Resources that support you

Here is a Focusing exercise to build your resources. I recently had a conversation with someone who said Focusing is different from therapy. She noticed that I suggest that people focus on well-being and positive feelings at the beginning of the session, and that is what creates the right conditions for positive change and healing.

When you are Focusing, the key is to ‘be here’, a person without content, who can listen and be aware of your content with compassion. So how do you get yourself here?

Sometimes when I Focus, I use all the helpful language and practises of keeping company and acknowledging what is there. And yet, when it comes to the end of the session, what I have been with wants me to acknowledge it once more. I think I have been doing that, but I actually haven’t. I have been identified with the part of me that wants it to change. In other words, I did have an agenda all along, although I didn’t realize it.

So how can you dis-identify, and step out of yourself, enough that you can keep company with those parts of you that need it? I suggest that you practice a Focusing exercise to build your resources. Find resources that support you; go for a walk in a beautiful place; spend time with friends and loved ones; do the things that nourish you; meditate; build your resourcefulness in ways that work for you. This is not being selfish. You can offer more to others when you are strong and resourced yourself. When you come to Focus, you can draw upon these resources. Remember those good times and remember how it felt in your body.

As a Focusing exercise to build your resources, see if you can find a body-sense of that good feeling now. Find something in your life that you enjoy: a favourite place, a piece of artwork or an animal friend. Take a few moments to awaken all your inner senses, how it feels to be in your favourite place, or with that piece of art, or animal. Notice what you see, what do you hear, what can you smell and what can you feel on your skin? And then begin to notice how your body responds to this. What comes there, in the centre of your body, as you spend time with this? See if you can describe it to yourself and notice especially what quality is there. Check with your body; do the words, phrases, images that you are using to describe this good feeling, fit with the body experience? If not, what would fit better?

This Focusing exercise to build your resources helps you to access Focusing in the body and to anchor them in your awareness. Building awareness of your resourcefulness helps you to keep company with difficult feelings.

Here are some free Focusing resources for you:

The British Focusing Association

The International Focusing Institute

Focusing Oriented Therapy in London

Focusing Resources