Remembering and looking forward…..
On Wednesday, 25th March 2020 we sent out an email inviting focusing friends to gather for support on Zoom. The response was immediate and overwhelmingly positive. “With quaking fingers I’ll attempt to set up Zoom. What a lovely idea” wrote one person. "Two and a half years. Has it been that long? Is that all it’s been?"
We’ve travelled quite a way since that first gathering and laid the foundations for a thriving network. “Focusing in Ireland can grow, if there’s something to hold it, the Network can do that.” was one person’s observation recently.
We certainly hope that is the case. From the beginning, though, the members of the Irish Focusing Professionals’ Support Group – a precursor to the current Network – were on hand to offer support and guidance and to take up roles in the newly emerging Network. Without their work to keep the Focusing flame alight there would have been no foundation on which to build.
Nothing happens without effort and there has been plenty of that. I want to take this opportunity to celebrate the extraordinary progress over the past two and a half years and the people who made it possible.
- Our Network has created a structure which allows us to work together, to share expertise, to support one another and to promote Focusing in Ireland.
- Our Network has grown beyond the borders of the country to welcome members from other places across the world.
- Our annual gathering online (kind of an AGM) allows every member to contribute to the development of the Network and offer suggestions for the year ahead.
- Focusers have weekly access to online sessions.
- New Focusers have been offered a supportive space to practice.
- Twice yearly in-person gatherings have given us an opportunity to connect in the real world.
- Bi-monthly gatherings online offer a space to explore Focusing and Poetry.
- Online workshops, generously offered by members of the Network, provide opportunities for further learning.
- The website has helped to make Focusing “findable” in Ireland.
- The resource page on the website is a treasure trove of focusing wisdom as well as offering a space to publish articles by members of the Network.
- Focusing courses across the country and beyond are advertised in one space.
- The Newsletter – published quarterly – keeps everyone up to date and in touch with trends and events across the Focusing world.
- Focusing Pathways – a series of podcasts created by Elaine Goggin and Therese Ryan – is a space where stories are shared, offering insight and inspiration for us all.
- A closed Facebook group has created a space for sharing information and inspiration.
It has been an extraordinary journey. One in which the creative energy, clear thinking and generosity of our community has helped to shape each step.
It is important that we ensure that the Network is carried forward sustainably. At a recent Committee meeting we addressed ways to ensure that we hold the vision which inspired this Network, build on the progress we have made to date and invite new energy as we move forward.
The term of the current committee comes to a close at the beginning of 2024, so we need to look at a process for handover which does not involve starting from scratch every three years. Our constitution stipulates that “Officers are appointed for a three year term, with a 2 year additional term if nominated. Anyone appointed for 5 years shall not be eligible for re-election for another 3 years.”
With that in mind, we will start the process of seeking out members who might be willing to be part of the committee in the future. If this opportunity is something that speaks to your heart, we would be delighted to hear from you. And don’t worry – getting in touch and expressing an interest doesn’t involve a commitment – just an opportunity to chat and explore possibilities.
-Margaret Quinn
In-Person Gathering Dublin 9th Sept 23 - Reflection
It acted also as an urging, to me, to explore with Mary Jennings as facilitator, her on line - 'Reading Freshly: an opportunity to read Gendlin's seminal book Focusing, with others', which starts on zoom through Focusing.org on 3rd October 2023. Margaret's and Tom's demonstration was followed by the attendees focusing in groups of three using the same excerpts from Gendlin's book. The day being sunny and warm this was done in the garden.
"Your physically felt body is, in fact, part of a gigantic system of here, and other places, now, and other times, you and other people - in fact, the whole universe. This sense of being bodily alive in a vast system is the body as it is felt from inside".
Advanced and Certicification Weeklong - June 2023 Member Reflection
Fiona O'Meara
Many of us come to Focusing because we are suffering. And often suffering in ways that are not easily resolved, and therefore not easy to live with. I know this was the case for me, and so when I found Focusing, I appreciated it deeply.
I also then greatly appreciated meeting other Focusers who know something of this experience. Focusing is not mainstream. You have to search to find it, or it has to find you, and so we who Focus have a shared experience.
It’s no coincidence, then, that spending a week with other Focusers at the Weeklong this June felt easy. I found myself laughing a lot, and had many stimulating conversations with people from all over the world - Australia, Morocco, Switzerland, the Netherlands and even Galway.
