In-Person Spring Gathering April 2024
In-Person Spring Gathering on Saturday April 20th, 2024 in Derreen, Gort
By Peter Duffy
The Irish Focusing Network held its Spring Gathering on Saturday April 20th at An Tionól Cottage, Derreen, Gort, Co Galway for a day of workshops, focusing, and connection. This gathering was the first one to be held outside Dublin, and what a wonderful place it turned out to be. As we arrived the sun was shining, the first spring flowers were bright in the fields and meadows, and the trees were almost green everywhere. We were deep in the countryside of east County Galway, making our way down narrow country roads between grey drystone walls. At this stage, all twelve of us knew that we were a long way from the M50! I am writing this piece some two months later and without any notes, so my recollections have a lot of blank spaces.
Our hosts for the gathering, Marta Fabregat and Marta Wanczyk, welcomed us at Derreen and we chatted briefly in the two-roomed wooden barn, which was to be our location for the day. The barn was at the edge of a native woodland, and the trees seemed to bring a calming presence throughout the day’s workshops.
Marta ran the morning workshop called ‘Wholehearted Communication: Felt Sensing what we mean.’ This experiential workshop combined Focusing with the work of Marshall Rosenberg, who developed Nonviolent Communication (NVC). NVC develops practical communication skills, provides a model for NVC by breaking communication down as an interactive process of speaking and listening from an internal/external experience of ‘request –-need--feeling—observation.’ After Marta’s workshop we worked in pairs, following the NVC steps. NVC works very well with Focusing because they both complement each other and come from a place of empathic listening. If you are interested in finding out more about NVC, a good place to start is with Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, 2003, Rosenberg, M.
Before the afternoon workshop, we had a delicious vegetarian curry for lunch, followed by tea, coffee, and more chat. (Thank you, Marta.)
In the afternoon, Marta Wanczyk, lead us in an exploration of sound and resonance, using handheld gongs. Marta started the workshop by playing the gongs as we sat around the room. Then she invited us to choose a gong. (I liked the look of the smallest gong, and grabbed it straightway. Mmm…I’ll focus on this later. )
We each moved around the room, playing the gong, and sensing where we should stop and resonate, listening to the sounds and sensing where we should move next. It was a really interesting way of combining sounds with Focusing.
Thanks to Marta F and Marta W for a wonderful day in Gort, two fascinating workshops, and extending the possibilities of Focusing. After writing this article, I realised that both Marta F and Marta W were following the path that Eugene Gendlin envisioned for Focusing: ‘Please don’t spend years under the impression that Focusing is all that one needs. We need to learn many methods for developing ourselves along many dimensions.’ (Vision Statement for Focusing: Action Steps and Projects, 2003, Gendlin.)
IFN Committe Update July 2024
Our new IFN committee has been exploring ways of growing and developing our community including providing a welcoming space for those who are new to Focusing as well as those who feel rusty in their practice.
One of our first initiatives was to invite Gordon Adam from the British Focusing Institute to an online evening with our community. Le Chéile: Growing Focusing in Ireland took place on May 21st. Gordon described his decades-long Focusing journey and shared his rich experience of developing Focusing in the community including the Changes group of which he has been part of for seventeen years. Gordon invited us to drop in the words “Focusing Community” and to Focus in break out rooms, bringing a curiosity about what these words meant to us as individuals as well as members of the Focusing community. Gordon connects deeply with poetry and his reading of the Rumi poem “Be with those who help your being” was a warm and beautiful conclusion to the evening.
We are planning other initiatives for the Autumn including a monthly listening skills programme. If you have some ideas about how we might grow and develop our Focusing community, please contact any member of the committee. We’d love to hear from you.
If you’d like to hear Gordon speak about Focusing, you can listen to the latest episode of Focusing Pathways.
The IFN Spring Gathering took place in Gort, Co Galway in April. Much gratitude goes to Marta Fabregat for hosting this event. This was the network’s first time to get together beyond the pale and it was a wonderful success — so much so that we’d like to explore the possibility of holding a weekend Focusing retreat next year. If you know of any suitable venue down the country please get in touch with one of our committee members.
In the meantime we’re preparing for our Autumn Gathering in the Dominican Retreat Centre in Tallaght on September 28th.. A beautiful day of workshops, connection and of course Focusing is planned. We’d love to see you there. More details and to register click here.
