Creative Edge Focusing E-Newsletter

Complete Focusing Session 

Using Focusing to Completely Articulate a Positive Experience

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director                                Week One

COMPLETE FOCUSING SESSION: "Sitting With" and Completely Articulating A Positive Experience

 

Today, we are going to be reminded that Intuitive Focusing can be used to experience fully, articulate, and "keep" and "revisit" and "recreate" positive experiences, as well as for problem solving "stuck" situations.

 

So, I am going to ask you to spend some time with a positive experience related to intimate relationship: perhaps something new if you tried the Instant Intimacy exercise this week; perhaps an older memory of intimacy in your present relationship, perhaps, if you have no significant other now, a memory of a time when intimacy and sharing was present in the past. You will simply spend Intuitive Focusing time with this memory, fully tasting and making words/images for what was so special about it, asking yourself how you might bring this intimacy into your life now, if it is missing, or savoring it if it is present.

 
Or, if "intimacy" doesn't feel right, then choose another positive experience to spend Focusing time with.
 
And, if what you really need is problem solving, perhaps on why you and your partner couldn't do the "sharing your day" exercise or where it got stuck or, if you have no partner, where you are "stuck" in finding one, then go back to Instant Ahah! #1, either in your mini-manual or online as Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You" and adapt those instructions to your need.
 

Focusing On A Positive Experience  (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 positive experience about which you want to know more ---

1 minute

---Bring back the detailed memory of that experience ---

1 minute

---Now, set aside all of your thoughts about the experience, 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. Take your time to explore the experience thoroughly, making symbols for many aspects of it, enriching it.

1 minute or more

---Now, gently ask yourself, "What was so special about this experience  for me?", and see what comes in the center of your body, the place where you have "intuitions"  or the "bodily felt sense," the "intuitive feel"---

1 minute

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

1 minute

---And ask yourself, "What else makes that experience special?"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, think of some symbol, a word or phrase or a picture, a song or movie or book, anything that you can find that would "represent" the feel of this whole positive experience for you, so that you could use that symbol as a "doorway" back into this whole positive experience ---

1 minute

---And ask your body, "Is there any way that I want to bring this into a present relationship or share it with someone? Any way to make this kind of experience more present in my life right now?" and see what comes---

1 minute

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

1 minute

 
---See if you can imagine some small step you could take to make this positive experience more present in your life ---

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" by 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 ---

 
You can use the symbol to help you get back to the "bodily feel" of this positive experience any time you want, as well as enriching your relationship by sharing it with your partner.
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
 
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!
 
If you just joined us, you can "catch up" on this cycle, which is in Week One, by reading archived e-newsletters Instant Ahah! # 7: Sharing Your Day = Instant Intimacy and MORE Interpersonal Focusing: The Third-Person Facilitator .
 
 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
 
Experiential Focusing Therapy manual
 
Certification Programs: Consultant/Helping Professional : Now with option of Structured Level 1-4 Listening/Focusing Training With Ruth Hirsch followed by 10 supervision sessions with Dr. McGuire. Contact Dr. McGuire for information on this NEW option
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