Category: LISTENING

COMPLETE FOCUSING EXERCISE: INTERPERSONAL SITUATION

By , February 17, 2008 5:55 pm

 PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
 
This is the beginning of a new four week cycle. For four weeks, we practice an actual exercise in three different categories: An Instant “Ahah!” to integrate into your every day life at work and at home, a Felt Sensing exercise to practice this step of Focusing, and a Complete Focusing Session. Actually doing the exercise which  arrives in each e-newsletter insures that you can call upon these new skills when needed!
COMPLETE FOCUSING SESSION: SITTING WITH THE CREATIVE EDGE OF AN INTERPERSONAL SITUATION
 
Earlier this week you received Interpersonal Focusing : “This flower is beautiful To ME”, showing how owning our own reactions, instead of blaming them on the other, actually empowers us to begin to change interpersonal situations, and Interpersonal Felt Sensing Exercise, inviting you to find the bodily, “intuitive feel” of five unresolved interpersonal situations (that blog also contains links to downloads of Chapter Five: Interpersonal Focusing (Capitulo Cinco: El Proceso Interpersonal) from Dr. McGuire’s manual, Focusing In Community (Focusing en Comunidad).
 
In the Complete Focusing Session for each of the next four weeks, you will be invited to take one of these interpersonal situations and sense into, “sit with” it in a Focusing way, seeing what new information about yourself-in-this-situation can unfold. 
 
Throughout the month, we will also explore methods for communicating and using Listening/Focusing turns with the actual other person as a way of resolving interpersonal conflict. The “felt sense” in each person in an interpersonal situation contains a Creative Edge which, when shared,  can carry both problem solving and relationship forward.
 
But, in Complete Focusing, you are going more deeply into “owning” the personal dimension of the interaction for yourself, given the person that you are.
 
Focusing On A Specific Interpersonal Situation (20 minutes) Click the link to find the actual Complete Focusing exercise in our e-newsletter archive.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way 

COORDINATED COLLABORATION: THE BEST OF HIERARCHICAL AND CONSENSUAL METHODS OF DECISION MAKING

By , January 31, 2008 6:02 pm

COLLABORATION WITHIN HIERARCHICAL SITUATIONS

Here is how I introduce these topics in my article explaining the Collaborative Edge Decision Making method (Metodo de Toma de Decisiones del Borde de Colaboracion ) and, particularly, the Coordinated Collaboration component for allowing collaborative decision making within time-limited and hierarchical settings:

“COMBINING HIERARCHY AND COLLABORATION

     Hierarchical and collaborative models of decision making both have strengths and weaknesses. Hierarchical models can breed apathy and alienation, and the absenteeism, low productivity, and carelessness which can result. Collaborative models can lead to an inability to reach conclusions and to carry out effective action and can degenerate into power struggles over leadership. The Collaborative Edge Decision Making Method combines the benefits of both collaboration and hierarchy:

1. Benefits of Collaboration

     Collaboration, where people work together as equal colleagues toward a common goal, has the following benefits compared to strict, hierarchical, top-down decision making:

(a)    The equal hearing of every viewpoint and the contribution of each person’s unique expert knowledge can  lead to  win/win decisions which are more inclusive and creative;

(b)    Egalitarian expression of disagreement can address weaknesses, producing decisions that are objectively higher in quality;

(c)    When participants have a say in decisions affecting them, even when they do not get all of what they want, they experience greater “ownership” of decisions and become more willing and motivated to carry the decisions out;

(d)   Working together toward a common goal also produces feelings of friendship and collegiality which lead to greater enjoyment in working together and greater commitment to the group and the organization itself.

2. Benefits of Hierarchy

     In most business settings, clear, hierarchical lines of authority and responsibility insure that:

(a)    Decisions can be made within prescribed time limits;

(b)    Specialized expertise of individuals can be utilized effectively;

(c)    An overview of the entire organization’s objectives and projects can be developed by executives, in communication with any advisory Boards and shareholders. This overview can be communicated to managers, who can organize the efforts of work groups toward accomplishing these over-all objectives.

(d)    “The buck stops here.” Clear lines of responsibility, and the accompanying power and authority needed to take responsibility, are established.

3. Coordinated Collaboration Component

      In pure consensual decision making, a decision is not made until everyone in the group feels able to go along with it. At the very least, dissenting group members have to be willing to say, “I’m not willing to participate in the project that way, but it’s okay with me if you three want to carry it out, “or, “I think there’s a better way to be found, but I’m willing to go along as long as we review the outcome in a month” or some such qualified assent.

     If someone is not able to agree in any way, it is assumed that the decision is flawed, some piece of information needed for problem-solving is missing, or not yet articulated, and the group will benefit from spending more time sitting with the decision until an acceptable solution arises. Committees can be formed to gather more information, and group members can spend time individually or in pairs using Intuitive Focusing to look for innovative solutions.

     However, in many situations within an organization, decisions have to be made on a timetable and passed along to other collaborative teams or up the hierarchy. Using the Coordinated Collaboration approach of the Collaborative Edge Decision Making method, a Coordinator or Project Manager can set time limits for Collaborative Decision Making and be empowered to make final decisions when the time limits are up and take these to other levels.  Coordinated Collaboration allows the benefits of collaboration within the time limits and structured responsibility of hierarchical organization, capitalizing upon the best of both models.”

