Focusing Tip No. 106.

Focusing has a spiritual dimension

Focusing involves a surrender, and a deep, attentive listening, which is humbling and life-affirming.
What do I mean by this?

This surrender I am referring to is about letting go of personal, ego-driven will. I cannot force myself to change.
If I try, I might find there’s a part of me that digs its heals in, and resists the change more strongly.

Letting go is not about getting rid of something that I don’t want.
It’s more akin to letting be. It’s like opening your hand, that has been holding onto something very tightly. What rests there in your open palm now has the chance to take the form and shape it wants, and to stay there on your hand, or move to another place. It could float off lightly like a feather, or settle comfortably in your belly, or wherever it needs to be.

The process of change involves small, incremental steps, over a period of time.
Sometimes it’s subtle and you hardly notice there has been a change. Maybe later you realise you are no longer carrying the issue in the same way. Something has eased, and you may even forget what it used to be like.

It’s the quality of your friendly attention that creates the right conditions and the best environment for this flow of life to unfold in the direction it wants.
Notice what happens when your conscious awareness comes into contact with a felt sense, and an interaction happens. The process needs you to pause, slow down, wait and be attentive. It also really helps to have a Focusing partner, with both of you listening in a gentle caring way to whatever needs to be heard in the Focuser.

The term ‘carrying forward’ points to the unblocking and forward movement, or impulse of change that happens when you Focus.
The body has natural capacity to heal, as we see when a skin wound heals over, or broken bones knit together. And what was ‘stopped’ in your psyche, perhaps when something that needed to happen, didn’t happen, has the potential to complete what was missing; to heal, carry forward, and resolve the stuck place.

You know when carrying forward has happened, because there is an easing of tension in the body.
It feels lighter, easier; freer and more expansive.
There is more room to breathe.
And the life issue that it is connected to also feels different.

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Warm wishes

Fiona