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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 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 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)

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By Kathy McGuire, November 12, 2007 6:02 pm

Two Core Skills Applied In Seven Methods

Creative Edge Focusing ™ is unique in that it solves problems at every level, from individual to organizational, and at home as well as at work.

The  two Core Skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening , central to the PRISMS/S Problem Solving Process , are integrated into seven Applied Methods called The Creative Edge Pyramid :

Focusing Alone for Personal Growth
Focusing Partnership for Ongoing Creativity
Interpersonal Focusing for Conflict Resolution
Focusing Group/Team for Innovative Problem Solving
Collaborative Edge Decision Making for Win/Win  Meetings
Focusing Community To Facilitate Diversity and Mutual Support
Creative Edge Organization To Motivate People For Collaborative Action

Each method is free-standing, and can be learned independently, but, together, they create innovative organizations.

From Individuals To Organizations

The methods start with personal use of Intuitive Focusing and build to the integration of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening into interpersonal, group/team, community, and organizational interaction:

Read all about the seven applications in The Creative Edge Pyramid and find Case Studies of each application.

 Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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By Kathy McGuire, November 9, 2007 11:41 am

ESCUCHA PASIVA:   SOLAMENTE MANTENERSE EN SILENCIO, ¡NO INTERRUMPIR!     Esto va a ser extremadamente básico…y tal vez ¡extremadamente difícil!!!  Todo lo que Ud. va a hacer es intercambiar turnos de escucha pasiva con otras personas en lugar de discutir.  Estos turnos de escucha tienen que ser iguales y controlados por reloj.

     Puede resultar también, una intervención extremadamente poderosa y exitosa que Ud. puede hacer en sus relaciones con las personas, así que, inténtelo por favor.

     Mediante los Ajás Instantáneos del Mini Manual Gratis, nuestro paquete de Autoayuda o Consultas o Entrenamiento Telefónico, Ud. aprenderá otras destrezas poderosas de Escucha Focalizada que van más allá  de la escucha pasiva. Pero, por ahora, Ud. solamente va a practicar la escucha pasiva – estar en silencio, escuchando, sin interrumpir.  Intente imaginar ¡cómo sería este  mundo si tan sólo todos supieran esta simple destreza  de autoayuda!!!

Acuerdo sobre una Señal Durante un Momento de Paz

     Puede ser de gran ayuda el tener un acuerdo previo con la otra persona  para permitir intentar este proceso.  Invite a sus personas significativas a leer con Ud. estas instrucciones  cuando no haya una batalla de por medio – en un momento de paz, sin conflictos y vea si logran ponerse de  acuerdo para intentarlo.

     Seguidamente Ud. necesita estar de acuerdo con una señal que usarán cuando las papas quemen, cuando es el momento de intentar este procedimiento – alguna palabra, acción o simple gesto que uno puede  usar para detener la discusión y comenzar el nuevo proceso acordado.

     Así que Uds. dos necesitan estar de acuerdo en una palabra, gesto o  acción que será capaz de interrumpir la discusión y traer la atención de Uds – como “¡Turnos!”, ó “¡Sillas!”,  “¡Papas Fritas!” o cualquier otra cosa ridícula o algo que pueda interrumpir la intensa energía y recordar a ambos el acuerdo de intentar un TURNO DE ESCUCHA PASIVA

Marque el Tiempo y Tome Asiento

     Aquí tenemos todo lo que Ud. necesita hacer-  Consígase  un cronómetro o un reloj para tenerlo a la mano y póngalo para marcar cinco minutos.

     Tomen asiento en sillas o en el suelo, de frente, el uno al otro, pero a una distancia segura, cómoda. Comiencen entonces turnos ininterrumpidos, primero una persona habla sin interrupción hasta que se venza el tiempo; programe el cronómetro otra vez y cambien de lugar para que la otra persona hable sin interrupciones.