Actual Steps of Coordinated Collaboration Procedure

Read on to discover the actual steps of the Coordinated Collaboration procedure.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way 

COLLABORATIVE DECISION MAKING MEETINGS

By , January 24, 2008 5:27 pm

CARING FEELING PRESENCE” AT WORK
 
As our “Felt Sensing” exercise these four weeks we are practicing turning a Caring Feeling Presence toward whatever arises inside during our Focusing and toward the Focuser when we are the Empathic (or Focused) Listener. What about turning a Caring Feeling Presence toward our co-workers at work?
 
Hmmm…do you have a reaction to seeing these words in the same line? Are “work” and “caring” incompatible?
 
Once I told my Business Professor husband that I was going to market what I teach to business people and that I was going to call it “Compassionate Awareness.”  He shuddered: “Awareness, yes. Compassinate? No. Compassionate people do not make good competitors. Compassion is exposing weakness. Business people do not want this.” And, in trying to “market” Listening/Focusing to business, I have changed the name from Empathic (who in the workplace wants empathy!) Listening to Focused Listening.
 
However, now, because of changes in the business world demanding skills at team work and collaboration, my husband teaches the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (recognizing differing “gifts,” differing personality and leadership styles) and Listening and other conflict resolution skills to students working in groups in almost every class, on almost every project. He even has a procedure whereby team members can get “a divorce” from a non-participating member!
 
When the newly elected President of Chile was asked, “What are you going to do for Chile?” by a Newsweek reporter, she replied, “I’m going to create love.”
 
In a recent edition of Consumer Reports on Health (Vol.20, No.2, Feb., 2008), the heading reads: Find Friends At Work:
 
“A study published in the American Journal of Public Health analyzed survey data of some 24,000 men and women and found a strong link between social support at work and overall emotional health. People who said they had few close friends at work were two to three times more likely to report depression than those with strong social ties. Other research has shown that good relations on the job can spill over to a happy home life too. So, if your cubicle enighbor invites you to lunch, say yes.”
 
You can find more quotes and statistics about the negative impact of interpersonal conflict in the workplace in the sidebar at Creative Edge Focusing.
 
Aggressiveness, competitiveness, one-up-manship, gossiping, back-stabbing: these are all negative emotions brought up in a workplace based upon competition.

Cooperation, mutual help, warmth, care, friendship, backpatting: these are positive emotions brought about when collaboration, not competition, is the norm.
 
Sound too “touchy-feely” for the workplace? Remember what it feels like to turn a Caring Feeling Presence, instead of a judgmental, critical attitude, toward your own vulnerable inner places. Now, imagine being greeted with this same Focusing Attitude, this same treasuring of difference, vulnerability, neediness at work. Not such a bad goal to strive for! And Collaborative Edge Decision Making Methods take a step in this direction. The direct goal: the most creative, innovative decisions imaginable, with the motivation to carry them out. The by -product: feelings of warmth, collegiality, empathy, and mutual support among co-workers. Read all about how collaboration instead of competition builds positive feelings in the workplace and find the “How To’s” for Collaborative Decision Making Meetings in our e-newsletter archive.

Download Dr. McGuire’s article, “Collaborative Edge Decision Making with bonus group handouts in the Appendix.

Learn more about Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening  at Creative Edge Focusing’s website, filled with free downloads on creativity, spirituality, collaborative thinking, parenting, innovation in business, and many other aspects of application of Focusing and Listening skills at home, at work, in your community, and globally.

Download our Instant “Ahah!”s Mini-Manual (”Ajas” Instantaneos en espanol) for ten exercises bringing Listening and Focusing into your everyday life starting today.

Download our complete Intuitive Focusing Instructions to start practicing Relaxation, Getting a Felt Sense, and Intuitive Focusing today!

See actual demonstrations of Listening/Focusing in our Self-Help package, a manual in English or Spanish, four CDs of Focusing Instructions, and a DVD with four demonstrations of actual listening/focusing sessions — everything you need to start your own Listening/Focusing Partnership or Support Group or to incorporate these basic self-help skills into existing support groups.

In the side bar at Creative Edge Focusing, subscribe to our free e-newsletter for weekly reminders to practice Relaxation and Focusing exercises and join our free yahoo group, Creative Edge Practice, for ongoing demonstrations, practice, and support.

Find classes/workshops/phone coaching in our Listings section or Coaching/Classes/Consulting with Dr. McGuire in the Store.

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way. 

GENDLIN’S FOCUSING AND COLLABORATIVE DECISION MAKING

By , January 16, 2008 11:59 pm

Instant “Ahah!”s #5:  Collaborative Decision Making

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

SHARING LEADERSHIP AND IMPASSE RESOLUTION
 
From Dr. McGuire’s article, “Collaborative Edge Decision Making“:
 
“5. Shared Leadership Component at Decision Making Meetings

      Rather than depending upon the skill of a naturally talented chairperson, being held captive by the caprice of a bad one, or suffering from the chaos and anarchy of “the leaderless group,” in the Collaborative Edge Decision Making method , the skill of leadership is broken down into a number of tasks which are then assigned to various group members. No one person carries the onus of staying on top of all aspects of the task, and all group members come to feel responsible for contributing to good group process.

