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By Kathy McGuire, November 30, 2007 5:33 pm

Key Secret:

It is weak coffee that is bitter! It is exactly putting too much water through too few grounds that sucks out the bitter acids in the coffee.

So, while intuitively, you might think you have to make your coffee weaker to get rid of bitter taste, exactly the opposite is the case.

It is always better to start with too strong coffee and add water than to make weak, and therefore full of bitter acids, coffee.

Coffee making is about the only place where I measure exactly instead of intuitively. It took me over 50 years to get it right, and I’m sticking with the formula.

Basic Formula (And Julia Child in Joy of Cooking reiterates it on page 26, 1964 edition!): 2 US Tablespoons of regular or fine ground coffee to 3/4 to 1 8-ounce cup of fresh water.

Me, I use a small Mr. Coffee, fill it to the metal band (they call this “4 cups,” but it is only about 2 1/2  8-ounce cups of water), and use 2 1/8 cup (2T) scoops of fine ground coffee of the darker, stronger kind, like French Roast.

I started with Starbuck’s coffee I bought at the supermarket, to get the recipe down (“good as Starbuck’s” was my goal. Yours may be higher, like freshly ground beans, fancy extracting pots…that is not me).

And, me, I use decaf coffee only, because the real thing can keep me awake for 36 hours straight. But that is another story about “highly sensitive people” and food allergies.

It is very hard to find interesting decaf coffees. Starbuck’s has only one House Blend. Walmart has a pretty good Java Express decaf French Vanilla. Natural food stores may have some good organic ones.

But I have found the most interesting decafs and bargain prices at discount stores like Tuesday Morning and TJMax in the gourmet food sections, like, recently, Godiva decaf Special Roast and decaf Vanilla. And lots of other little-known brands, even, when lucky, decaf Chocolate Raspberry, Creme Brulee, Irish Creme. You just have to keep checking. I buy six or more if I find them. Whether kept in the freezer or on the shelf (I do put the original bag inside a ziplock bag), they taste “good as Starbuck’s” to me after several months!

So, don’t skimp on the coffee and ruin the flavor!

While Intuitive Cooking is only an off-shoot, learn the self-help skills that really matter to me, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, at my website for Creative Edge Focusing (TM). See how the skills apply to personal growth, creativity, spirituality, parenting, as well as creative, innovative problem solving and interpersonal conflict resolution in work-oriented settings. Two self-help skills as “emotional and social intelligence” for every part of life.

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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By Kathy McGuire, November 29, 2007 1:11 pm

1. Focusing – Individualmente,  con un Entrenador de Borde Creativo o con un Terapeuta de Focusing Experiencial.

Cualquiera que sabe que Focusing Intuitivo es lo básico del Proceso de Solución de Problemas PRISMAS/S, puede usarlo en cualquier momento para dar un nuevo paso seguro, desde la tensión o confusión hasta  la  solución del problema.  Este será un nuevo “¡Ajá!”. Físicamente experimentado en su totalidad por el cuerpo, el cual asiente y relaja la tensión diciendo: “¡Sí, eso es exactamente! “, “¡Ahora puedo actuar!”

En mi ejemplo de abajo, primero uso Focusing Intuitivo por mi cuenta, luego,  generalmente, contrato la ayuda de un Escuchador Focalizado, en este caso, mi esposo.  Tengo la suerte de tener un esposo entrenado pero con él, me gusta compartir un turno igual de escucha.

Ejemplo del Caso:

Por varias semanas he estado dándole vueltas a un problema relacionado con el trabajo; he estado tensa, bloqueada, con noches sin dormir, obsesiva.  Estoy preocupada por que si tomo alguna acción me pueden demandar, pero no quiero echarme para atrás. 

He estado dando algunos pasos y  gastando dinero tratando de protegerme legalmente.  Pero la tensión, el insomnio y la obsesión continúan.  Me encuentro a mí misma imaginándome cómo  voy a defenderme en la Corte. Avanzo con esfuerzo, pero el costo es muy alto.  Todo el proyecto se ha vuelto agotador.

Finalmente, después de semanas me doy cuenta que debo  sentarme en silencio y usar Focusing Intuitivo acerca del asunto. Entonces, cierro mis ojos y sigo mi respiración por un momento a manera de relajación para llegar a un “espacio claro” y silencioso adentro— Suspiro…, dejo salir un poco la tensión…me pregunto: “Realmente ¿de qué se trata todo esto?…” Espero silenciosamente que algo nuevo aparezca…, un sentir intuitivo… o un Borde Creativo…para mí…, este Borde Creativo generalmente viene no a mi cabeza sino al centro de mi cuerpo…, alrededor de mi corazón…, a la cavidad del pecho…

Cuando viene un “sentir intuitivo”  busco silenciosamente unas palabras o una imagen que comiencen a asirlo.  “No quiero dar mi brazo a torcer…”, “No quiero ser derrotada…” (Hay un sentimiento con lágrimas aquí) “Tengo el derecho de hacerlo…” Respiro un poco más, revisando estas palabras frente a este “sentir intuitivo”…suspiro…dejo salir un poco de tensión.

