What is Focusing?

The basics
Focusing is a transformative inner practice of self-understanding, self-exploration, and self-actualization.

How do we do it?
We Focus by training the lens of awareness on what’s “inside.” This involves putting your attention on what’s going on in your inner world, while gently setting aside stories or interpretations and simply engaging with what’s present, now.

I can teach you how to Focus on your own, or you can Focus with someone listening to you. Listening for Focusing is a deeply rewarding practice which carries over into your daily life. You can Focus with a professional listener, and also in Focusing peer sessions.
 

The traditional Focusing partnership is simply two people who take turns, sharing the time, to listen to each other while the other Focuses. Focusing relationships, whether you work with me or in a peer partnership, are non-hierarchical, non-directive, and become increasingly meaningful over time.

 

Why Focus?
All our creativity, decision-making, thinking, action, expression, and insights arise from the overall feeling of what we sense but don’t yet know, or what we know implicitly but might not be able to say in words. Focusing is a powerful and enjoyable way to tap into that deep knowing.
 

Focusing can help you:

• Understand and gain clarity on your emotional life

• Untangle tricky life problems

• Make decisions that are more aligned with your values and needs

• Learn to listen to your intuition or inner wisdom

• Help you learn to trust and care better for your whole self

• Help you be more present with yourself and others

• Provide solid grounding for meditation and spiritual practice

 

Focusing can be practiced on its own, and is absolutely worth trying that way. It can also be an extremely useful adjunct to therapy or counseling; a very helpful support for somatic practices including yoga and qi gong; a way for artists and thinkers to anchor and deepen creative insight; and a powerful partner in communication practices like non-violent communication.

Where did Focusing come from?
​​Focusing is something we actually all knew how to do when we were very young; almost all of us were socialized out of it. As a practice, it was started by Eugene Gendlin, a philosopher with a long experience of working in psychology and psychotherapy. He studied and worked with Carl Rogers, the creator of person-centered psychotherapy, at the University of Chicago. Gendlin was curious about why some people make progress in therapy while others don’t, and he discovered that the most important thing —more important than the therapeutic modality, or the therapist’s training and licensure— was the client’s relationship to their own inner experience. The people who listened inwardly, searching for just the right word or image until they felt that sense of rightness to what they said, were the ones who had success in therapy.

 

From that, Gendlin developed Focusing to be able to help as many people as possible rediscover the simple tools within us for profound change.

 

I did a more detailed write-up of Focusing; if you’re interested, I encourage you to read it! You can find it here.