           USE EL CRONOMETRO PARA MANTENER LOS TIEMPOS EXACTAMENTE IGUALES.  NO SE PERMITE CONTACTO FISICO

Grite a una Pared en Blanco

     Si inicialmente hay mucha ira, puede ayudar el que cada persona vire hacia una pared en blanco y le grite, en lugar de hacerlo a la otra persona….Es mucho más fácil escuchar el sentido de la ira de una persona cuando esta no está siendo dirigida exactamente a Ud. paralizándolo.

     Mientras cada persona continúa tomando turnos, la bravata inicial seguirá su curso, y una parte más vulnerable, más creativa, más flexible aparecerá. Comenzarán a aparecer posibilidades y soluciones nuevas y creativas y hasta sentimientos cálidos hacia la otra persona.

Siga así

      Sigan intercambiando turnos iguales, controlados por reloj hasta que lleguen a algún lugar.  ¡Y lo harán!!!  Al escuchar simplemente lo que la otra persona tiene que decir, en lugar de discutir, Ud. comenzará a comprender nuevas razones para el comportamiento o la posición de la otra persona…y esto sucederá en ambas direcciones.

      Y el hablar simplemente, sin ser discutido o “corregido” le permite estar por encima de su reacción inicial y ver los significados más profundos de su respuesta al otro.

      Una clave: debajo de toda furia, casi siempre hay una herida muy vulnerable, hasta lágrimas -cuando éstas salen, es muy fácil amar a la  otra persona.  Debajo de una víctima indefensa-con lágrimas, a menudo hay furia.  Eso también, puede hacer que el comportamiento de la otra persona sea más comprensible

Precaución: ¿Necesita Ayuda Profesional?

     Precaución: Si ninguno de Uds. dos está de acuerdo en dejar de discutir y tomar TURNOS DE ESCUCHA PASIVA iguales como describimos anteriormente, entonces puede haber un problema más serio que necesita ser dirigido a un profesional ya sea entrenador o consejero.  Las personas no pueden permanecer iguales todo el tiempo, por lo tanto, puede  haber situaciones en las que se debe utilizar ayuda profesional. La Dra. McGuire le puede indicar como proceder.

Pero, nuevamente, imagínese  cómo sería el mundo si todos supieran esta simple destreza de “educación humana” y lo usara tan  automáticamente como el leer y escribir para neutralizar molestas situaciones donde la ira está presente.

Estos materiales son ofrecidos solamente como destrezas de autoayuda.  Al proveerlas, la Dra. McGuire no está comprometida en rendir servicios psicológicos, financieros, legales u otros.  Si se necesita la asistencia o consejo de un experto, deben buscarse los servicios de un profesional competente.

Translation kindly provided by Agnes Rodriguez, Certified Focusing Professional, who offers listening/focusing training for a reasonable cost in English and Spanish. Use the Contact form at http://www.cefocusing.com/contact.php to find Agnes’ email address. (Any mistakes in transcribing translation above are mine! Kathy)

Find more Spanish translations at http://www.cefocusing.com/freedownloads/index.php

Download the entire Ajas Instantaneous Mini-Manual at http://www.cefocusing.com/pdf/Mini_Manual_Ajas_Instantaneos.pdf

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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By Kathy McGuire, November 8, 2007 4:27 pm

Please download the exercise from the sidebar at Creative Edge Focusing right now so you can read through. Consider whether, if everyone learned this simple structure for stopping arguments from birth, could we change the world? Here is how it begins:

“Passive Listening: Just Being Quiet, Not Interrupting!

     This is going to be extremely basic. And, maybe, extremely difficult!! All you are going to do is exchange equal, timed, passive listening turns with the other person, instead of arguing. Passive listening means you don’t say a thing, just let the other person speak without interruption.

     You are just going to practice Passive Listening – being quiet, listening, not interrupting. Try to imagine what the whole world could be like if everyone knew just this one, simple self-help skill!”

