I also want to tell you Focusing is not something that I invented All I did was
make little steps so that people could find it it's there and when you get it
then you by next year if you need Gene something's wrong. It doesn't work like
that. You find it inside you and then it's yours and doesn't have anything to
do with Gene. And so first I want to introduce focusing a little bit because
some people are new and some people want to see how I introduce it and that's
always fun. We're going to work with it and we find that it even though we all
do it very often alone and especially a part of it we do very often alone it
works better when you have another person with you. And we all know that
that's because we are inherently interactional creatures. You see it's
very mysterious looking someone is sitting there or even on the phone
someone is breathing and saying nothing I can get into myself much more easily
than I can even though my arm gets stiff this one holding the phone
So one of the mysterious mysterious only because of the kind of theory that is
around seemingly mysterious things, is that we're interactional. We're
inherently interactional and when we're alone then we have to interact with
ourselves and we have to keep making the responses. And Focusing is a dialogue
between this and the body. It's a dialogue we have to keep and it's just
very much deeper and easier if you have somebody there. So we partner people now
from the start. The second mystery about it is that the body is not at all what
they teach us in in school about the body. The body is something completely
different. The person in the body are one system together the person suffuses the
body every part of the body. People who know a lot about feet than the sole of
the feet tell you that you can tell everything about a person from the sole
of the feet. Experts on any part of the body can see a great deal from your walk
from your posture from any of your organs. The gynaecologist knows how you're
doing in therapy
Really checked out many times. Every part of the body is actually so fused I say
because any link or every part of the body is in some way involved in living.
And we're coming down to stand on more and more and more but there you might as
well take the jump and say the body is not at all a physiological machine.
That's only the part of it that our science gets the best. The body and the
person are all one and the body has its own take on what's going on and it's a
more subtle take. The body is more intricate the way it understands the
situation. You just think you're sitting here and you know why you came and so on.
But if I sent you in there on the body level you would get a much more
interesting much more intricate much more complex take on why you came or any
other thing. I would ask you about so where does one find this bodily take on
the situation in some situations you already experienced it because in some
situations it comes up and and it calls. But it's a little bit difficult to get
to the body part because we're so accustomed when it calls to to pay
attention to the emotionality to what we call the feelings.To ignore it scares me
it makes me mad or it makes me happy even or whatever
and the body level that focusing is from is a little deeper than that .S o you sort
of have to walk by the familiar feelings it's like it's in the same direction but
further down. So you say yes I know I'm scared yes I realize I feel this way yes
this is my old depression if I want to get depressed. I could yes all those
things that are all familiar and you walk on by all that stuff and you ask
yourself whether you are comfortable. At the bottom there in the pit of your
stomach sort of and typically if you're working on a problem you already know
you're not comfortable. But all the same it's where you are broadly uncomfortable
when you have a problem that's where it starts and that happens to be a place
that if you are easily in touch with it you're taught to pass it by. It's it
feels like oh well that's just that's just something that's just in digestion
but that's just confusion there that's just discomfort I can manage. Well right
there where it seems very unpromising when you get there you're going to say
this is this great mysterious entrance to all this stuff if it's not familiar
to you you're going to say this is this is nothing especially. If you're a very
sophisticated developed personal up here you can say all these fantastic
some things about yourself and down further you're familiar with some
complex feelings and now I want you to go one more step and stand in front of
this ! But
so at first if it's new to you might not believe that this is where we're talking
about. But it is that's where we're talking about where in spite of all the
things you know all you can really do there is say you know how does it feel.
Well not exactly nor, but does it feel nice and comfortable well let me see ? I
mean up here I know I'm not nice and comfortable, but if I go down there I
mean am I now nice and comfortable ?Well I think I'm all right I'm doing fine but
on the other hand I have to manage this whole scene, so I can't be too
comfortable. So I'm talking from my head. I'm telling you, I know myself I'm
probably yeah... never mind that. Let's go down and see. It
doesn't take very long.
Well it's it's not bad down there but it's going to you and and it's got
several things it's sort of like the present moment here don't talk too long
it says but then it has little strings going to other things that aren't quite
resolved. And we'll look at those later but it likes the thought that I can say
that that was okay. Now I'm very practiced at this but so I can do it
very fast. It doesn't typically go that fast.
Almost everybody needs say a minute or two at least of some kind of quiet to
come in here. Then I want to tell you that there are
different kinds of bodies. They're all okay. It doesn't matter now how long it
takes you to come inside. You may have the kind of body where of course you can
come in here anytime so there you are or you may have the kind of body where you
don't come in unless you have two or three minutes. We're like a feather sort
of in the air coming gradually down. I had a focusing partner for some years
who was like that. We just knew that when it was her turn we would sit there for
five minutes while she sort of slowly came down and that was her way. She's one of
our major people. But the trouble with the different stylee is that when you
first learn focusing if you have the kind of body that takes a while to come
in, then a lot of these sort of group exercises and quick things don't work
for you. And that's totally fine just get used to it.
Oh I see I have this kind of body so I would ask you quickly to determine which
kind of body you have. I would say to you can you feel breakfast in there, assuming
you have breakfast. Can you feel it in there and some people
can say oh of course it's right there and for some people no that wouldn't be
so easy. It's a matter of coming into the body and that's not and it doesn't
matter how long it takes you just so you know. Focusing starts there so if you
have if you're not in there then that's not that's not what we're talking about.
Whatever else you do you might do many other interesting and good things but
not Focusing. Focusing starts with that. That bodily. Or it could be uh you know
It usually we don't work hard to determine why we're so happy but you can
you can and it goes the same way and it maxima you know you may discover things
thing. So it's just typical being so accustomed to working on problems and
being a therapist knowledge that my example always is earth it doesn't have
to be but that's where it starts. It starts in this ordinary space of the
chair and of this body sitting in the chair and of this stomach chest throat
area here that's where it starts. Very ordinary nothing mysterious no altered
state nothing strange at all just a very ordinary are you comfortable in your
body? But don't just say no and I know I'm not because that's here. You have to
come in there and that takes a little while then once you're there well then
it dinner you'll see then time sort of slows down and you discover that you're
down there for what seems like half an hour and it's only 45 seconds up here.
Space changes because it gets larger and there are places to put things in places
to go and all that comes by itself you don't understand that. I only say it so
you don't to quickly think we're talking about some other process
that you already know. So you can check yourself. Fine so now that's my
introduction. Now what I need I think is somebody brave to come up here and say I
don't know what you're talking about and so show me