Our weekly online Focusing sessions on zoom will take a pause during the summer and will return in September. We’re grateful to our zoom hosts who generously give their time to hold this space.
We on the committee wish you all a wonderful summer wherever you may be.
Focusing Refresh Evenings Coming in September
The themes of building community and supporting our Focusing practice emerged during our AGM back in January. Since then the IFN committee has been exploring ways in which we might encourage more of you to join our weekly Focusing sessions on Zoom and support members who wish to deepen their Focusing experience.
Some members of the Network have expressed interest in joining the online sessions, but are a little nervous about doing so. Others may feel a little rusty in their Focusing practice. With this in mind, we're delighted to let you know about an opportunity to learn and develop together.
From September the last Zoom meeting of each month will be a "Focusing Refresh" evening designed to help members develop and practice Focusing partnership skills. These sessions will be led by some of the network's Focusing Professionals and Trainers. We hope that reminding ourselves of the essential aspects of Focusing will help build confidence in your ability to listen deeply to others. Every member of the network is welcome to attend, watch out for our reminder emails in the Autumn.
Have you heard about “Focusing Roundtables”?
The pandemic brought so many challenges back in 2020, but there were also some gifts. It was during this time that some of us began to explore online courses and workshops offered by the International Focusing Institute.
During the isolation of Covid restrictions, these were an opportunity to connect, as well as providing wonderful learning opportunities. Among the offerings from the Institute are the “Roundtables”.
Unlike courses and workshops, each Focusing Roundtable is designed to promote informal peer-to-peer conversation. Rather than acting as expert presenters, the Hosts serve as conversation moderators to encourage sharing and exploration of the topics from the participants’ own perspectives. All participants’ sharings are welcome and valuable, no matter what level of experience or knowledge you have on the topic. There is, at least one Roundtable every month and attendance is free for members of the Institute.
Over the past year alone, Roundtables have brought people together to talk about:
- Focusing and Children
- Bringing Focusing to Therapeutic practices. This series has included titles such as: Psychotherapy in this time of existential threat – How can FOTs meet today’s challenges?
- Let’s talk about Interactive Focusing
- Building Community for Focusers
- The Coracle on the High Seas – Focusing as a Navigational Guide
- Felt Sensing and Spacious Listening in Everyday Life
- Clearing a Space – Gendlin’s First Step
- Discovering the ‘Felt sense’ of YOUR ‘Wise SELF.’
If you would like to attend some of the upcoming Roundtables, you can become a “friend” of the Institute for $25 annually. Members are notified of upcoming events by email and the Roundtables are also posted on the TIFI website here. We would love to see some of our IFN friends join us for these relaxed and friendly global Focusing community events.
Mary Jennings, Elaine Goggin, Margaret Quinn
(Roundtable Team, TIFI)
Roundtable on Focusing and Sport with Rafael Villeta
Children and Focusing Roundtable on Love and Boundaries with John Keane
Roundtable on Focusing and Poetry with Marie McGuigan and Mary Jennings
Roundtable on "On Setting Up a Reading Group to Explore Gendlin's Philosophy" with Margaret Quinn and Mary Jennings
Connecting Focusers in Ireland
Over the past year, several people have expressed an interest in setting up local Focusing groups which could meet in person. While it would be wonderful to see this happen, our Network is run entirely by volunteers and there is a limit to what we can ask people to take on. However, we wondered if we could find a way to empower members to create those groups themselves. So what might be possible?
Similarly, there have been several requests to find a way of helping people to form Focusing partnerships. Again, our volunteers don’t really have the space to facilitate this directly. But is there a way to help people connect and possibly form those partnerships on their own initiative? So what might be possible?
One suggestion is to create a directory of members to enable people to connect, to meet or to form partnerships. Our intention would be to include your name, the town/city/region where you live, your email and/or phone number. It would also be useful if you indicate your interest in forming local groups or in forming Focusing partnerships.
Because of rules around sharing your data, we need your permission to share your contact details, so we’ve created a submission form which we invite you to complete before April 30th. You’ll find it here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeZ0V-KB446peG2qe18vgCXqTNtRs2Qx-uMcyGKpe3VaESvPw/viewform?usp=sf_link
The form allows you to indicate what information you would like to share with other members. This information will only be shared with members of the Irish Focusing Network. The link will also be sent out in a separate email over the coming days.