Stop for a moment to read the rest of the exercise from the download at http://www.cefocusing.com/freeresources/2a1c.php

Please add your comments below. Do you think this would work? Have you tried it with your partner, child, friend, co-worker? Do you think “passive listening turns” could save the world?

See also Active Listening: Short-circuit Confrontations at http://www.cefocusing.com/freeresources/2a1b.php

Focused Listening Instructions at http://www.cefocusing.com/coreconcepts/1a2.php

Positive Parenting: Listening To Yourself, Listening To Your Partner, Listening To Your Child at http://www.cefocusing.com/isthisyou/3a1d3.php

Further training through the Self-Help Package at http://www.cefocusing.com/services/5b1.php

or Classes/Workshops Internationally at http://www.cefocusing.com/services/5b2.php

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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By Kathy McGuire, October 29, 2007 4:30 pm

Finding The Meaning Of Tears

“Being Touched” and “Being Moved” : The Spiritual Value of Tears

Download the above articles to learn more about the use of Intuitive Focusing to unravel the meanings signalled by tears.

“Opening Up”, Not “Breaking Down”

Most of the time, we walk around “being” our symptoms instead of “relating” to them. The physician’s office is a place where accidental openings into the “felt senses” underlying symptoms have an increased likelihood of happening. It thus becomes important for physicians, and other health professionals, to capitalize on these moments where the defenses fall, and the preverbal felt experiencing underlying symptoms, becomes available for transformation.

Inter-office conflict or stress at home can also cause a co-worker or employee to “break down” and start crying. Or a friend may become teary while sharing. Instead of being afraid of a “break down,” see it as an “opening up,” an opportunity to unblock and build anew. See Culture of Creativity to understand the Creative Edge Core Principles underlying growth and creativity.

People Are Skilled At “Not Crying”

Five minute grieving is based upon the following premises, drawn from my 25-year experience as a psychotherapist and peer counseling teacher:

• In general, people do not fall apart and cry and cry without stopping. In general, people do not cry for more than a few minutes at a time.
• If tears are present, it is healthier for body and mind to allow their expression than to repress them. Tears also are the doorways into The Creative Edge, the possibility for change.
• In general, people have a life-time of experience in being able to call up their defenses again, and go on as needed after a few moments of crying.
• In the few cases where crying is uncontrollable, it is better to discover this vulnerability and get help, by referring to a counselor for psychotherapy and/or a psychiatrist for exploration of the appropriateness of anti-depressant medication.
• In general, spending a few minutes making words for the “intuitive sense” underlying the tears will bring relief to the person, energy to the Listener, and a deep feeling of bonding and care between the two.
• Allowing the tears also actually releases energy, letting the person go on to next steps of problem solving and action to be taken.

Here follows a first step into the Creative Edge Focusing ™ Core Skills of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening which I call “Five Minute Grieving,” especially for health professionals, but also for co-workers and friends in a pinch, if someone tears up or starts crying.  

FIVE MINUTE GRIEVING

Example from a physician’s office:

You have just told a patient that tests have shown her to be infertile. Tears well up in her eyes.

1. Invite her to cry. Say something like the following:
   • “In a minute we can discuss options, but let’s make room for your tears.”
   • “It’s okay with me to let your tears come.”
   • “It’s okay to cry.”
   • “You don’t have to hold back your tears.”
   • “It’s important to let yourself cry.”
   • “Just be gentle with yourself. Put your arms around yourself.”
2. Empathize with the feeling without trying to “fix” it or take it away:
   • “I know it seems bleak right now.”
   • “I know it’s hard.”
   • “I see your sadness.”
   • “I’m sorry for your sadness.”
3. Help her to find words or images for the tears. After she has cried for a while or at a natural pause in her tears, say something like:
   • “What are the words for your sadness?”
   • “Are there any words or images with your tears? It helps to get a handle on the feeling.”
   • “Can you say what’s the worst of it?”
   • “Can you say what you’re thinking?”
4. Just be quiet and give the person some time to grope for words.
   • Empathize again, often by paraphrasing:
   • “So it’s (her words: “the fear that you’ll never be a mother;” “feeling like a dried up stick,” etc.) that’s hard.”
5. Continue Steps 1-4 as long as makes sense.
   • Establish closure:
   • “We have to stop now.”
   • “We only have a minute before we have to stop.”
   • “I have to go, but you’re welcome to sit here for a minute until you’re ready to go.”
   • Or, if you are now going to continue with other aspects of the visit, “Let’s see if we can put aside the tears for now so that I can give you some more information and we can look for solutions to your situation.”
   • Orient the person, if necessary, by doing a “present time” exercise:
   • “I want to make sure you’re back out in the world before I send you off to drive home (or before we continue talking) . How about if you name all the circular (or orange, or striped, etc.) things in the room?”
   • At the end of the appointment, make a referral to a counselor or support group as appropriate and/or make arrangements for the person to check back with you for a future appointment.

