Focusing New England

Next Sessions

May 27 and June 24, 2012, 2-4 PM

 For more than seven years, the Arlington Center, at Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington has been a host to people curious about the art of Focusing as well as to individuals wanting to practice the process with others. Before summer starts, the Focusing community has 2 opportunities for people to experience Focusing within the Changes Group. Come join Deborah Jones and Roberta Whitney on May 27th and Joan Klagsbrun on June 24, 2012 at 2PM. $10 per afternoon.

THEN- Look for a New Fall/Winter Focusing Format in late June!

YES! Something new is sprouting for Focusing New England!

Changes groups began in the 1970s when Eugene Gendlin and a group of students came together to form a crisis hotline and supportive community where everyone was invited to learn the basic Focusing Experiential Listening skills. This and subsequent Listening/Focusing communities have continued to be called Changes groups.

While we are happy to have offered this model at the Arlington Center, life’s creative flow is moving through us, the team of Focusing Professionals steering Focusing New England. We seek new programs that give you a chance to do more than sample Focusing- we want you to gain skills you can take with you in life. We also want to open opportunities that give you a chance to explore how Focusing can be used in your life.

What does that mean?

• To better support  those wanting to learn Focusing, classes will be offered periodically and posted on our events page.
• Monthly programs by myriad Focusing professionals will invite explorations of how Focusing can be applied to aspects of your lives and harness your creative energies. We will post a full calendar of Special programs in June for the Fall 2012- June 2013 season of events.

While we are still working out details, we also hope to offer you:

• Additional opportunities and timely notices of regional programs where you can learn and work with Focusing.

• Winter 2013: An opportunity to train as a Focusing Professional with Roberta Whitney and Deborah Jones.

• Connections to Joan Klagsbrun’s training program for those interested in becoming a Focusing-oriented Therapist.

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at my workshop on Focusing & Writing at The Arlington Center from 2-5 pm on Saturday, January 7.    We’ll start the workshop by learning a journaling method I call Writing the River, which is based on Focusing and which can be used as a form of self-Focusing.  As time allows, we’ll experiment using this method for creative writing as well.

Focusing and the arts are close relatives, and from the time I first learned Focusing that relationship has been my main interest.  When we are Focusing and we look for a way to name that quiet inner sensation we have – the felt sense – what do we typically look for?  A word or phrase, an image, or a gesture… those are our customary guides.  If we are open to their suggestion, these “handles,” as we like to call them, can become forms of artistic expression.

Words and phrases suggest expression in writing and speech.  Images, expression in the visual arts – painting, photography, sculpture.  Gesture, expression in dance and mime.  When creatives stand still in the empty studio, pause before the fresh canvas, or hover over the blank page, what are we waiting for?  We’re waiting for an inner movement that desires an outward expression.

This waiting that the artist does is very much like the inner attention we learn as Focusers.  This is why Focusing and the arts are so closely related.  When you are comfortable with one, the other is available to you as well.  Both creatives and Focusers know that the judging, directing, planning, critical part of ourselves is of no help at these times.  In fact, it interrupts this rich period of waiting and is destructive of the very source of our artistic satisfaction.  The waiting that Focusers and creatives know well – waiting for a quiet inner prompting – is a moment delicious with possibilities… breath quiet, almost suspended… something like prayer… expectant of magic… always rewarding.  Come explore your own inner creativity on January 7.

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things. – Dogen Zenji (1200 – 1253)

Fortunately it is not necessary to understand Gendlin’s challenging “philosophy of the implicit” in order to learn Focusing.  Nevertheless, reflecting on the philosophy can be a contemplative exercise and change how we experience ourselves.  In my case meditating on some of Gendlin’s ideas has shifted my sense of being alone in the world.

First let me distinguish humble feelings of loneliness from the belief and feeling of being fundamentally isolated and alone.  Simple feelings of loneliness can be helpful insofar as they motivate us to create and sustain healthy relationships.  However, viewing ourselves as ultimately alone can lead to more painful feelings of isolation and anxiety.

Gendlin offers a different perspective.  He describes the self as a process rather than a “thing” and discusses how focusing can help us experience ourselves, not as isolated entities, but as moment to moment living interactions with the world.

In Gendlin’s thinking, life is living forward through us in every moment.  And if we step back at any given time and bring awareness to our bodily felt life process, our sense of self begins to change.  We can experience ourselves as energetic processes, or as Gendlin has written:  “an environmental interaction that continuously regenerates itself.”  From this point of view we are not separate or alone and everything we experience is part of a larger texture.

Our feet imply the earth, our lungs imply air, and our loneliness implies other people.  More grandly, in Gendlin’s words, “vast reaches of the universe are involved in our process.”  We are intricately connected to and supported by our environments and in this sense our condition is not alienation; rather it is one of profound belonging.

“An environmental interaction that continuously regenerates itself.”  I invite you to pause with me in a focusing way and notice how that feels…

If you are interested in learning more about Gendlin’s philosophy, you can find his articles on line in the Gendlin online library at focusing.org.  See http://www.focusing.org/gendlin/gol_intro_phil.asp

We are off and running with our 2011-12 Focusing events at The Arlington Center!  It has been wonderful to see so many old friends, and new faces as well, at our September Changes kickoff and at Joan Klagsbrun’s wonderful Spirituality Workshop in October.  We are looking forward to seeing many of you again at our next Changes gatherings on Sunday, November 6 and Sunday December 4 from 2-5 pm.  You can see the entire year’s calendar by clicking here.

Then on January 7, we have a special workshop on Focusing & Writing workshop led by the ever popular David Smith.  David’s prior workshops on Focusing and Writing and Focusing & Creativity (co-led with Joan Klagsbrun) were very well received, and we are delighted to have David back with us this year.  Here are the details:

Date: Saturday January 7, 2011

Location: The Arlington Center, 369 Mass. Ave., Arlington, MA

Registration Fee:  $45

Program Description:   Writing the River: Focusing & Writing with David Smith

Flowing below the noise of our busy minds, there is a quiet intelligence at work — the wisdom of the body gathered through the experience of living moment-to-moment.  This workshop will introduce participants to Experiential Journaling, a guided writing method that lets us dip down into this embodied wisdom to unlock our authentic voice, to make difficult decisions, to break action blocks, and to open your deepest source of creativity.  After a brief introduction to Experiential Journaling, participants will have the opportunity to experiment with this writing method for problem solving and creative writing.

Pre-registration is strongly suggested to ensure your seat at this popular event.  To register, click here to go  The Arlington Center’s registration page.