WHAT is going on??? And How to figure it out!

Do you ever ask yourself that question? And not so politely? I know I’m just going along and some weeks are better than others for me.My To do list a couple of weeks ago was labeled, “Get it Together” week. That’s because I felt like I didn’t accomplish much the previous week!

I love being IN my office and helping people (whether that’s virtually or in-person). But I also have several projects that I’m working on, hoping to launch an online group about Hypnosis and Insomnia this year.

One technique that I learned years ago from my own therapist and that I use in my own practice is called “Focusing or Felt Sense.” Once my therapist told me about it, I tracked down a well-worn copy of the book written by Eugene Gendlin. It was out of print when I was looking for it, but it’s now only about $5 on amazon.

Jeff Warren (who I’m a big fan of) explains . . . “The “felt sense” was coined in the 70s by a brilliant University of Chicago philosopher and researcher named Eugene Gendlin. At the time, Gendlin was interested in the question of what makes psychotherapy successful. Did it have to do with the modality of therapy, or with the therapist? In his research, he discovered it was neither. Those who got the most out of therapy seemed to all do something similar: directed by their therapist, they were able to get a clear nonverbal sense of their body’s experience in the moment, a subtle stream of intuitions and sensations which Gendlin called “the felt sense.” This became the basis of his own influential style of therapy, known as ‘Focusing.'”

You don’t have to read the book, because I’m about to give you a tip from it to figure out what’s going on with you. This is in brief.

1.  Of course we start with sitting still for a moment, but don’t worry . . . you don’t have to meditate!

2.  Choose ONE personal problem to focus on. (“personal” can mean anything – for me it was a “business” problem).

3.  Pay attention to where you feel this problem in your body and what it feels like.

4.  Let a Word, Phrase, or Image come up and just acknowledge it, whatever it is. (For me, it was a picture of me with my hair wild, un-bathed, a sense of what I felt like when I was a new mom and overwhelmed.)

5.  Ask yourself what is it about this problem that creates this “felt sense” and image. You may get a sense of a shift that happens here or some understanding about why you’re feeling this problem this way in your body. (Mine was the familiar feeling that I didn’t know what I was doing when I was trying to do something I had never done before!)

6. Stay friendly to the message you’re getting from yourself and sense any kind of shift that arises. Solutions may appear in this step too. Be open to what comes up.

If you would like to learn more about Focusing, check out the International Focusing Institute’s website.

If you decide you need help with emotional healing, schedule your  Free Consultation with me to get the deets on working together (the how, the when, the where, and the how much)!