     The five task roles can be rotated among group members from meeting to meeting, or, with group agreement, certain members can specialize in a particular task. In a more hierarchical setting, the supervisor or coordinator may take the role of agenda keeper each meeting. In a different group, a person too shy to be process monitor may be a very assertive time-keeper, and so on. However, in general, it is a good idea to keep rotating the roles in order to insure equality of ownership and responsibility.  As everyone shares the tasks involved in group leadership,  everyone will also take ownership of the group process and more actively participate in decision making.

6. Creative Edge Impasse Resolution Component

     According to the Creating At The Edge principles, the solutions to problems are implicit in the intuitive “feel of the whole thing,” the Creative Edge. Similarly, conflicts and arguments hold within them important information for decision making, accessed through the Creative Edge “intuitions” of the participants.

      Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening are the Core Skills for articulating innovative solutions from the Creative Edge.  So, when decision making breaks down at meetings, the way out of the impasse can be found through turning to a variety of approaches which use the Listening and Focusing skills and the Interpersonal Focusing method to facilitate the creation of new solutions, and Paradigm Shifts, out of the Creative Edge intuitions of participants.”

For a complete explanation of the theory behind access to The Creative Edge and innovative decision making, you can download Dr. McGuire’s comprehensive article, “Collaborative Edge Decision Making Method, ” . As a bonus, the Appendix of this article includes Handouts you can use at actual meetings, one for each role in Shared Leadership.
 
Reread the simple “How To’s For Groups” (Instant “Ahah!” #5 in Mini-Manual). They define the five roles in Shared Leadership and various Listening/Focusing methods for Impasse resolution. The “How To’s” arose from my dissertation research, Listening and Interruptions in Task-Oriented Groups, University of Chicago, 1977, with Eugene Gendlin, creator of Focusing (Focusing, Bantam, 1981, 1984) as advisor.
 
Over these four weeks, we are looking at incorporating the procedures into groups that you belong to:

 What are the plusses and minuses of these meetings?
 What is the “whole body feel” of being at these meetings?
 Do people interrupt each other?
 Are conflicts polarized and never changing?
 Do people feel free to share their negative feelings about a decision?
 Does a minority do all the talking?
 Is there a chance to pause to formulate a new but vague idea?
 Can you imagine asking the group to try out the Shared Leadership model in Instant “Ahah!” #5?
 Can you imagine incorporating Listening and Focusing skills into these meetings? What would the difference be?

Learn more about Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening  at Creative Edge Focusing’s website, filled with free downloads on creativity, spirituality, collaborative thinking, parenting, innovation in business, and many other aspects of application of Focusing and Listening skills at home, at work, in your community, and globally.

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! Today’s blog is part of the year-long e-course offered through the Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter.

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way.

TELE-CLASSES IN LISTENING AND FOCUSING

By , January 13, 2008 11:31 am

With Ruth Hirsch, Creative Edge Associate, Inner Relationship Teacher,  and Certified Focusing Professional and Certifying Coordinator: 

FROM THE BODY COMES OUR NEXT MOVES

A quote from Eugene Gendlin, creator of Focusing:

“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.”

After participating in Levels 1-4, a person can enter supervision to become a Certified Focusing Professional (Focusing Trainer or Focusing-Oriented Therapist)

 Level 1: Focusing Basics: Self Guiding, and Empathic Listening

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

Contact Ruth ruth@ruthhirsch.com  for dates and time.

Level 2: Advanced Listening & Beginning Guiding /Facilitation
The goals of this course are to enhance the Focuser’s competence in self-guiding, and to learn advanced listening techniques, and a few guiding techniques that can deepen the Focuser’s ability to stay with present awareness. The essence of the course is learning to be an increasingly facilitative companion to the Focusing process for yourself and for others. Prerequisite: Level One with a Certified Focusing Professional.

Contact Ruth ruth@ruthhirsch.com  for dates and times.

Level 3:  Advanced Guiding: Basics
Beginning to learn how to facilitate a Focusing session for someone new to Focusing.
Supportive suggestions for each stage of the Focusing process will be taught.

Level 4: Advanced Guiding & Troubleshooting
In Level 3 you’ve learned the basics of facilitating (guiding,) a Focusing session for someone new to Focusing.In Level 4, you’ll learn a variety of compassionate, clear approaches to handling various possible challenges and obstacles that may arise in the Focusing process.

Some of the topics to be addressed will include working with the Inner Critic, working with action blocks and addictions; how to assist a Focuser who feels “nothing”- or “too much,” or has one part attacking or victimizing another; and what to do when deriving “meaning” seems to be illusive.

Contact Ruth  ruth@ruthhirsch.com for dates and times.

Level 5: Seminar/Practicum in working with first-time Focusers
This course is an experiential workshop in introducing someone new to Focusing to this wonderful process. we will discuss and role-play how to introduce Focusing, and then each participant will have the opportunity to introduce Focusing and to guide the new Focuser in an introductory session. After the new Focuser is debriefed and leaves, there will be an opportunity to receive constructive feedback from fellow participants in the course and from the instructor.