But I didn’t just go to meet people. The day before the Weeklong, I had a challenging meeting which triggered deep and difficult feelings for me; feelings of shame and inadequacy that made me feel small and foolish.
My first reaction was to try to deny this pathetic self. I’ve so much to be proud of! I’ve done x and y and z. But such self-talk rarely works for me. And more importantly, I knew from my Focusing work, that simply trying to ‘fix’ the feelings wouldn’t lead me anywhere new. The Weeklong held that potential for me.
How? Through group work, workshops and opportunities for short partnering twice or thrice daily. In each Weeklong, you are part of a daily home group, where a facilitator holds the space for sharing on any issue that is present for you. So you can work intensively on something present.
My home group was facilitated by Beatrice Blake who shared more of her instancing work from her Thinking at the Edge workshop. I found her steps easy to follow and surprisingly effective when I later partnered with a friend.
One person in our group was honest enough to express dissatisfaction with how we were working and his courage helped me find my own. I had thought I was being myself in the group, but I saw I was just being a polite version of myself, simply ‘putting up with’ when I could in fact express more. I found that, in this way, the home group helped me to take the risk of being myself, and not feeling shame for it. I began to play with this a little, and found the group’s supportive feedback very helpful.
In the little free time that we had, a home group member held space whilst I used the body work from Ceci Burgos’ workshop, which led to more release. And, with a former Certification classmate, our Focusing relationship deepened greatly, leading to richer partnering with one another since.
So delighted to have met many people I had heard about and seen on Zoom - Catherine Torpey, Ceci Burgos, Beatrice Blake, Marta Fabregat, and more. I really enjoyed Mary’s and Julian’s workshops.
A few weeks after the Weeklong, I met the person at the centre of my shame. I noticed my body felt very different from before. Not heavy and collapsed, but bright and full and flowing, happy to be me. I’m grateful again to Focusing and to Focusers for all the wonderful carrying forward that occurs when we sit and listen.
Group Photo at the end of the ceremony (not everyone is in it but most of us were!)
Mary Jennings presenting her workshop on the Monday evening
Tom Larkin hosting his Plenary on Focusing and Nature
Some fun in the evening
On the last evening we all shared a meal in a local restaurant
Three Assertions About the Body - Summary
A personal review by John Keane
This article is a summary of a detailed reflection available on the IFN website. Click here to read the full review
Many Focusers encounter a difficulty in sharing the “idea” and “experience” of Focusing with friends, family, and colleagues. It is my hope that this review will help in this respect.
I offer the following as a reflection on the complexity of Gene Gendlin’s exploration of how we can have bodies that explain how Focusing is possible.
- Many people will translate what we say into concepts they are familiar with and comfortable in using. So, if we say that Focusing is about the body and feelings, then they may translate that in a different way than we intend. Gendlin illustrates that he is talking about the body in a very different way than it has traditionally been understood, and that feelings are different to what many people understand because when we talk about feelings in this context, what we are pointing towards are the doorways to a more intricate and complex form of living that may emerge from the felt sense.
- The body that Gene is describing is the body as it is sensed from the inside. He offers us examples of how we can build the complexity of that body in a manner that goes beyond the traditional understanding of the body as a physical structure that is mainly a transportation system for the mind.
- This body “knows”, but it does so in a different way than the mind “knows”. As complex human beings living in a complex world, we need the precision of both kinds of “knowing”.
- The body that Gene explores in relation to how Focusing is possible, is an interaction with its environment. This interaction is evident in all of the phases of the human body that he describes i.e., the plant body, the animal body, and the human body. When we begin with interaction then we sense the world in a different way – we sense a world that includes us and our experiencing.
- The culture we live in spends so much time developing our capacity for conceptual thought but has forgotten its capacity for bodily knowing and carrying forward. This is not something we add onto human living – it is already there, and Focusing offers us the means to access and develop this capacity.
- Sensing into the questions is more productive than finding answers in our living. The questions can imply a deeper living – a way forward that the answers can never offer. There is a wonderful paradox implicit in the Focusing process, where it is the stoppages and questions that can offer us the possibility of living more creatively. For me there is a freedom and a hope in that possibility…
We can all become poets and live in a way that is full of creativity. When I teach Focusing to children – I tell them that I will offer them something that most adults don’t know – this peaks their attention. The younger children know Focusing in the marrow of their bones, but the sad thing is that we educate them out of it. So perhaps we can all become children again in this way…
