Introduction To working with your abilities and

strengths through Focusing

Presented by:

Derek Mc Donnell

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“Taking time to pause…and create a space for learning…”

( Clearing a Space…)

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Invitation to “ Stand in a Different Place”Our body is the environment

“ A human being is interaction, we are interactions, living bodies are interaction with the air and the ground and the food and other species members, and from that view, if you look at a person, if you are looking at me, you can see that I’m interaction. I’m interaction with other people” Eugene Gendlin

Paradigm Shift Experience

We are inviting you to think of a person as being interaction

• Potential to Change Everything…..• New Interactions that Free Places where we are

“stuck”

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What are all the ways children’s emotions impact you, your family and the

community?

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Agenda

• What is Focusing?

• What Happens when we listen in a Focusing?

• Self Care as Practitioner and Focusing

• Next Steps

What’s the weather inside you ?

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Your innate inner Strength is what we call the “Felt Sense” or a “Sixth Sense”

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Our “ Sixth Sense” …

• An internal bodily knowing …

• Separate from our linear cognitive minds

• Communicates through feelings and sensations

• Connects us to the totality of our life experience

• “Our feelings are like a phone ringing….”

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The World of our Senses ….

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“ The Two listening” Experiences

self in presence

situational reflection

bodily reflection

(non verbal)

Facial

reflection

Word for Word

reflection

Reiteractive reflection of

persons unique

expressions

Prouty’s steps

FOCUSING QUALITY

OF PRSENCE

VERSUS

TYPICAL TYPE OF

PRESENCE

The Felt-Sense

• Felt-senses are not emotions – but are how our bodies hold emotions…

• You cannot think your way to a felt-sense

• Your physical connection to your body felt meaning …

• Murky, subtle at first: “something more than words”

• Channels the language of symbols, images, words, movement, sounds and sensations that arise from our inner knowing into our conscious awareness…

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The “Felt-Sense”

The Felt-Sense

Body Sensations

Feelings/Emotions

What we are aware of …..

Inner Wisdom

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The “Felt-Sense”

• Our inner physical feelings and sensations are the manifestations of our inner bodily knowing

• Our inner bodily knowing communicates with us through these manifestations.

• These manifestations are called “felt-senses ”

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Context: The Focusing “Attitude”

• The way to be with and listen to your felt-sense

• With gentle and non-judgmental attention

• Context of genuine compassion with what is within us

• “ No such thing as a “bad” feeling or emotion

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The “ Focusing Attitude”

Extending the feeling of love, warmth and compassion …

A context for “being with” the felt-sense ..

Our “Caring Presence”

toward our feelings and

felt-senses…

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Felt

sense

Gentleness

patience

open

space

Trust

listening acceptance

pausing

Noticing

Following

Finding your “Caring Presence”

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The Inner Relationship the three ways of being

Not me

Overwhelmed

Identification

Right Relationship

AssociationDenial

Dissociation

I + IT

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EXPERIENTAIL EXERCISE

YOUR JOURNEY AS A SOCIAL CARE PRACTITIONER

“Focusing”

Focusing is an experiential way of becoming/being

aware of the depths of what your body knows by

going beneath your feelings to the felt-senses that

unfold your body’s wisdom.

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Focusing Flow

“Noticing”

“Being with the felt-sense”

“Nurturing what comes”

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“ Noticing ”

1. Clearing a Space/Grounding

2. Going Within: “What in my body wants my caring

presence right now?”“How am I holding that felt-sense in

my body?”

3. “ Is it OK to be with this? ”

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“ Being with the Felt Sense”

4. Letting Go Into It …

5. Allowing It To Express Itself:

in Images, Symbols, Sensations, Memories

6. Finding/Describing the Resonance:

“The Handle”

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7: The “Felt Shift”

Awareness of a bodily felt difference

Not of your intellectual creation

May be slight or significant

A “new place to stand”

“ It’s what you guys call ‘Grace’”

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“Nurturing what comes…”

8. “ Is there more ?”

9. Anchoring and Gratitude

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8: “ Is there more? ”

Asking if there is more …

Going deeper within …

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9: Anchoring/Gratitude

Marking your body response to the felt shift

Appreciating the flow

Resolution, not Solution

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• New relationship with feelings and emotions

• Experience the transformation from “negative”

emotions to “doorways to positive movement forward”.

• Key to on-going personal transformation

• “ You are not the guest, you own the house…”

Focusing Insights

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The Focusing Experience

Symbol

ColorsImagesWordsTearsMemoriesStoriesSoundsMovement

“Felt Shift”

A change toward

wholeness and healing.

A physical experience of

“gift.”

Resolution

The Wisdom

held within

the Body

Symbol

“Shift”

Felt Sense

Body Sensations

Feelings

(With “Affection Response”)

Go Deeper

Resolution

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Social Care Practitioner and Focusing

• Three Areas of Opportunity:

• Personal Focusing / Self Awareness

• Direct Interaction with Children

• Teaching the Children How To Be Focusers

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Self Awareness: Personal Experience

• Improves Capability to be Present with the Children (Context for “Listening”)

• Basis for Interaction with Children ( Dialogue Tool )

• Impact on Personal Life and Relationships

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Direct Interaction

• Frames How You Respond to Children’s Emotions

• Creates an Opportunity for a Deeper Level of Mutual Trust and Respect Between Social Care Practitioner and Child

• Provides “Options” for Helping Children Engage Their Emotions in a Positive Manner

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Exemplars of Young people art work from their ‘inside

place” all about their emotions.

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Bottle of coke activity to teach young people to Pause

You Tube: https://youtu.be/mI8Dfb2-Flg

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Teaching Children to Focus

• To Pause and connect with their Inside Place

• Children Learn to Self-Regulate Their Emotions

• Children Learn to Support Each Other in a New Way

Thank you—namasté!

Photograph credit: Ponsuwan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net 43