Contact Ruth ruth@ruthhirsch.com for dates and times.

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: 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.  (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, ruth@ruthhirsch.com  .

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

http://www.ruthhirsch.com

http://www.innerrelationship.com/teachers/hirsch.html

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)

THE FOCUSING ATTITUDE: CARING FEELING PRESENCE INSIDE

By , January 12, 2008 5:18 pm

THE FOCUSING ATTITUDE: CREATING A CARING FEELING PRESENCE INSIDE AND AS A FOCUSED LISTENER
 
For the next four weeks, we will work on perhaps the most essential aspect for successful Intuitive Focusing, creating a positive attitude, inside of yourself, for whatever might arise during a Focusing turn.This is The Focusing Attitude.

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Empathy, Congruence, and Unconditional Positive Regard

Caring Feeling Presence is also the essential attitude which you convey to a Focuser when you are being a Focused Listener:
“I am here for you, without judgment. I am happy to receive anything that comes up inside of you, without criticism. I will set aside my own reactions, judgments, own experiences and be here as a Caring Feeling Presence simply to listen to and to give back to you your own experiencing.” It is a necessary component of the “empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard” which Carl Rogers defined as the crux ingredients for the healing relationship.
 
Leaning in with Tenderness: A Caring Feeling Presence
 
Once I was having a prolonged argument with another Focusing Trainer at a workshop I was teaching. I kept emphasizing, going with the tears and anger, letting them be experienced. He said it was sufficient to work his feelings through in his imagination, that he did not have to say them out loud, that he did not need to feel them.  Then, in a Focusing turn, the Listener used his name: “So, H, you are saying—” “So, H, what mattered was”  My friend reported to me that just hearing his name created an intimacy that allowed him to feel his tears, and the deeper meanings in his experience, and how valuable that was to him—
 
Another time, I was the Focuser, being Listened to accurately but—well, it felt distant, too objective—I didn’t feel “safe” becoming vulnerable in front of that distance. I asked the Listener to “lean in toward me more—be tender toward me—” When she did this, I was able to feel compassion for myself, and to touch into the place of tears, the deeper meanings for me, the part of me that needed to be comforted in order to grow forward.
 
The Real “First Step” of Focusing: Self-Empathy, Self-Love
 
Pete Campbell and Ed McMahon, creators of the Biospiritual Focusing approach, always started their workshops by teaching The Focusing Attitude, which they called “A Caring Feeling Presence.” They did not think anyone should begin to try out Focusing Instructions without first learning how to be kind and gentle with everything that arises inside.
 
And they knew that Focusers had to have this experience in a bodily-felt way, not just as an intellectual idea. Learning to take this Focusing Attitude toward oneself is a life-long learning for anyone wanting to “make peace” with all the different “parts” or “aspects” of themself.
 
Please try out their introductory exercise for finding a “felt sense,” an “intuitive feel” for this kind of inner caring. It involves learning how it feels, in your body, when you are trying to show complete love and safety to someone. Then, turning that same loving attention, that Caring Feeling Presence, toward your own inner experiences:
 
A CARING FEELING PRESENCE INSIDE
 
“Take a moment to find a comfortable sitting position—
Loosen any clothing that is too tight—
And begin to come quietly inside by closing your eyes and starting to just notice your breathing—
Just noticing your breathing—going in—and out—in—and out—Let any sighs or deeper breathing arise naturally—
(one minute)
Now, notice your body, how it feels in the chair —
Massage any spots that feel sore—
Massage your head—
Wrinkle up your face and stretch your jaw—and relax!!!!!
Make a few circles with your shoulders, bringing them up to your ears, around toward the back, and dropping them down—and repeating four or five times—
(one minute)
And now bring your attention inside, to the place where you find a “felt sense” or an “intuitive feel” when you are using Focusing, often in the center of your body, around the chest/heart area—-
(one minute)
And now, imagine that you work in a hospital—
An infant has been left on the hospital steps—
Let yourself feel the impact of this situation in your body—
It is your job to pick up that infant and to convey to it, through your body, your way of holding it, that it is safe, that it is perfectly and truly wanted in this world. Imagine picking up that infant—
Now, imagine what you would do in your body to convey to that infant that it is prefectly safe, that it is truly wanted in this world—
(one minute)
Notice what you do in your body to convey this loving attention, without words—
(one minute)
Now, imagine turning that same kind of Caring Feeling Presence toward your own inner places, whatever they may be—
(one minute)
Bring to your mind times in your life went you felt loved and valued in this way. Look for particular places or people or animals or situations where you felt completely safe, completely wanted, basking in the warmth of loving attention—
(one to three minutes)
Choose one of these images/places/people/situations that could stand as such a strong symbol of this kind of safety that you could use the memory of it as an anchor or talisman to bring you to that sense of Caring Feeling Presence to your own inside experiences. We’ll call that your Inner Nurturer—
(one to three minutes)
Now, look through your life and store of memories and images and see if you can find an image of a part of yourself that is now or was at some point very much in need of that kind of Caring Feeling Presence. It could be an Inner Child, yourself at a certain age or time of life. But it could be another kind of image: like “a wounded animal” or “a butterfly with a crumpled wing” or “a gangrenous leg—I just want to cut it off” or a particular physical tension (headache, tight jaw, stomach knot) that you often suffer from. We’ll call that your Inner Woundedness—
(one to three minutes)
Now, imagine taking your Inner Nurturer and turning that Caring Feeling Presence toward your Inner Woundedness—
(one to three minutes)
Just spend some time seeing if you can touch your Inner Woundedness with that Inner Nurturing—
(one to three minutes)
And come back into the room when you are ready.
 