Of course, Five Minute Grieving  is just a first step toward fully incorporating Core Skills of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening into your personal and professional life. I hope it will whet your appetite to pursue further training in PRISMS/S and the Creative Edge Pyramid for application of Listening and Focusing at all levels and at home as well as work  at www.cefocusing.com .

You can begin with Free and Purchased resources by clicking on the Icons in the right sidebar on the main page. Helping professionals can order Dr. McGuire’s manual, The Experiential Dimension in Therapy and, in a Free Phone Consult with Dr. McGuire, can explore our Experiential Focusing Professional Training Program.

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By Kathy McGuire, October 28, 2007 2:42 pm

Translation by Agnes Rodriguez, Certified Focusing Professional and Creative Edge Focusing Associate. Agnes offers inexpensive phone sessions of Active (empathic listening) so you can try it out and learn how to do it. Go to http://www.cefocusing.com/contact.php  and look at bottom for email address to contact Agnes.

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

http://www.cefocusing.com/

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By Kathy McGuire, October 25, 2007 2:47 pm

Reflect, Don’t React

Someone comes at you, seemingly out of the blue, absolutely furious. You are stunned and want to fight back. Instead, you can diffuse the other person’s anger by simply responding in an Active Listening way:

• “Wow, something is really upsetting you…”
•  “You’re saying you are absolutely furious that I forgot to show up for lunch”
•  “You are really upset because you are not getting the service you expected”
•  “You are really mad that you’ve had to go through four other departments just to reach me”
•  “It really bothers you when you have to go through all those mechanical phone responses just to get to a human being” 

Yes, this is the behavior which I wish customer service representatives had all been taught so that, when I call them, furious, they would just respond,” I’m sorry that you are so upset. Tell me more about what is bothering you so we can fix it,” instead of adopting that rigid, “I’m just following the rules,” “We never make mistakes,” “There’s really not anything I can do for you”  attitude that just makes me more and more angry!

Bottom Line: deflect and diffuse anger by simply responding with empathy: “Boy, I can see how this is hard for you,” “I’m really hearing how frustrating this has been for you.”

Reflect the Words…and the Feeling Tone…

As opposed to Passive Listening, where you simply give your silent attention to the other, at the most saying “Ummmhmmm” or “Ah, hah!” or “Wow!”, in Active Listening, you set aside all your typical responses (advice, argument, opinions, problem-solving, judgments) and simply try to say back what the other person is saying, with an emphasis on the feeling tone, if you pick up any:

Example One: Customer

Customer: “I’ve just had to wade through 16 phone messages to get to you, and I was cut off and had to start all over. It’s taken me ten minutes already.”
Customer Service: “ Wow! I’m so sorry! You’ve already been through ten minutes of frustration, and I’m the first person you’ve gotten to talk to.”
Customer: “Why can’t there just be a simple way to talk to a human being?!! I hate these phone messages!!”
Customer Service: “It is so frustrating to you to have to go through this waiting and confusion everywhere you go.”
Customer: “Damn right! Okay, let’s get on with it. This is the problem. I changed my mailing address for my bills, and they are still going to the wrong address, and then I end up getting late fees.”
Customer Service: “Okay, let me take a look at your account right now and see what we can do.”

