The impact of Focusing
Studies show that Focusing can improve emotional resilience and foster personal growth.
Focusing is a body-mind awareness process whose benefits are demonstrated by a growing body of research.
Research indicates that Focusing can:
Help us to listen to ourselves with gentleness, curiosity and compassion.
Bring acceptance and insight regarding whatever is going on in our lives.
Offer a way to be with painful emotions that enables a life-forward direction.
Deepen our relationships with ourselves and others.
Reduce self-criticism, stress and bodily tension.
Foster easier decision-making.
Provide space for creative solutions to emerge from seemingly stuck situations.
Foster creative expression and fresh thinking
How does it achieve these outcomes?
"Focusing" is a practice of self-reflection that involves paying close attention to your internal bodily sensations, often referred to as the "felt sense," so that you gain a deeper understanding of your emotions and experiences. This understanding allows you to process your emotions differently and to find solutions to challenges without judgement or analysis. In short, Focusing helps you to connect with your inner self, better understand your current state and access insights that are difficult to find using rational thought.
How is Focusing different from mindfulness?
Focusing is often compared to Mindfulness, Zen and other kinds of meditation. They are similar because they all cultivate non-judgmental attention to the present moment, and this can be felt in the body. However, Focusing is different from its “neighbors” because bodily felt sensing creates a space for meaning to be freshly formed. In addition, Focusing engages language more than its “neighbors." That’s because when you Focus, you use language to explicate how you experience something, and thus learn how to (re-)connect language to the ongoing experience that is happening in your body as you Focus. Focusing is a process that integrates feeling, thinking, body and mind.
What would it take for me to attain these benefits?
As with many awareness practices, Focusing is easiest to learn when working with a professional, either in a class or a one-on-one session. With time, you will learn to pay close attention to your bodily sensations and develop a "felt sense" of a situation. When you allow yourself to stay with unformed feelings and gradually translate them into words and images, you can gain a deeper understanding of your experience and generate fresh insights.