En respuesta a estas palabras, viene un nuevo “sentir intuitivo” al centro de mi cuerpo, cerca del área del pecho…le presto atención, buscando palabras o una imagen que pudiera capturarlo…No puedo seguir así.  Es demasiada tensión…Me siento en silencio manteniendo estas palabras frente al Borde Creativo, el “sentir intuitivo…”

Al usar el Paso de Preguntar de Focusing Intuitivo,  se me viene la pregunta: “¿Qué puedo hacer para hacer que esto tenga menos tensión…?”…Permanezco con esta pregunta, prestándole atención al centro de mi cuerpo… y en lugar de contestar desde mi cabeza…, desde lo ya conocido…, espero que se forme un “sentir intuitivo” de una respuesta…Cuidadosamente busco palabras o imágenes que capturen el sentir intuitivo…suspiro, relajando la tensión.

En respuesta, consigo unas palabras, las cuales se sienten como un nuevo”Ajá” “¡Oh!, se trata de esta pequeña parte del proyecto…No tengo que renunciar a todo lo demás…, tal vez solamente  a esa pequeña parte para reducir la tensión…

Reviso estas palabras frente al “sentir intuitivo”…  Sí, ¡hay una relajación allí!

 Estoy sacudiendo mi cabeza: “¡Sí!, ¡eso es!”… “¡eso relajaría la tensión!”, “¡el miedo!…”

Me siento emocionada aquí.  Es difícil concentrarse.  Quiero levantarme y caminar ansiosamente… ¡no puedo hacer Focusing por mucho tiempo!  Le pregunto a mi esposo que está entrenado en Escucha Focalizada si él estaría disponible; sí, él será mi Escuchador Focalizado mientras yo continúo este proceso de Focusing Intuitivo.  Nos tomará de 10 a 20 minutos.  ¡A él le gusta hacerlo!…

Cierro los ojos y permanezco en este nuevo lugar, “Es solamente acerca de este pequeño lugar…” suspiro relajando la tensión…

Mi esposo refleja: “Así que es realmente sólo esta pequeña parte que tienes que cambiar.  No tienes que dejar todo…sólo esa parte…”

Estoy asintiendo otra vez, todo mi cuerpo dice:   “¡Sí!, puedo hacer eso realmente…,” “sí…, me libraré de ese miedo, esa tensión agotadora!…” Continúo revisando esa posible solución frente al “sentir intuitivo” y todo mi cuerpo sigue diciendo, “Sí, todo eso está bien conmigo.  Puedo hacerlo sin sentirme derrotada”.

  Mi esposo refleja: “Así que estás revisando y todo tu cuerpo te  dice: “Sí eso podría estar bien”…. “Puedo hacer eso sin sentirme derrotada”.  Sigo asintiendo, “Sí, eso podría estar bien…” suspiro…, relajando la tensión…

Seguimos por un rato, yo ahora en la modalidad de resolver problemas, intentando posibles opciones nuevas y diferentes; continúo  revisando con el “sentir intuitivo”, El Borde Creativo: “¿Está esto realmente bien?”… “¿Seré capaz de dormir en la noche si hago esto?…” Mi esposo continúa usando Escucha Focalizada para reflejar lo que yo digo,…dejándome revisar y aclarar…

Finalmente decido mantener esa pequeña parte ahora, siempre y cuando me prepare a mí misma para dejarla si es que tengo la necesidad de hacerlo....Esto parece ser una buena solución (Estoy moviendo la cabeza asintiendo y suspirando, relajando la tensión, es la manera que tiene mi cuerpo de decir:  “¡Sí!, ¡esto realmente encajó…!” “… ¡Tú puedes hacer esto realmente…!” Seguidamente,  terminamos el turno de Escucha/Focusing de manera formal.

En los próximos días, tengo menos tensión.  En las noches siguientes puedo dormir, surgen nuevas ideas, alternativas para reemplazar esa pequeña parte, etc. Tengo nueva energía para seguir adelante con todo el proyecto.  La posibilidad de “pequeños cambios” me da también la oportunidad de permitir que entren otras personas en mi proyecto sin que me asalte toda esa ansiedad y miedo que me han mantenido aislada, incapaz de compartir mis ideas con otras personas.

Si su meta es solamente utilizar Focusing para Ud. mismo, puede tomar una clase o un taller de entrenamiento en Focusing de un profesional de Focusing que Ud. puede encontrar en nuestra sección de Recursos Gratis.