Example Two: Spouse

Wife: “How could you have forgotten that we had a dinner engagement at 6PM with the Smiths???!!!!!!!!
Husband: “Wow! You are really angry. I must have slipped up somewhere. You’re saying I forgot a dinner engagement with the Smiths?”
Wife: “Yes, you idiot! It was at 6PM, and I’ve been trying to reach you on your cell phone. How humiliating!!!!! Where were you?!!!!!”
Husband: “So you’ve been trying to reach me ever since 6PM, and it’s been embarrassing for you, having to make excuses to the Smiths. And you’re wondering where I was.”
Wife: “How could you not answer your cell phone!!!! That is what they are for, emergencies like this one!!!!!
Husband: “So, to you, this really was an emergency, and no way to get through to me. You’re wondering why I didn’t answer my cell phone and where was I anyway!!!!!!”
Wife: “Yes, that is exactly right! So, where were you?”
Husband: “Okay, I am so sorry. Let’s try to figure out how this happened. I got held up at an emergency meeting with my boss, and I couldn’t answer my cell phone. He would have gotten even madder at me….I guess I was so upset by this confrontation with him that I just absolutely forgot about the Smiths…..I should have had the dinner in my Palm Pilot, but I guess I didn’t hear that either…I was just driving and thinking about what to do with the work situation. What can I do to make this better now? Do you want me to call the Smiths and make another plan?”
Wife: “Oh, that’s okay. It’s over now. Why don’t you tell me what happened at work while I find you something to eat….”

Example Three: Child

Child: “I hate school, and I’m never going again. Teachers are all idiots!!!!”
Parent: “Wow, something is really upsetting you today. Sounds like a teacher did something stupid that bothered you…”
Child: “No, it didn’t bother me!!!! I’m not going to get bothered by fools like that. I don’t care what they think!!!!! I’m just not going anymore!!!!!!”
Parent: “So, it didn’t bother you. You’re not going to be bothered by fools like that. You don’t even care what they think. And, right now, you’re saying you are never going again.”
Child: (tears of hurt coming) “She said I’ll never be a writer…that I don’t even know punctuation (crying).”
Parent: “So your teacher said, ‘You’ll never be a writer…you can’t even do punctuation,” and that is really hurting you. Writing is very important to you.’
Child: (more tears) “There is more to writing than punctuation….what I’m saying is way more important….I’m pouring my heart out.”
Parent: “So, for you, writing is not about punctuation but about what you are saying, that you can really pour your heart out. That’s what’s important.”
Child: “Yes (fewer tears)…that’s what matters to me. Next time, will you help me with the punctuation so that she can’t make fun of me?”

Believe it or not, this diffusion of anger, usually to hurt, will happen. And what have you got to lose by trying? There really isn’t any other miracle way in these situations!

Perhaps the idea of just “reflecting” the other person seems silly to you, like a parrot. However, when you are on the receiving end, just hearing your own words back without judgment or “fixing,” you will be amazed at what a rare blessing and relief it is just to be heard.

Learn The Focused Listening Skill

The Focused Listening Core Skill of PRISMS/S at Creative Edge Focusing (TM) is more than just reflecting.  You will learn many nuances:

• how to “ask for more” about words with “neon lights” around them,
• how to use Focusing Invitations to help the speaker sit quietly and “sense into” the “feel of it all,” facilitating a Paradigm Shift, and
• how, sometimes, you can offer your own Personal Sharings (advice, information, own similar experiences), as long as you go back to Active Listening, reflecting the impact of your words on the other person.

However, always, simple Active Listening, saying back, reflecting the words of the other, remains the core – the one, simple, most powerful thing you can do to increase communication with another person, while, at the same time, helping them to find their own solutions to their problems.

