Grieving: What To Do If A Patient, Friend, or Co-worker Starts Crying.

E-Newsletter Archives Now Available!
 
Newcomers, you can start with any issue and, in a year, you will have practiced all the exercises. In order to catch up on this cycle, see Instant Ahah #4 Five Minute Grieving Week 1 and Instant Ahah #4 Grieving = Alchemy Week Two and Instant Ahah #4 Being Touched and Being Moved Week Three
 
Anyone can also access the e-newsletter archives from the Free Resources submenu at Creative Edge Focusing.
MEDICAL CHANGE EVENT: FROM MIGRAINE TO TEARS OF MEANING
 
While Instant "Ahah!" # 4 specifically addresses what to do if a patient, friend, or co-worker begins to cry, the excerpt below shows how using Intuitive Focusing to "sit with" the "intuitive feel" of a physical symptom can allow that symptom to open into an "Ahah!" of deeper meanings, with a sheen of tears in the eye often the body's signpost of a place to stop and go deeper into "the feel of the whole thing."
 
The excerpt is a tiny portion of a Focusing Partnership session. The Focuser is experienced in using Intuitive Focusing. Early on, as the Focuser talks about waking with the beginnings of a migraine headache and related issues, the Listener notices a faint "shimmer of tears." She suggests that the Focuser stop and "sense into" the place of tears. By the end of the session, the Focuser has moved through deep sobbing about the heavy burden of depression she has carried "for soooo long" and experiences the liveliness of a "felt shift," "being lighter, wanting to dance!" She states that the migraine has abated.
 
The session begins with Focuser and Listener in chairs facing each other. The Focuser, because of her comfort with the Experiential Focusing process from past practice, chose to keep her eyes closed throughout the session, attending to her inner experiencing. The Listener, Dr. McGuire, begins:
 
Listener: "So, just feel comfortable closing your eyes and going inside, coming in tune with whatever is there---Let me know if you need some help or when you're ready to begin speaking--- 
 
Focuser: (10 second pause)---"---This morning when I awakened, I  had a headache on the left side of my head, and I thought, 'Oh, it's  migraine coming on'--- so I'm just sensing into what that was  about, um, like, my body was really full of toxins, like I just wanted to kind of shake the toxins out."
 
Listener: "So, even on waking, you noticed there was the beginning of a headache on the left side of your head, and you spent some time with it, just sensing into it, and the feeling was of toxins in your body, and you just wanted to shake them out, shake them out."
 
Focuser: (30 second pause) ------- "And I notice that my throat is stopped up this morning, and that's something I've been working on, we've been working on together---something deep emotional there in my throat, getting kind of choked up."  
 
[The Focuser is doing the first step of Experiential Focusing, "clearing a space," noticing and naming the various issues she is carrying so she can choose one to work on]
 
Listener: "Yea, so you're aware of that now, too, your throat getting choked up, and that's something we've worked on before, and it's connected to deep emotional things---and it seemed like I even saw a shimmer of tears as you described that---maybe just be with that, sit with that 'choked up.'"
 
[The Listener notices the beginnings of tears and gives an Experiential Focusing Instruction, suggesting that the Focuser stop talking and pay attention to the "felt sense."] 
 
Focuser: (tears visible under closed eyelids, face reddening, voice thickening) "What bothers me about it is I keep trying to clear my throat, and it doesn't clear. I keep trying to clear it, and it prevents me from speaking the way I want to speak, and it's annoying to people, I think."
 
Listener: "Uhhuh."
 
Focuser: "It somehow prevents me from projecting my voice---" 
 
Listener: "Umhm."
 
Focuser: "I keep trying to get it out, and it just stays there, it's uh---"
 
Listener: "Umhm---so what bothers you is you keep trying to clear it out, and it won't go, and you also think it makes it difficult for other people. You want to project your voice and get it out, and that's hard for the other people, too, you can't really speak."
 
Focuser: "That really prevents communication."
 
You can read the entire excerpt, with commentary, and see the "felt shift" for yourself in Medical Change Events Through Experiential Focusing. You can view the entire 12-minute session in the DVD Listening/Focusing Demonstrations, also part of The Self-Help Package.
 

 Download "Being Touched and Being Moved: The Spiritual Value of Tears for many examples of how tears and Focusing interrelate and

for exercises for using Focusing to find the meaning in your tears. Both articles are packed with real-life examples of how tears "touch us" and "move us" in positive ways.
"Relaxation" and "Getting A Felt Sense" Exercises for the Month
 
Later in the week, you will receive two other e-reminders, one for Relaxation Exercise #4. Counting Meditation (p. 6 in Complete Focusing Instructions) and Getting A Felt Sense #4: The "Felt Sense," The "Intuitive Feel" of A Situation  (p.12), the download free at the Join E-Support Group icon.
 
Now Two E-Groups, Creative Edge Practice and Creative Edge Collaboration
 
In order to increase safety, and hopefully participation, there are now two separate Yahoo e-groups.
 
Creative Edge Practice is a closed group, where people can feel safe for the vulnerability of sharing Focusing experiences and responding to others with Focused Listening responses. The only requirement: a willingness to introduce yourself upon entry into the group, so everyone knows who is in the group. Further active participation is welcomed but not required.
 
Creative Edge Collaboration is an open group for discussion and networking around projects related to the spread of listening/focusing to various audiences and throughout the world.
 
You can visit the homepage of each by clicking on the link and join from there as well. You can choose "emails only" and do not have to start a yahoo account, although accounts are free.
 
If you order the Self-Help Package, you can use the Intuitive Focusing CD to follow Dr. McGuire as she speaks these exercises.
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
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