Si desea ayuda de Escucha Focalizada de manera consistente y  sin tener que devolver el servicio como Escuchador (que es lo que sucede en las Parejas de Focusing como mencionamos mas abajo), entonces Ud. puede contratar un Entrenador de Focusing de Borde Creativo o un Terapeuta de Focusing Experiencial (Ver listados en la sección de Recursos Gratis).

Si Ud. ya tiene  una relación de Entrenamiento, puede concertar una cita para Escucha Focalizada por teléfono; a menudo, podría ya comenzar  a Focalizar simplemente  escribiendo un correo a su Entrenador expresándole acerca de su asunto o preocupación, poniendo atención a su interior, usando respuestas de Focusing Intuitivo. El Entrenador puede enviarle un correo de vuelta con respuestas de Escucha Focalizada.  ¡De esta manera Ud. recibe ayuda instantánea a mitad de precio!

Este material es ofrecido solamente como destrezas de autoayuda.  Al proveerlos, la Dra. McGuire no se compromete en rendir servicios psicológicos, financieros, legales u otros servicios profesionales.  Si se necesita la asistencia de un experto o de un consejero, se debe buscar los servicios de un profesional competente.

TESTIMONIO

“Siempre que  hago Focusing, estoy sorprendida de ver cuán rápido surge el asunto, y cómo, con la ayuda de un Escuchador, hay una transformación que va desde la confusión  hacia la comprensión y finalmente la solución.”

( Profesional asociado con una organización sin fines de lucro).

Translation by Agnes Rodriguez, Certified Focusing Professional and Creative Edge Associate offering Listening and Focusing training by phone in English and Spanish. See Agnes Rodriguez.

See also The Focusing Institute for articles in Spanish by Eugene Gendlin, creator of Focusing, and Spanish-speaking Focusing Teachers world-wide.

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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By Kathy McGuire, November 27, 2007 7:25 pm

In the example below, taken from the Case Studies area at Creative Edge Focusing (TM), the Focuser goes from unspecified, work-related anxiety and sleeplessness to being able to name the problem and begin problem solving, using Intuitive Focusing:

 1. Focusing — Alone Or With A Creative Edge Coach or Experiential Focusing Therapist

Anyone who knows Intuitive Focusing, as the core of the PRISMS/S Problem Solving Process,  can use it any time to go from confusion and tension to an absolute sureness of a next step of problem resolution.  This will be a physically experienced “Ahah!”, indicated by the whole body nodding and releasing tension, saying “Yes, this is exactly it! I can act now.”

In my example below, first I use Intuitive Focusing on my own, then, at a certain point, I contract for Focused Listening help from another, my husband in this case. I’m lucky enough to have a trained husband (I trained him!), but, with him, eventually I will want to give equal time:

Case Example:

For several weeks I have been stewing about a work-related problem, stymied, tense, sleepless nights, obsessing. I am concerned that I might be sued if I take a certain action, yet I don’t want to back down. I have even taken steps and spent money to try to protect myself legally. Yet the tension, sleeplessness, obsessing continue. I find myself imagining how I would defend myself in court. I forge ahead, but the emotional cost is very high. The whole project has become draining.

Finally, after weeks, I have the sense to sit down quietly and actively use Intuitive Focusing on the issue. I close my eyes and follow my breathing for a while as a way of relaxing and coming to a quiet, “clear space” inside……I sigh, let go of some tension…..I ask myself, “What is this all about, really?”….I wait quietly for something new, an “intuitive feel” or Creative Edge to come…for me, this Creative Edge usually comes in the center of my body (not my head!), around my heart, chest cavity…..

When an “intuitive feel” comes, I quietly look for some words or an image which begin to grasp it:  “I don’t want to give up….I don’t want to be beaten (there is a teary feeling here)….I have a right to do this”…..I breath some more, checking these words against the “intuitive feel”……I sigh, release some tension……

A new “intuitive feel” comes in the center of my body, around the chest area, in response to these words….I pay attention to it, looking for words or an image that might capture it…….”I can’t go on like this. It is too stressful….”….I sit quietly, holding these words against The Creative Edge, the “intuitive feel”…..

I use the Asking Step of Intuitive Focusing and a question comes: “What can I do to make this less stressful?”….I sit with this question, paying attention in the center of my body…instead of answering from my head, the already-known, I wait for an “intuitive feel” of an answer to form …….I carefully look for words or images to capture the intuitive feel……..I sigh, releasing tension…

I get words in answer which feel like a new “Ahah!”: “Oh, it’s really just about this one small part of the project…….I don’t have to give up everything else, but maybe just that one small part, to reduce the tension”….I check these words against the “intuitive feel”….there is an easing there. I am nodding my head: “Yes, that is really it…That would release the tension, the fear…..”