Learn more about Focused Listening at http://www.cefocusing.com/coreconcepts/1a2.php

Apply Active Listening as “Five-Minute Grieving,” when patient, friend or colleague starts crying: http://www.cefocusing.com/freeresources/2a1d.php

Try “Passive Listening Turns,” a simple turn-taking protocol to turn arguments with significant others into creative problem solving: http://www.cefocusing.com/freeresources/2a1c.php

See examples of  Interpersonal Focusing for conflict resolution: http://www.cefocusing.com/casestudies/6a3.php

Purchase the Self-Help package of Creative Edge Focusing (TM) to learn how to apply all of these skills in friendship, love relationships, support groups, and work teams: http://www.cefocusing.com/services/5b1.php

Find Certified Focusing Professionals offering Classes or Workshops in core Listening/Focusing skills World-Wide, in many languages at http://www.focusing.org/trainers_search.asp

Find Coaching, Classes and Workshops with Dr. McGuire and Creative Edge Associates at http://www.cefocusing.com/store/categories.php

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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By Kathy McGuire, October 24, 2007 6:42 pm

PDF : PROCESO DE SOLUCION DE PROBLEMAS  PRISMAS/S at http://www.cefocusing.com/pdf/PROCESO%20DE_SOLUCION_DE_PROBLEMAS_PRISMA.pdf

Reflecting Before Acting or Reacting

The radical contribution of Gendlin’s Focusing (Bantam, 1981) and McGuire’s Creative Edge Focusing ™ is that the problem solver makes the explicit choice to pause and take some moments for silent reflecting before acting or reacting.

Instead of simply repeating past reactions, the Focuser can create new, completely innovative solutions and behaviors from the “intuitive feel” of the whole situation.

A quiet pause is needed in order to sense into the “intuitive feel,” The Creative Edge, of problems. Whether in private or in group decision making settings, these opportunities for pauses to contact and articulate the Creative Edge are what allow the creation of totally new ideas and solutions. No pauses, no creation of the new!!!!!

Using the PRISMS/S Problem Solving Process is like passing light through a prism. A few moments of pondering, and The Creative Edge opens into a whole spectrum of new possibilities and action steps.

Pausing To Ponder: From Problems To Possibilities

The PRISMS/S Problem Solving Process includes seven ingredients of predictable “Ahah!” experiences using Creative Edge Focusing ™. With its Core Skills of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening , PRISMS/S is based upon Eugene Gendlin’s “A Theory of Personality Change” (  http://www.focusing.org/gendlin/docs/gol_2145.html ) and his Focusing self-help book (Bantam, 1981, 1984), as well as Dr. McGuire’s thirty years of  experience integrating Listening/Focusing skills into task-oriented groups and supportive communities.

PRISMS/S can be used on one’s own or with the help of Focused Listening in a Creative Edge Focusing Partnership, Focusing Group or Team, or Focusing Community. In any case, problem solving goes through the following steps:

Pausing :  Clearing A Space for Problem Identification
Reflecting: Listening To Oneself or Focused Listening from Another 
Intuitive Focusing:  Back-and-Forth Between Symbols and Intuition
Shifting:  The Kaleidoscope Turns And A New Paradigm Arises
Movement:  Innovative Solutions and Action Steps Arise Spontaneously
Satisfaction:  Tension Releases in the Sureness of “Ahah! That’s It!”
Support: Listening/Focusing Partnerships Build Empathy and Community

Pausing:  Clearing A Space For Problem Identification  

As the first step of PRISMS/S, the Focuser sits down and takes a quiet moment to pay attention to the “intuitive feel,” the Creative Edge of consciousness.

Right-brain Problem Solving Is Non-Linear

Right-brain problem solving is non-linear. Wherever you start, you may find totally new directions, ideas, possibilities arising. This is exactly what you want!!!! But it means a relaxation around having to know exactly what the problem is and how it is going to come out before you begin!…….read more about PRISMS/S at http://www.cefocusing.com/coreconcepts/1a3.php

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com