Core One Focusing Basics - Dwelling

This ten hour course gives you a taste of Focusing. A guided exercise to help find a felt-sense, then welcoming it and working with it are key components of this evening. You will also be introduced to core Focusing materials and books as well as the philosophical and psychological works of Focusing originator Dr. Eugene Gendlin.

This highly interactive course will take you beyond intellect and emotion to accessing your native, inner intelligence. This process is called Dwelling. Greater awareness of self and others, attuning to your body's wisdom, recognizing patterns, a creating new practices that enhance your life.

We will use supplied handouts and Gendlin's book Focusing (2006). A copy will be available for purchase.  No need to read it ahead.

FEE: $120

Through this course you will be able to:

•Sense the body, be with it, from inside.

•Get a "felt sense," a physical sensation that contains meaning and pertains to a particular situation, for example, an issue with one’s work, a creative project or a relationship.

•Recognize how a felt sense differs from feelings and emotions.

•Recognize when words or images have come directly from the felt sense.

•Notice what would feel right to say from the felt sense of a particular situation.

•Know when a decision regarding the situation "sits right" and when it does not.

•Name or describe the crux of a situation in a way that "fits" the felt sense.

•Recognize a distinct bodily knowing even when she/he has no words yet to describe it.

   

Core Two - Engaging

A core element of Focusing is developing keen listening and guiding skills. This ten hour, day and a half weekend course centers around working in dyad and small groups to hone these skills. Emphasis is on finding and developing a Focusing partnership in which you regularly share Focusing with each other for no charge.

Participants will work from Ann Wiser Cornell's Workbook, Part 1 and other supplied readings. A copy of Cornell's workbook will be available for purchase.

FEE: $150

By the end of the workshop you will be able to:

•Establish a safe Focusing partnership.

1. •     Access a felt sense easily and comfortably.
   

•Stay with and return to a felt sense, so that it is a stable referent even as it may open and shift.

•Recognize and is comfortable with the experience of not wanting to attend to a particular situation or bodily knowing.

•Know how to stay near something difficult, neither leaving it nor going further into it.

•Find a "right distance" from difficult or complex issues.

•Have self-empathy, friendly attitudes toward oneself and the bodily knowledge that arises, even when it involves suffering or seemingly "negative" things.

•Easily get a felt sense of what is in the way when friendly attitudes seem impossible.

•Identify the several "situations" being carried by her/his body just now, and to "place" them one at a time, gently, at some distance from the body. Each placing brings a release of tension in the body.

•Connect intellectual understanding with bodily knowing, and to carry on a dialogue between the two.

Proficiency as a Focusing Partner (PFP)

At the end of this level of training you may be eligible for the Proficiency as a Focusing Partner Award (PFP).  This award is granted when you complete at least Level 2 training and demonstrate beginning proficiency as a Focusing Partner. 

Core Three - Deepening

This 15 hour course focuses on working with patterns that just won't change. Working closely with our felt understanding to further move our lives in positive directions is probably one of life's most rewarding and challenging tasks. In this advanced course, we look deeply at the fact of uncertainty in life, the resilience of patterns (negative and positive ones), group and societal conflict, and challenging or difficult conversations.

We will use Part 2 of Ann Wiser Cornell's Focusing Manual as our central text. A copy of Cornell's workbook will be available for purchase.

FEE: $275

By deepening our use and understanding of the Focusing process, participants will be able to:

•Attend to a felt sense and allow many aspects of it to emerge.

•Find whole new fields or "subtexts" emerging from a felt sense.

•Let the subtexts inform a resulting decision on an issue.

•Choose to wait for subtext changes before taking action on a particular situation.

•Recognize new possibilities within a situation, which were not apparent from the original "given facts." New facts can be formulated.

•Discover new questions arising from the felt sense of a situation, leading to a new gathering of information.

•Make better decisions based on greater bodily knowledge.

•Expanded bodily-sensed realm in which one can move between different "places," clusters, and attitudes.

•Choose to live from the intricacy which is now always accessible.

•Experiences a sense of reliable safety inside.