I get sort of excited here. It’s hard to concentrate. I want to get up and walk anxiously around….I’m not good at doing Focusing alone for very long. I ask my husband, who is trained in Focused Listening and available, if he will be a Focused Listener while I continue this Intuitive Focusing process. It will take 10-20 minutes. He is willing to do this……

I close my eyes and sense into this new place, “It’s really only about this small part”…..I sigh, releasing tension….My husband reflects: “So it’s really only that small part  you have to change. You don’t have to give up the whole thing….Just that part.”……

I’m nodding again, my whole body saying, “Yes, I can really do that if it will get rid of this fear, this draining tension”…..I continue checking this possible solution against the “intuitive feel,” and my whole body keeps saying, “Yes, that much is okay with me. I can do that without feeling beaten.” My husband reflects, “So you are checking, and your whole body says, ‘Yes, that would be okay. I could do that…without feeling beaten’”…….I keep nodding, “Yes, that would be okay.”…I sigh, releasing tension….

We go on for a while, me in problem solving mode now, trying out possible different new choices, continuing to check with the “intuitive feel,” The Creative Edge: “Is this really okay?…Will I be able to sleep at night if I do this?” My husband continues using Focused Listening to reflect what I say, letting me check and clarify….

I finally decide a way that I can keep even that small part now, as long as I prepare myself to give it up later if I have to ……..This seems a good solution (I’m nodding and sighing, releasing tension, my body’s way of saying, “Yes, this really fits. You can really do this.”). We end the formal Listening/Focusing turn.

Throughout the next few days, I have less tension. I can sleep at night. New ideas keep popping up: possible replacements for that “one small part,” etc. I have new energy to move ahead with the whole project. This “small change” possibility also gives me a way to let other people in on my project, without raising the whole anxiety and fear issue, which had been keeping me isolated, unable to share my ideas with other people.

If your goal is only to use Focusing by yourself, you can take a Focusing Training class or workshop from a Focusing Professional found in our Free Resources section.

If you want consistent Focused Listening help, without reciprocating as a Listener in a Focusing Partnership as below, then you can  hire a Creative Edge Focusing Coach  or an Experiential Focusing Therapist (See Listings in Free Resources Section) as a consistent Focused Listener.

If you have a Coaching relationship, you can arrange for Focused Listening by phone, but you can often start Focusing simply by starting to write an email to your Coach on the issue or concern, paying attention inside, using Intuitive Focusing…then, the Coach can send an email back, with Focused Listening responses. This will give you instant help at half the cost!

 Email Dr. McGuire to explore Focusing Coaching or Focusing Partnership phone sessions or to set up a free 20-minute Trial Session. You can explore options and prices in The Store

See our website for many descriptions and exercises for learning Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, to subscribe to our free e-course/e-newsletter, and to join our online Creative Edge Practice yahoo group for free, supervised practice of actual listening/focusing skills.

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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By Kathy McGuire, November 26, 2007 7:13 pm

MEDICAL CHANGE EVENT: FROM MIGRAINE TO TEARS OF MEANING
 
While Instant “Ahah!” # 4, Five-Minute Grieving,  specifically addresses what to do if a patient, friend, or co-worker begins to cry, the excerpt below shows how using Intuitive Focusing to “sit with” the “intuitive feel” of a physical symptom can allow that symptom to open into an “Ahah!” of deeper meanings, with a sheen of tears in the eye often the body’s signpost of a place to stop and go deeper into “the feel of the whole thing.”
 
The excerpt is a tiny portion of a Focusing Partnership session. The Focuser is experienced in using Intuitive Focusing. Early on, as the Focuser talks about waking with the beginnings of a migraine headache and related issues, the Listener notices a faint “shimmer of tears.”

She suggests that the Focuser stop and “sense into” the place of tears. By the end of the session, the Focuser has moved through deep sobbing about the heavy burden of depression she has carried “for soooo long” and experiences the liveliness of a “felt shift,” “being lighter, wanting to dance!” She states that the migraine has abated.
 
The session begins with Focuser and Listener in chairs facing each other. The Focuser, because of her comfort with the Experiential Focusing process from past practice, chose to keep her eyes closed throughout the session, attending to her inner experiencing. The Listener, Dr. McGuire, begins:
 
Listener: “So, just feel comfortable closing your eyes and going inside, coming in tune with whatever is there—Let me know if you need some help or when you’re ready to begin speaking—
 
Focuser: (10 second pause)—“—This morning when I awakened, I  had a headache on the left side of my head, and I thought, ‘Oh, it’s  migraine coming on’— so I’m just sensing into what that was  about, um, like, my body was really full of toxins, like I just wanted to kind of shake the toxins out.”
 
Listener: “So, even on waking, you noticed there was the beginning of a headache on the left side of your head, and you spent some time with it, just sensing into it, and the feeling was of toxins in your body, and you just wanted to shake them out, shake them out.”
 
Focuser: (30 second pause) ——- “And I notice that my throat is stopped up this morning, and that’s something I’ve been working on, we’ve been working on together—something deep emotional there in my throat, getting kind of choked up.”  
 
