Focusing with something that isn’t there – being with something that is implied.

A Focusing student asks, ‘Sometimes I feel I am being criticised, and yet no-one outside of me is criticising. It’s just a general feeling I get, that I am not doing it right, and so I feel a failure and this makes things worse. It reminds me how I felt at school’.

A. I can really relate to this. I can sense something in me hates the learning process, because I feel that I am mucking up and getting things all wrong. I can’t do it right and I get very identified with something in me that feels shame and embarrassment. It’s just like school! And I hated being criticised and feeling that I was doing it wrong. I would freeze up inside. I couldn’t think, and there seemed to be no way out. Focusing could really help, if I had know how to do it then.

Sometimes I get a critical ‘voice’ that comes in my ear, telling me that I am no good and that I will never be able to do it. Or sometimes it can be that I just experience the shame and confusion, without realising there is something in me that is criticising, You may be able to relate to either of those experiences, for instance, in a learning situation where you don’t yet know how to do something.

So there are two parts here. There’s a critical part, and there’s a part that’s feeling criticised or ashamed. They may be more or less ‘there’, or felt and experienced in the body. Sometimes you may be aware of one part but not the other. You may be filled with a sense of embarrassment, but have no idea where it comes from. Or it could be the other way round. Maybe you are aware of critical parts of yourself but have no idea of how this is affecting you. In these examples, you experience one side or the other is not ‘there’. You can only sense one side, and infer, or assume the other part must be there somewhere.

What can be helpful is to act as if it were there. For instance, if the shamed part is clearly there, you might sense for, or imagine the part that is doing the criticising. You might try Focusing with that part of you, and say to it that you sense there is something not right for it. (if everything was alright, it would not need to criticise.) Then you listen to it. There may be a response. It will let you know more about itself, such as how it is feeling from its point of view, and especially what it is afraid of. If you keep it company with interested curiosity, more will come. You may make connections and see how it fits into your life.

Gradually, as you stay with it, you might find that a felt sense is forming in your body. You are getting an overall sense of how the whole thing feels. You may find that images or metaphors come, that shows you how it is feeling, and a subtle body sense emerges. As you stay with something in you that is vague at first, or even not there, it begins to show more of itself and its qualities.

Felt senses are not already there in the body, fully formed. They come; they emerge if you listen with the right kind of attention. In that respect, nothing is really there when you start Focusing. There may be thoughts, feelings, body sensations, but often not really a felt sense. If you stay with what you are aware of, and also what you might infer is there, something emerges from that. This is what will bring real change. There may be an easing and a palpable sense of relief.