Things That Get In The Way of This Inner Attitude
 
This exercise is just a first step. You might have found that Inner Critical Voices arose while you tried this exercise (“This is silly!” “I don’t have any weaknesses!” “It’s too late. The past is the past,” etc. In the next weeks, we will continue working with establishing a Caring Feeling Presence inside, and the things that can get in the way of that. Turning toward oneself, and others, with love and self-love, is a life-long learning! But we are starting today.

Sign up for RSS feed to receive a continuation of this lesson over several weeks.

Learn more about Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening  at Creative Edge Focusing’s website, filled with free downloads on creativity, spirituality, collaborative thinking, parenting, innovation in business, and many other aspects of application of Focusing and Listening skills at home, at work, in your community, and globally.

Download our Instant “Ahah!”s Mini-Manual (”Ajas” Instantaneos en espanol) for ten exercises bringing Listening and Focusing into your everyday life starting today.

Download our complete Intuitive Focusing Instructions to start practicing Relaxation, Getting a Felt Sense, and Intuitive Focusing today!

See actual demonstrations of Listening/Focusing in our Self-Help package, a manual in English or Spanish, four CDs of Focusing Instructions, and a DVD with four demonstrations of actual listening/focusing sessions — everything you need to start your own Listening/Focusing Partnership or Support Group or to incorporate these basic self-help skills into existing support groups.

In the side bar at Creative Edge Focusing, subscribe to our free e-newsletter for weekly reminders to practice Relaxation and Focusing exercises and join our free yahoo group, Creative Edge Practice, for ongoing demonstrations, practice, and support.

Find classes/workshops/phone coaching in our Listings section or Coaching/Classes/Consulting with Dr. McGuire in the Store.

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way

COLLABORATIVE DECISION MAKING MEETINGS: HAVING CREATIVE, EFFICIENT MEETINGS

By , January 10, 2008 4:46 pm

EVERYONE PARTICIPATES IN  MEETINGS!
LET’S MAKE THEM PRODUCTIVE AND PLEASANT
 
If you are in a business or academic setting, you may have decision making meetings many times a week, even several times a day. They may be in a twosome, a small group or team, or a larger group.
 
There are meetings of religious community committees and non-profit organizations we belong to. And, we have decision making meetings with our significant others, our partners, children, or whole family every day!
 
Below you will find a link to the simple “How To’s For Groups” which arose from my dissertation research, Listening and Interruptions in Task-Oriented Groups, University of Chicago, 1977, with Eugene Gendlin, creator of Focusing (Focusing, Bantam, 1981, 1984, 2007) as advisor.

You will also be able to download articles explaining the theory and practice around incorporating Focused Listening and Intuitive Focusing into task-oriented meetings. 

Main point: creativity and innovation happen when people are allowed enough of a “pause” to check in with their whole intuitive knowledge about an issue or situation. Intuitive Focusing, with Focused Listening, allows space for articulating completely new ideas, not simply recycle old, polarized arguments.

Free Downloads:

Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

 
Over the next four weeks, we will look at incorporating the Collaborative Thinking  procedures into groups that you belong to.
 
You can begin learning now by thinking about the groups you belong to, the meetings you attend:

What are the plusses and minuses of these meetings?
 What is the “whole body feel” of being at these meetings?
 Do people interrupt each other?
 Are conflicts polarized and never changing?
 Do people feel free to share their negative feelings about a decision?
 Does a minority do all the talking?
 Is there a chance to pause to formulate a new but vague idea? 

For a complete explanation of the theory behind access to The Creative Edge and innovative decision making, you can download Dr. McGuire’s comprehensive article,
“Collaborative Edge Decision Making Method, ”  As a bonus, the Appendix of this article includes Handouts you can use at actual meetings, one for each role in Shared Leadership.
 
The PRISMS/S Problem Solving Method,  with its Core Skills of Intuitive Focusing and Focusing Listening, and the seven methods from The Creative Edge Pyramid  for incorporating PRISMS/S at every level of organization, can be explored in the Core Concepts area at Creative Edge Focusing’s website, and the many Free and Purchased resources found there. Articles en espanol

Read  the simple How To’s for Collaborative Thinking  at Creative Edge Focusing’s website.

Download Dr. McGuire’s article “Collaborative Edge Decision Making”   en espanol

Metodo de Toma de Decisiones del Borde de Colaboracion

Read theory connecting Pauses for Intuitive Focusing with Quality of Decisions in an excerpt from Dr. McGuire’s research, “Listening and Interruptions In Task-Oriented Groups”

Learn more about Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening and Creative Edge Organizations at Creative Edge Focusing’s website, filled with free downloads on creativity, spirituality, collaborative thinking, parenting, innovation in business, and many other aspects of application of Focusing and Listening skills at home, at work, in your community, and globally.

Download our Instant “Ahah!”s Mini-Manual (”Ajas” Instantaneos en espanol) for ten exercises bringing Listening and Focusing into your everyday life starting today.

Download our complete Intuitive Focusing Instructions to start practicing Relaxation, Getting a Felt Sense, and Intuitive Focusing today!

See actual demonstrations of Listening/Focusing in our Self-Help package, a manual in English or Spanish, four CDs of Focusing Instructions, and a DVD with four demonstrations of actual listening/focusing sessions — everything you need to start your own Listening/Focusing Partnership or Support Group or to incorporate these basic self-help skills into existing support groups.

In the side bar at Creative Edge Focusing, subscribe to our free e-newsletter for weekly reminders to practice Relaxation and Focusing exercises and join our free yahoo group, Creative Edge Practice, for ongoing demonstrations, practice, and support.

Find classes/workshops/phone coaching in our Listings section or Coaching/Classes/Consulting with Dr. McGuire in the Store.

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way

EVENTO DE CAMBIO MEDICO: DE UNA MIGRAÑA A LAGRIMAS DE SIGNIFICADO

By , January 8, 2008 3:28 pm

Mientras que el Ajá Instantáneo # 4 Cinco-Minutos de Dolor se dirige  específicamente a qué hacer si un paciente, amigo o compañero de trabajo comienza a llorar, el resumen de abajo muestra cómo el usar Focusing Intuitivo para “permanecer con” el “sentir intuitivo” de un síntoma físico puede permitir que ese síntoma se abra a un Ajá de significado más profundo, con un brillo de lágrimas en los ojos como una señal del cuerpo de que es un lugar seguro para detenerse e ir más profundamente dentro del “sentir de toda la cosa”.El resumen muestra una pequeña porción de la sesión de Pareja de Focusing.  La Focalizadora es una persona experimentada en el uso de Focusing Intuitivo.  Al principio, cuando la Focalizadora habla acerca de levantarse con lo que parece ser el inicio de una migraña y los asuntos relacionados con ella, la Escuchadora se da cuenta de una leve presencia de lágrimas.

Ella sugiere que la Focalizadora se detenga y “sienta adentro” en el lugar de las lágrimas.   Hacia el final de la sesión, la Focalizadora se ha movilizado desde un profundo sollozo acerca de la carga pesada de la depresión que ella ha tenido “por tanto tiempo” y el experimentar la animación de un “cambio sentido”, “sentirse más liviana”, “¡querer bailar!”  La Focalizadora señala que la migraña ha cedido.

La sesión se inicia con la Focalizadora y la Escuchadora sentadas frente a frente.  La F., debido a su experiencia previa con el proceso de Focusing Experiencial, escogió mantener los ojos cerrados durante la sesión, prestando atención a su experiencia interna.  La Escuchadora, la Dra. McGuire, comienza:

Escuchadora: “Siéntate cómoda, cerrando los ojos para ir adentro, para estar sintonizada con lo que sea que haya allí  Díme si necesitas alguna ayuda o cuando estés lista para comenzar a hablar”

Focalizadora: (Pausa de 10′) “Esta mañana cuando me desperté tenía un dolor en la parte izquierda de la cabeza y pensé: “Oh, es la migraña que viene”… así que estaba tratando de sentir acerca de lo que se trataba, humm, como que mi cuerpo está lleno de toxinas, como si quisiera sacudirme de esas toxinas”.

Escuchadora: “Así que cuando te levantaste, notaste que tenías el comienzo de un dolor de cabeza en la parte izquierda de tu cabeza,  y permaneciste  un momento con ello, tratando de sentirlo. El sentimiento fue el de toxinas en tu cuerpo, y querías simplemente sacudirlas, quitártelas.”

Focalizadora (Pausa de 30 segundos)  “Y noté que mi garganta se cerró esta mañana y eso es algo sobre lo que he estado trabajando – lo hemos estado trabajando juntas – algo emocional, profundo allí, en mi garganta, algo así como “atorado”.

(La Focalizadora está dando el primer paso de Focusing Experiencial “aclarando un espacio”, notando y nombrando los diversos asuntos que ella lleva para poder escoger uno en el cual trabajar).

Escuchadora: “Sí, así que te das cuenta de eso también, tu garganta, atascándose,  eso es algo que hemos trabajado antes, está conectado con cosas emocionales profundas, hasta parece que pude ver un viso de lágrimas mientras lo describías, tal vez solamente estar con eso, permanecer con ese “atascado”…

(La Escuchadora se da cuenta del inicio de lágrimas y da una Instrucción de Focusing Experiencial, sugiriendo el detenerse y prestar atención a la “sensación sentida”)

Focalizadora: (lágrimas visibles bajo los cerrados párpados, enrojecimiento de la cara, voz se torna más ronca)

“Lo que me molesta de ello es que trato de aclarar mi garganta y no se aclara.  Sigo intentándolo y me impide hablar de la manera en que me gusta hacerlo y esto molesta a las personas, creo.

Escuchadora: “Humm”

Focalizadora: “De alguna manera me impide al tratar de proyectar mi voz”

Escuchadora: “Humm”

Focalizadora: “Trato de quitarlo y se mantiene allí, es hum…”

Escuchadora: “Humm – así que lo que te molesta es que intentas aclarar tu garganta y esto no sucede, también piensas que esto es difícil para las otras personas.  Deseas proyectar tu voz y que esta salga.  Esto es difícil para las otras personas también,  en realidad, no puedes hablar”.

Focalizadora: “Eso realmente impide la comunicación”.

Download “Ajas Instantaneos”. Other Spanish Translations at Creative Edge Focusing website. Translations by Agnes Rodriguez of Costa Rica, offering Listening/Focusing Training by phone in English or Spanish .

Ud. puede leer el resumen completo con el comentario, y ver por Ud. mismo el “cambio sentido” en Medical Change Events Through Experiential Focusing.

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.

Spend some fun time taking some of the Personality Tests and discovering your “differing gifts,” your Temperaments, your varying Multiple Intelligences, your Shadow Side in the Enneagram.

Learn more about Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening and Experiential Focusing Therapy at Creative Edge Focusing’s website, filled with free downloads on creativity, spirituality, collaborative thinking, parenting, innovation in business, and many other aspects of application of Focusing and Listening skills at home, at work, in your community, and globally.

Download our Instant “Ahah!”s Mini-Manual (”Ajas” Instantaneos en espanol) for ten exercises bringing Listening and Focusing into your everyday life starting today.

Download our complete Intuitive Focusing Instructions to start practicing Relaxation, Getting a Felt Sense, and Intuitive Focusing today!

See actual demonstrations of Listening/Focusing in our Self-Help package, a manual in English or Spanish, four CDs of Focusing Instructions, and a DVD with four demonstrations of actual listening/focusing sessions — everything you need to start your own Listening/Focusing Partnership or Support Group or to incorporate these basic self-help skills into existing support groups.

In the side bar at Creative Edge Focusing, subscribe to our free e-newsletter for weekly reminders to practice Relaxation and Focusing exercises and join our free yahoo group, Creative Edge Practice, for ongoing demonstrations, practice, and support.

Find classes/workshops/phone coaching in our Listings section or Coaching/Classes/Consulting with Dr. McGuire

Dra. Kathy McGuire

Focusing de Borde Creativo TM

http://www.cefocusing.com

POSITIVE PARENTING: Listening to Your Child, Your Partner, and Yourself

By , January 4, 2008 6:40 pm

Listening To Your Child: Developing An Inner Guide, Not Only Outer Authority

Authoritarian child rearing was effective in producing the assembly-line workers needed by an industrializing society. Times have changed. Now businesses want to hire flexible, creative, self-directing team players.

Families have also changed. Large farming families needed military-style discipline to keep everyone in line. In today’s one or two-child families, parents can give attention to the unique personality of each child.

As we struggle for equality between men and women in relationships, we also look for ways in which children can be treated as persons with dignity and rights.

In the 1950s, psychologist Carl Rogers took a stand against the authoritarianism inherent in psychoanalytic and behavioral theories of psychotherapy and created “client-centered” psychotherapy. The therapist did not impose values or goals upon the client but acted only to facilitate the unfolding of each person’s unique way of being in the world. Rogers later called his movement the “person-centered” approach, and it spread to education, childrearing, and peer self-help.

Rogers created “empathic listening.” The therapist tried to hear the client as if standing in the client’s shoes. He or she would then try to reflect back the client’s own words such that the client could hear him or herself more clearly. The client continued clarifying and articulating his or her own vision until the words and images exactly fit inner experiencing. Just this — finding exactly the right words or images for unclear body sensings or intuitions — allowed the client to move forward, to become more clear about values, goals, and action steps.

Empathic listening became the basis of many self- help techniques, including the “active listening” of Thomas Gordon’s Parent Effectiveness Training, and Faber & Mazlish’s How To Talk So Kids Will Listen, How To Listen So Kids Will Talk.

Eugene Gendlin, a student of Rogers, discovered a further essential thing about human beings: they could only change, through therapy or through life experiences, if they were able to check with and refer to their present bodily “feel” of living in situations. He called this self- checking “Focusing” and developed self-help and therapeutic techniques for teaching people this self-healing capacity (Focusing, Bantam, 1981).

“Child-centered” or “positive” parenting applies Listening and Focusing skills to raising children such that they do not lose the capacity for self-checking — for articulating and being guided by their own unique vision and for taking responsibility for their own behavior. A three-prong approach is necessary: listening to your child, listening to your partner, and listening to your own Inner Child. Read more about Inner/Outer Parenting

See our Interest Area: Positive Parenting

Download Dr. McGuire’s article, “Don’t Fight ‘Em, Join ‘Em: Community-Wide Intervention for ADHD, School Failure, and Juvenile Delinquency” .