[The Focuser is doing the first step of Experiential Focusing, “clearing a space,” noticing and naming the various issues she is carrying so she can choose one to work on]
 
Listener: “Yea, so you’re aware of that now, too, your throat getting choked up, and that’s something we’ve worked on before, and it’s connected to deep emotional things—and it seemed like I even saw a shimmer of tears as you described that—maybe just be with that, sit with that ‘choked up.'”
 
[The Listener notices the beginnings of tears and gives an Experiential Focusing Instruction, suggesting that the Focuser stop talking and pay attention to the “felt sense.”] 
 
Focuser: (tears visible under closed eyelids, face reddening, voice thickening) “What bothers me about it is I keep trying to clear my throat, and it doesn’t clear. I keep trying to clear it, and it prevents me from speaking the way I want to speak, and it’s annoying to people, I think.”
 
Listener: “Uhhuh.”
 
Focuser: “It somehow prevents me from projecting my voice—” 
 
Listener: “Umhm.”
 
Focuser: “I keep trying to get it out, and it just stays there, it’s uh—”
 
Listener: “Umhm—so what bothers you is you keep trying to clear it out, and it won’t go, and you also think it makes it difficult for other people. You want to project your voice and get it out, and that’s hard for the other people, too, you can’t really speak.”
 
Focuser: “That really prevents communication.”
 
You can read the entire excerpt, with commentary, and see the “felt shift” for yourself in Medical Change Events Through Experiential Focusing. You can view the entire 12-minute session in the DVD Listening/Focusing Demonstrations, also part of The Self-Help Package. Download “Being Touched and Being Moved: The Spiritual Value of Tears for many examples of how tears and Focusing interrelate.
Download “Finding The Meaning In Tears” for exercises for using Focusing to find the meaning in your tears. Both articles are packed with real-life examples of how tears “touch us” and “move us” in positive ways.

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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By Kathy McGuire, November 24, 2007 3:13 pm

With Ruth Hirsch, Creative Edge Associate and Certified Focusing Professional and Coordinator: 

FROM THE BODY COMES OUR NEXT MOVES
A quote from Eugene Gendlin

“The body is not just a pipeline for incoming sensory data.
It’s not a safe deposit box where you put something in
and expect to get the same thing out. There’s something more.  The body can imply something new-a right next step.
It’s more like you put a worm into a cocoon and get a butterfly back.”

And another from former UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold:
“The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you,
the better you will hear what is happening outside of you.”

Level 2: Advanced Listening & Beginning Guiding (Facilitation)
3 Mondays,  Dec. 10, 17, and January 7, 10 AM – 1 PM EST

Here’s an opportunity to make time for yourself during what can often be a near overwhelming pre-holiday season and to continue your focusing training at the same time!  In this course, participants will enhance their own focusing skills, and will learn advanced empathic listening (reflection) techniques as well as a few important guiding (facilitation) techniques that can be helpful in deepening the Focuser’s ability to stay with what is there for them.

The essence of the course is learning to be an increasingly facilitative companion to the Focusing process for yourself and for others. Level One Focusing training with a Certified Focusing Trainer is a prerequisite for this course.

Level 1: Focusing Basics: Self Guiding, and Empathic Listening
4 Sundays,  January 6, 13, 20, 27, 10 AM -12:30 PM EST

This is a great opportunity to begin to learn how to Focus alone and with a partner, as well as how to facilitate focusing for another focuser through Listening- and to reap the benefits of enhanced relationships, stress reduction, ease of decision making, and much more!  All this from the comfort and safety of your own home or office.

The only pre-requisite for this course is to have a Focusing session facilitated by a Certified Focusing Trainer. I am offering sessions by phone, toll-free for residents of the US, Canada, Ireland, UK, Italy, Spain, and France.

About the Trainer: Ruth Hirsch is a Certified Focusing trainer, bodyworker, and consultant based in Jerusalem, Israel. For the past 18 years she has maintained a private practice in which she works with people individually, and in groups. She is in her 13th year of teaching Focusing. In her individual work, she specializes in balancing and bringing peace, comfort, and insight to body, mind, heart and spirit.  In her teaching, she delights in sharing Focusing with others as an individual life-enhancing practice, and as an adjunct to enhance the work of other healing professions.

General Info: Both courses are limited to a maximum of 6 participants each. The trainings are largely experiential, and are taught in a clear, compassionate, enjoyable manner. Registration fees include the course, unlimited questions between sessions (to be answered via email or at the next class session), and a manual specific to each level. The fee for each level is $250, payable by credit card, or US check. (Space permitting, those who have already taken the course and would like to review the level may do so for half price.) The course will be taught via a Conference line to a US number which will be provided before the class.

VERY IMPORTANT: To register, or for any questions, comments, or to just say hello, please contact Ruth directly .

If these dates and/or times (for either course) do not work for you, please let me know what would work so that your needs might be considered in future scheduling :).

—
Ruth Hirsch  MSW, MPH, CMT
Focusing Trainer  & Certifying Coordinator

We can never obtain peace in the world if we neglect the inner world and don’t make peace with ourselves. World peace must develop out of inner peace.
  Dalai Lama

Posted for Ruth Hirsch by

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

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By Kathy McGuire, November 20, 2007 5:05 pm

Okay, ’tis the season. We’ve got to have that pumpkin pie. Here are two easy alternatives to get you through:

(1) Tiny pumpkin and pecan pie tartletts (Sam’s Club), frozen: warm up one of each, top with a dollop of low-fat whipped topping or Kool Whip Free —enough to satisfy the urge many times throughout the holidays.

(2) Pumpkin pudding

Canola or other spray

1 15-ounce can plain pumpkin

1 15-ouce can part-skim ricotta cheese

1 tsp cinnamin

1/4 tsp each: cloves, nutmeg, allspice, ginger (whatever you like!)

1/8 cup Splenda or Splenda for Baking (1/2 Splenda, 1/2 sugar)

Add some pecans or walnuts if you like. 

Spray pyrex or other oven-proof container. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients together in a bowl and place in container. Bake about 50 minutes, until lightly browned on bottom and sides. Yum!!! Eat as much as you like! That ricotta is calcium/protein, that pumpkin an orange vegetable!!!!!!

Eat it warmed up. Top with a little low-fat whipped topping if you like.

Happy holiday if you are in the USA! Happy eating anywhere!

See Intuitive Focusing to learn our self-help skill for paying attention to The Creative Edge, the “intuitive feel”  of what you want to eat, what would taste great thrown together, and all other aspects of personal growth, creativity, spirituality, conflict resolution, and group decision making!

Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

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By Kathy McGuire, November 19, 2007 12:14 pm

Experiencing The Sacred

Predictable Access to Spiritual Experience

As with personal growth and creativity, spiritual experiences can also be reached more predictably through the conscious use of Intuitive Focusing. If you “accidently” find yourself in the midst of a transformative, spiritual moment, you can enrich and enlarge that opening by consciously turning attention toward the “feel of it all” and making words and images for the power and meaning of it.

These words and images can then stay with you after that magical moment ends. You can use them as a predictable road back to that spiritual experience, again by consciously turning your attention to them, and the intuitive feel which goes with them, using Intuitive Focusing. 

Using Intuitive Focusing, you can enrich your spiritual experience. Whether the initial intuitive sense of The Sacred is comes through nature or inspiring music or religious rituals in church or through watching the kindness of one person toward another, these spiritual experiences can be deepened through Intuitive Focusing. The existence of Something Greater or Something More will be fully and unquestionably known, experientially, rather than being only an intellectual theory.

Being Touched and Being Moved

Dr. McGuire calls it “being touched and being moved.” Experiencing The Sacred is often marked by at least a sheen of tears in the eyes, along with an expansive feeling of one’s own boundaries and limits dissolving for at least a moment of merging into a feeling of Oneness – with nature, with another person or other people, with music, or with the religious ritual in church.

Biospirituality

Jesuit Fathers Pete Campbell and Ed McMahon (Bio-Spirituality: Focusing As A Way To Grow, 1985) have made a life’s work out of looking at the specifically spiritual aspect which can be present in any use of  Intuitive Focusing. They see entering the bodily “felt sense” through Focusing as a way of entering into The Body of Christ from the Christian perspective and also into the common ground of all spiritual experience. They call their approach Bio-spirituality (www.biospiritual.org ).

In any Focusing process, the Focuser will often experience a Felt Shift or Paradigm Shift, an opening of tension release into forward movement and new energy. Fathers Pete and Ed tell us to pay more attention to the “bodily-feel” surrounding these felt shifts in experiencing. They show us that, if we attend fully to the feelings surrounding the felt shift, we will find experiences of gratitude, of awe, of being “graced” by the presence of the Almighty.

While they started with Christianity, the Fathers now see Focusing as an access path to the Experience of the Sacred which underlies all religions. They elaborate upon Gendlin’s sixth step of Focusing, called Receiving: thanking and acknowledging your Body’s Wisdom for the new steps of healing that have emerged through Focusing and taking the further step of noticing the presence of grace and awe and thanking the Greater Source from which felt shifts, and spiritual and emotional growth, emerge.

Empathy and Agape: The Creation of Love

Intense spiritual experiences of the love known as Agape also happen regularly through the experience of exchanging Listening/Focusing turns in a Focusing Partnership or Focusing Community. Through the use of Focused Listening, I am able to set aside my own stereotypes and prejudices and really enter into the world of the other person.  In these moments of empathy, when the Focuser touches upon her deepest values and most profound truths, as the Listener, I am often moved and touched by the absolute uniqueness, yet universal humanness, of the Other.
 