Spend some fun time taking some of the Personality Tests and discovering your “differing gifts,” your Temperaments, your varying Multiple Intelligences, your Shadow Side in the Enneagram.

Learn more about Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening and Experiential Focusing Therapy at Creative Edge Focusing’s website, filled with free downloads on creativity, spirituality, collaborative thinking, parenting, innovation in business, and many other aspects of application of Focusing and Listening skills at home, at work, in your community, and globally.

Download our Instant “Ahah!”s Mini-Manual (”Ajas” Instantaneos en espanol) for ten exercises bringing Listening and Focusing into your everyday life starting today.

Download our complete Intuitive Focusing Instructions to start practicing Relaxation, Getting a Felt Sense, and Intuitive Focusing today!

See actual demonstrations of Listening/Focusing in our Self-Help package, a manual in English or Spanish, four CDs of Focusing Instructions, and a DVD with four demonstrations of actual listening/focusing sessions — everything you need to start your own Listening/Focusing Partnership or Support Group or to incorporate these basic self-help skills into existing support groups.

In the side bar at Creative Edge Focusing, subscribe to our free e-newsletter for weekly reminders to practice Relaxation and Focusing exercises and join our free yahoo group, Creative Edge Practice, for ongoing demonstrations, practice, and support.

Find classes/workshops/phone coaching in our Listings section or Coaching/Classes/Consulting with Dr. McGuire

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way

POSITIVE PARENTING: GIVING CHOICES WITHIN LIMITS BUILDS CONFIDENCE

By , January 3, 2008 1:15 pm

Raising Flexible, Resilient, Self-Confident Children

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, Sigmund Freud confirmed everyone’s worst fears: Yes, human beings were voracious bundles of desires, ready to devour the world.
 
Society had to instill a strong superego, a conscience to hold the id’s desires in check. The job fell to authoritarian parents. The children produced obediently took their places on the assembly lines of industrializing nations.
 However, later theorists like Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow insisted that human beings also have inborn tendencies toward altruism and cooperation. Rather than subduing a monster with authoritarian rules, parents could see themselves as “gardeners,” providing the right conditions for the unfolding ofeach child’s inborn potential.
           
Expectations also have changed in the work world. Today’s workers are asked more often to be part of idea- generating teams and to work cooperatively than to be assembly line workers. They must be creative and flexible enough to retool their skills formany job changes in a career. Obedient rule-following no longer insures survival.

However, some worried that the more “permissive” childrearing espoused by theorists like Dr. Spock led to a generation which could not conform to any limits. However, it is the total lack of limits that produces out-of-control children. Children like freedom-within-limits. They need boundaries to feel loved and cared for. And they need to make choices in order to build self-confidence.

You Must Set limits…

Parents need to strike a balance between setting limits and allowing choices. Authoritarian parents who must prove that they are boss and do not allow their children choices stifle creativity. But overly permissive parents who do not set limits produce children unable to cooperate with other people and to respect boundaries and follow rules.

I’ve seen children afraid to choose a toy for fear of being yelled at for doing the wrong thing. I’ve also seen children running in the streets, not wearing bicycle helmets when riding their bikes, and playing with firecrackers because parents were unable to set limits and stick to them. Setting limits is a way of caring as much as giving a child some power over decision making.

If you want your child to grow up able to negotiate and cooperate, you’ve got to teach those behaviors now: “I do lots of things for you. If you won’t do what I need, then I won’t feel as good about helping you when you want something.”
Here’s a list of simple limits I enforced with my child from toddlerhood: (Read more at Creative Edge Focusing’s website)

See our Interest Area: Positive Parenting

Download Dr. McGuire’s article, “Don’t Fight ‘Em, Join ‘Em: Community-Wide Intervention for ADHD, School Failure, and Juvenile Delinquency” .

Spend some fun time taking some of the Personality Tests and discovering your “differing gifts,” your Temperaments, your varying Multiple Intelligences, your Shadow Side in the Enneagram.

Learn more about Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening and Experiential Focusing Therapy at Creative Edge Focusing’s website, filled with free downloads on creativity, spirituality, collaborative thinking, parenting, innovation in business, and many other aspects of application of Focusing and Listening skills at home, at work, in your community, and globally.

Download our Instant “Ahah!”s Mini-Manual (”Ajas” Instantaneos en espanol) for ten exercises bringing Listening and Focusing into your everyday life starting today.

Download our complete Intuitive Focusing Instructions to start practicing Relaxation, Getting a Felt Sense, and Intuitive Focusing today!

See actual demonstrations of Listening/Focusing in our Self-Help package, a manual in English or Spanish, four CDs of Focusing Instructions, and a DVD with four demonstrations of actual listening/focusing sessions — everything you need to start your own Listening/Focusing Partnership or Support Group or to incorporate these basic self-help skills into existing support groups.

In the side bar at Creative Edge Focusing, subscribe to our free e-newsletter for weekly reminders to practice Relaxation and Focusing exercises and join our free yahoo group, Creative Edge Practice, for ongoing demonstrations, practice, and support.

Find classes/workshops/phone coaching in our Listings section or Coaching/Classes/Consulting with Dr. McGuire

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way

Panorama Theme by Themocracy