In these moments, often with a sheen of tears in our eyes, it seems that the boundaries separating one person from the other drop, and we stand together in a shared, sacred space. I believe this is what is meant by experiencing The Christ Within The Other or Universal Oneness or Martin Buber’s description of “I-Thou” vs. “I-It” relationships. For me, there is no more sacred experience.

Read more about Focusing and Spirituality in Interest Area: Experiencing The Sacred

Download my articles:

 Focusing and Spirituality: The Still, Small Voice

 Being Touched And Being Moved: The Spiritual Value of Tears

 Finding The Meaning Of Tears          

If you haven’t yet, download our Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual   (Ajas Instantaneos  ) so you can try “Ahah!” #10, Spirituality: Being Touched and Being Moved and nine other exercises for integrating Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening into your every day home and work life.

In the sidebars at Creative Edge Focusing (TM)  , you can subscribe to our e-newsletter and e-support groups for ongoing support in applying Listening and Focusing  to every life situation.

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)                       

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By Kathy McGuire, November 18, 2007 7:47 pm

Focusing On The Creative Edge

Sitting With The Unclear Edge

Intuitive Focusing applied to creative expression, is a methodical, predictable road to “Ah, hah!” experiences.  Gendlin’s Focusing (Bantam, 1981) is a step-wise procedure for paying attention to the murky, intuitive, whole-body “feel” of a creative project and going back-and-forth between this Creative Edge and words or images for describing it. When you hit on just the right words or image, you will experience that “Ah, hah!…Yes, that’s it. That is exactly the next step.” With continued rounds of Focusing, you can carry the creative project through many steps of problem-solving.
 
Focusing simply provides specific steps to encourage the “Ah, hah!” process which creative people have always accessed, usually accidentally. Fortunately, the “unconscious,” or the concretely available Creative Edge, “the intuitive body sense,” can carry more information, all at once, in that murky, wordless “feel,” than we can ever carry in our minds consciously. So, during Focusing, the creative problem-solver has access to “all of it,” “the whole thing,” more than could ever be recited consciously.

From Creative Block To Next Step

For example, a painter is stuck on what a particular painting needs next, right now. She can step back, take a look, and then, ask herself, “What does this painting need?” and, instead of answering from her head, the already-known, she can wait, as long as a minute or more, for the bodily-feel, the intuitive sense, the Creative Edge of “the whole thing, and what it needs now…” to arise as a murky, wordless “feel,” usually in the center of the body, between the throat and stomach…”What does it need?”…..and waiting, just paying attention to the intuitive feel….then carefully looking for words or an image or just the right gesture, the next painterly act, the next step toward “completion.”  Stuck again later? Just follow the same process, stepping back, sensing in, waiting for “the exactly right” next move to arise.

A writer is stuck in a novel: “What does this story need?….What does this character need?…..What happens next?” Again, the writer steps back, takes a moment to go quietly inside, perhaps with eyes closed, and sits with the creative question, setting aside any already-known guesses or solutions, and just waiting, for at least a minute, for the intuitive feel of the “whole thing…this whole question” to arise.  Then, just as carefully, he looks for words or images or metaphors that are exactly “right” in capturing the “feel of it all.”  And, then, “Ah, hah! That is exactly it.” Or, in writing even more than in painting, he can try out the body’s best guess, and, again, check with the body sense: “Is that it?”

Same thing for creative problem solving in a business, engineering, scientific research situation. When “stuck,” not knowing the answer in a left-brain way, the problem solver can simply pause for a moment, go quietly inside, and look for the Creative Edge, the “intuitive feel” for “this whole problem,” wait at least a minute for the intuitive feel to form, then use Intuitive Focusing to carefully find the exact words or images which ,”fit,” bringing that experience of “Ahah! That is exactly it!”

Predictable Creativity

By definition, creativity comes from the not-yet-known. Whether you are trying to find the next step in a piece of art work, a musical composition, writing, or a scientific, philosophical, or business project, you need a predictable, methodical method for having the kinds of “Ah, hah!” moments which otherwise come only when a new solution or idea bubbles up, unpredictably, from the backburner of your consciousness.

The great thing about Intuitive Focusing is that the answer, the next step, comes, not just intellectually, but experientially, as a whole-body response: “Yes. That’s it!” Throughout the Focusing process, the Focuser is constantly checking with the body-sense: “Is it this?    Is this right…?” and waiting for the body’s response. If the words or image or gestures don’t fit, the body response is flat. Nothing moves or changes.

But, when the symbols are just right, an exact “fit” for the whole-body-sensing, then, the body responds with a physically experienced sense of relaxation, tension-release, opening into a new, forward flow of energy. This is the true “Ah, hah!” experience, physically and viscerally felt, as distinct from all the ideas and possible solutions tried before. Gendlin called it a “felt shift.”  Dr. McGuire calls it a Paradigm Shift to emphasize that the kaleidoscope has turned, and everything is new.

And, another check point: the artist or painter or musician or problem-solver can try out the new “next step,” and see if it does fit, again checking with the intuitive sense as this new step is made manifest. Now, the art work, the creation, will “reflect back” to the creator, who can again sense in the body, The Creative Edge, “Is this it?” So the Focusing process, the back-and-forth between symbolizations and felt experience, can be carried on throughout the creative process.

Read more about Intuitive Focusing

Read about “Ahah!” experiences and Paradigm Shifts through the PRISMS/S Problem Solving Process  or PROCESO DE SOLUCION DE PROBLEMAS  PRISMAS/S.

Download  the Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual or Ajas Instantaneos so you can try “Ahah!” #9, Creativity: From Blocks To Predictable “Ahah!”s, p.29

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

Comments (0)

By Kathy McGuire, November 16, 2007 2:37 pm

Collaborative Decision Making: Quick, efficient meetings

Coordinated Collaboration: The Best of Consensus and Hierarchy 

Here are some Task-Roles  and Impasse Resolution Procedures , for use when a group has a limited time to make decisions. This model can also be used, as Coordinated Collaboration, as a way of gathering information and input, in work groups where there is a boss, a Project Manager, or a Coordinator who will make the final decisions.

As with all the Applied Methods of Creative Edge Focusing ™, the procedures create quiet, protected moments where participants can pay attention to the “intuitive feel,” The Creative Edge, and create innovative ideas and solutions.

The tasks can be rotated in a “shared leadership” model, where appropriate, each person on the team learning the various skills. Or, for instance, on the Board of a Corporation or Non-Profit Organization, the formal Chairperson might serve as the agenda keeper more regularly.

Shared Leadership Tasks

The group appoints or gets volunteers for the following tasks: Read the full instructions here

Read all about Creative Edge Organizations

Download PDF article “Collaborative Edge Decision Making” or Metodode Tomade Decisiones del Border de Colaboracion

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

Comments (3)

By Kathy McGuire, November 14, 2007 1:40 pm

Elegant Simple Puff Pastry Tart Using Almost Any Fruit

This is it! The one perfect, generic dessert for every party or every day occasion.

Just keep frozen Puff Pastry sheets in your freezer. Also, buy some Parchment Paper (in the Baking section of grocery store) and keep it handy.

Need a fancy dessert, or just want to enjoy fresh fruit in season or out? Take out one sheet. Defrost it on very low a few minutes, making sure not to “melt” it. Flour a wooden or pastry board lightly and roll the sheet out into a rectangle the size of a cookie baking sheet.

Preheat the oven as instructed on Puff Pastry package.

Choose a fruit. Peaches, pears, apples, plums, raspberries, blueberries, bananas, apricots, nectarines, dried apricots, or your imagination! Or mix fruits with each other.Slice the larger fruits thin as you want (1/4 inch?).

Mix the fruit with a little something for slight flavoring. I like liquors: Ameretto (great with peaches, pears, apples) Raspberry Chambord, whatever!, just a few tablespoons to moisten and let sit a few minutes.

Or use traditional spices: cinnamon (apples?), nutmeg (pears), clove, pie spice, whatever you like!

You can sprinkle in a little Splenda or Splenda-for-baking (half Splenda, half sugar) or a little sugar if you want more sweetening. But the idea is to let the flavor of the fruit on the pastry shine through. Very European! Very gourmet! Very easy!!!!!!

Put Parchment Paper on the cookie tray (prevents sticking of tart), rectangle of dough on the paper, and arrange fruit on the dough, leaving a small (1/4-1/2 inch?) margin to pinch up as a rim to keep juices in.

ONLY MAIN RULE: DON’T PUT TOO MUCH FRUIT JUICE OR OTHER JUICE ON OR YOUR PASTRY CRUST WILL GET SOGGY! Still delicious but not quite as “gourmet.”

Put in the oven and bake as directed. The pastry will puff up, especially around the edges.

If you want, when you roll out the puff pastry sheet initially, you can cut it into rectangles or circles, then make smaller tarts by spreading fruit on each. But, me, I just cut the big tart into rectangles after it cooks and cools for a few minutes, and nobody at my house complains.

See other recipes and the philosophy of Intuitive Eating and Intuitive Cooking under Categories: Intuitive Eating or Food in the sidebar.

Basic to Intuitive Cooking and Eating is checking with your “body sense,” your “intuition” of what you want to eat, what would taste great “thrown together.” You can learn the Intuitive Focusing skill and find many Free Articles about Focusing and its partner skill, Focused Listening, at our website for Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

Using the icons in the sidebar, you can subscribe to our e-newsletter and immediately download our Instant “Ahah!” Mini- Manual (Ajas Instantenous en espanol) of ten practices to try at home and work immediately.

You can also join our two e-support groups for practice and networking.

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM