What if there was a way to learn a technique that helps you sort out your life, get closure and make important decisions more easily?

The reason focusing is interesting to me is because it’s something that can be both taught and learned and can have a very meaningful impact on your life given you invest the right time and effort. The ROI of learning focusing should be quite high.

In this post, you will learn

What is focusing and why should I care? What the research says about the effectiveness of focusing A short manual for focusing you can implement right away.

What is focusing and why should I care?

In the 1950’s Eugene Gendlin set out to find out what makes psychotherapy either successful or unsuccessful. He spent 15 years doing his research and amongst other things studied hundreds of tape recordings from therapy sessions and began mining them for insights.

Focusing is like hiring a translator between your body and your mind to create a continuous, friendly and non-judging conversation.

The key insight from his work is that successful patients focus much more on their subtle and vague bodily awareness during therapy than unsuccessful ones. He termed this bodily awareness “felt sense”. This felt sense is more than just an emotion, but rather encompasses the entirety of how a person feels towards a specific person or situation. In other words, patients who actively exploring (“System 2”) their inner world, implicit feelings and meanings (“System 1”) and traducing information from the body into the mind will likely get better much faster.

The body wants to warn you of a danger and sends a fear signal in the form of tension to your mind.

What do you mean by felt sense?

To get a feel for what is meant by felt sense, close your eyes and picture before you a person you really like spending time with. Engage with this for a minute or two and notice the bodily senses as you’re imagining that person.

Now think about a person that is difficult for you and repeat the exercise. Can you notice the difference in sensations or ‘felt sense’ as you switch back and forth between these two people?

The felt sense contains the entirety of your experience with that person, the past, present and future. In that sense, it is much wiser and more complete than any description of your relationship could ever model.

Therapy example

This example is paraphrased from the Power of Focusing Book by Ann Weiser Cornell.

Jenny is a client who’s been struggling with an intense anxiety whenever she has to make an important phone call or give a presentation. She’s tried many kinds of therapies for years, but this unpleasant feeling is still very much present. She’s seeing a new therapist who is introducing her to the focusing technique.

J: I’m just feeling this choking sensation all the time. I don’t know what to do about it.

T: Can you feel the choking right now?

J: Yes I can. It’s because I’m learning about focusing, and I feel like I have to do well.

T: Can you describe what it feels like?

J: Choking of course!

T: Can you try to sense into more and gather more details?

J: Ok.. hmmmm. (pause). Well now I’m feeling a bit more. Actually it feels more like hand-squeezing than choking.

T: Can you just say hello to it? Say ‘Yes, I know you’re there’.

This was a completely new attitude for her.

J: Wow, I’ve never sort of looked it in the eye before; I’ve just tried to get rid of it.

taking her time to find her new attitude, but when she did, there was a sense of bodily relief.

J: It’s still there, but it’s not painful anymore. It’s almost like, now that it has my attention, it doesn’t need to hurt me.

After some more time of sensing into the feeling

J: Wow. I never dreamed it would say something like that. It says… it says that it cares about me! It just says it’s just trying to keep me from making mistakes.

T: And how does it feel now?

J: The choking or squeezing is completely gone. My throat feels open and relaxed. There’s a good warm feeling spreading all through my body. This is really amazing. I never thought it would change like this!

Why should I care?

Even if you are not in therapy, focusing can be incredibly beneficial. The idea is, that if you focus on this felt sense, it can lead to “information” from your body that will help you resolve the problems you are facing.

It can help you

better understand what you truly want

make difficult decisions

be more attentive and friendly towards yourself and others

Continuously attending to our body

When I first learned about focusing, seemed quite hard to grasp. It’s only through a new book by Ann Weiser Cornell I’ve recently purchased that I’ve gotten more deeply acquainted and interested in it. The instructions seemed more intuitive than the original book by Gendlin.

Focusing is about turning vague physical impressions (signals from System 1) into well-defined and meaningful ones. We sense these vague feelings and through method of friendly and attentive listening, we turn them into meaningful feelings. By continuously verifying and validating our conscious thoughts with our bodily sensations, we achieve inner resonance.

The felt shift as a powerful feedback loop

When we put the right word on the felt sense, when we glean from it what it has in store for us, we will experience a subtle or not-so-subtle ‘felt shift’, a change in the felt sense. This indicates we’re understanding what it is trying to tell us with our System 2. If we pick words that don’t fit, we will experience no such felt shift. This feedback loop is one of the most powerful components of the focusing technique, as it gives you a clear indication whether you’re building a trusting relationship with your inner self.

How does Focusing relate to other Therapies?

Focusing occurs at the Mind-Body Interface.

Here’s a wonderful attempt by my friend and psychiatrist friend Milan Scheidegger to locate Focusing amongst other approaches:

Image courtesy of Milan Scheidegger

What does science say about the effectiveness of focusing?

Marion Hendricks has put together a summary and an exhaustive list of research done on focusing with impressive results.

Experiencing level as key predictor of positive outcome

The first analyses of Client-Centered/Experiential tradition psychotherapy were content-driven, ie “What are the client and therapist talking about?”. But through Gendlin’s work, researchers realized that what predicted outcome was the process “What does the process of therapy and relating look like?”.

The level of experiencing (EXP) is a scale developed by several researchers in the field to capture the client’s ability be in a productive relationship with her emotions. Here are the 7 stages listed from a 1969 research and training manual.

1.) the client simply talks about events, ideas or others

2.) refers to self but without expressing emotions.

3.) expresses emotions but only as they relate to external circumstances.

4.) the client focuses directly on emotions and thoughts about self

5.) engages in an exploration of his or her inner experience

6.) gains awareness of previously implicit feelings & meanings

7.) on-going process of in-depth self-understanding, which provides new perspectives to solve significant problems

Focusing helps move you to higher stages of experiencing.

Research outcomes

After reviewing 89 studies on focusing, Hendricks concludes the following

Clients, therapists and objective measures show better patient outcome the higher the level of experiencing is by the client.

Individual sessions with focusing are rated more successful.

Focusing can be taught

Patients who have strong focusing experiences in therapy are more likely to retain high level of training.

How can I train myself in focusing?

The honest answer is that you should buy Ann Weiser Cornell’s book. I will however attempt to give a summary here and hope that it can give you a glimpse into the technique.

Intro

The essence of focusing is to have a good relationship with your inner self.

Have a gentle asking attitude over a concrete question. Let appear what needs to appear. You can’t force an answer with a question.

Preparation: Clear the space. Make sure you’re in a quiet place, with no distractions, sitting comfortably. Take a journal in case you want to write things down from your session. Write down things you need to get done so they don’t take your attention.

The below process looks like a very exhaustive list of steps. In reality, they often happen simultaneously, and it’s ok not to do them exactly step by step like laid out here. It’s more important to follow the felt sense and have a friendly way to build a trusting relationship with it.

Core Process

Which way now? What do you want to do focusing on? A decision, a difficult situation? Or do you just want to see where the felt sense takes you? Sensing into my body: Do a body scan, see how your feet, legs, arms and so forth feel. Then start sensing into what appears in your throat, chest and stomach What wants my awareness now or How am I about this issue? Rest your awareness in the middle area of your body. Imagine sending a welcoming invitation to the middle of your body and asking “What wants my awareness now?” or if you have a specific issue you’d like to work on “How am I about this issue?” Then pay attention to what arises. Don’t look for a particular thing, but just be open to anything that feels like something. Say hello: A frequent reason people don’t get responses from their felt senses is that they haven’t yet made it feel welcome. It’s kind of rude to start a conversation with someone without saying hello first. When you say hello, you’re acknowledging it’s presence, and that it is OK to be there. You may repeat this step whenever you notice a new feeling. I’m finding the best way to describe it. Get to know the felt sense more intimately. This is like getting to know it by name. Find a label or handle that best describes the felt sense. Sometimes it can be a word like ‘pressure’ or a phrase like ‘choking and twisting’, and sometimes an image is more appropriate. Keep listening and trying different handles until one of them ‘clicks’ and you experience a subtle, felt shift. “pressure”,… not quite yet. There is more…. “Anxious pressure”. That’s it, anxious pressure. Sometimes this is enough and you might want to stop here. Sometimes new steps will emerge. I’m checking back with my body. This is more than a stage in focusing, it’s something you are doing continuously throughout the process. Every time you sense something and try to get to know it better in your conscious mind, you check with your body whether it feels right. If you hear the word “squeezing”, you take that and offer it back to the feeling in your throat. Does “squeezing” feel right? It may 1) confirm it, 2) say it’s partially correct but there is more, or it 3) could say no, it’s not that, but… “constriction” feels right. In any case, you’re moving closer to getting to know it.

So far, we are getting friendly with our body and building trust. We are getting in contact with something that wants to communicate with us. Now we sit down with this part and hear what it wants to tell us. Is it OK to just be with this right now? You’re not in a hurry and not pushy. You aren’t there to push your agenda on this inner part. Just breathe deeply into your body and enjoy the company of a good friend. I’m sitting with it, with interested curiosity. Sitting lets your body know you’re not in a hurry. And you are sitting with it, not in it. You are not the feeling, you are just with it. When you add curiosity, you may wonder if there is something more. Gradually you may become aware of something you haven’t put into words yet. I’m sensing how it feels from its point of view. We typically look at things from our point of view. But isn’t there more to learn when we take others’ perspective? We can do that with our felt senses as well. Weiser Cornell asked Jeanne how it feels in her throat. She responded “It feels uncomfortable”. Whose point of view was that? This is Jeanne’s. The therapist then asked, “OK, uncomfortable. Can you sense how it feels, from its point of view?” And Jeanne responded, “Oh. It feels scared.”

This is an important shift in perspective and big step towards feeling more understanding of your inner part. Even if it doesn’t feel like talking, you can sense a mood or an atmosphere, like you can with a good friend.

If you can’t sense anything, back down. You’re likely pushing too hard. Just be there and be interested. I’m asking… Questions are not essential, but can be very helpful. If it feels right, you can use a question to give your felt sense a gentle structure. It can help find out what more is there. As the felt sense won’t suddenly start speaking to you in words, it’s more about the attitude than the question. Here are the questions Weiser Cornell finds the most helpful:

“I’m asking if it has an emotional quality”. If you haven’t sensed an emotion yet, asking your feeling what kind of emotion is present might be helpful. You could even try a couple of different suggestions such as: “Is it a scared tightness? An angry tightness? ..”. Knowing the emotional quality of the felt sense brings you closer to it and you can learn more.

“I’m asking what gets it so ______?”. Sometimes it will feel right to ask a further question. If you have something that is scared, you can say “What gets you scared?” And sometimes extend by saying, “What gets you the most scared?”

“I’m asking what it needs.” If it doesn’t feel finished, you may want to ask “What do you need from me or the world? or What needs to happen next?”. Don’t ask this at first, because it feels too much like trying to get rid of the feeling.

“I’m asking my body to show me how ‘all OK’ would feel like.” If you’ve asked all those questions and it still feels unresolved, this question can sometimes bring about magic. Someday in some way this whole thing will be ‘all OK’, it will be resolved in satisfactory manner. Asking your body how ‘all OK’ feels, can be a good way to have new action steps arise. Just relax and don’t pressure the felt sense into anything. I’m asking if it’s OK to stop soon. In order to end your session, first respectfully ask your felt sense if it feels OK with stopping. The felt sense may often reveal something very important at this point. This is also a good time to review what you have learned and welcome any changes that have appeared. If it has become a very warm fuzzy feeling, you may want to savor that and remember it on a physical level. I’m saying, I’ll be back. This is about strengthening the bond between you and the felt sense. You want to assure it that this is part of a larger process and you’ll be back. Of course you will have to keep your promise. I’m thanking my body and the parts that have been with me. The essence of focusing is to have a good relationship with your inner self. Thanking it for the wisdom you’ve received is a great way to further strengthen that bond. Weiser Cornell says you’ve succeeded in focusing if you’ve stayed with something in your body even if nothing else happened.

The focusing process will yield a series of small shifts throughout the process. This is how you know you are on track. There is no way of ‘fooling’ yourself here, as you will know whether you’re sensing a felt shift or not. You can see this in step 5 and 6. The focuser picks a word that feels somewhat right in step 5A and experiences a small shift, but the next try is off and there is no felt shift in step 5B/C. She then senses further into her body, and at step 5C and 6C, she gets the right word or image and experiences quite a strong shift.

Dinner Party: Making the steps more memorable

The 13 steps outlined above have been hard to remember for me. Now while it doesn’t matter that you do all 13 of them in the particular order, doing the earlier ones will be helpful with doing the latter ones. I’ve also come up with an analogy I find easier to remember than the abstract steps. It goes like this.

Imagine you’re being invited to dinner party with some of your ancestors in order to learn from them. Having lived very long lives inside your body, they may have unfulfilled needs and all know what you need in order to progress and feel better. Your hosts are quite shy and need a very soft and friendly approach to open up to you.

So first, you need to decide whether you approach them with a concrete issue or whether you go there with just an open mind about what will arise (1). Then you will get a sense of the attendants, just feel how it feels to be at the dinner party (2). Then you can sense which host seems most eager to tell you something (3). You then proceed by simply greeting the host in a very respectful manner, no matter what his demeanor is. You appreciate his presence (4). Then you want to know his name, and you start getting to know him (5). As you’re getting a name, you double check with the host whether that is indeed the right name (6). Next step is simply to sit down next to the host and be with him for a while. You’re appreciating each others company (7). You’re sitting with the host, and realize you are not the host and it isn’t you. You are simply sitting next to him with an interested curiosity to learn more (8). If you’ve built a good bond until know, you may try to get a sense of what the host is feeling right now (9). If it feels right, you may ask the host questions about what he is feeling and what he needs to feel at ease (10). After you’ve been in each others presence for a while, you ask the host if it’s ok to slowly end the visit for today (11). You let the host know that you’ll be back (12) and thank him for spending time with you (13).

Summary

Focusing is a powerful, science backed, learnable technique that can help you live a more centered and peaceful live. It can help you resolve issues and make decisions. All you need is a patience and a curious and friendly attitude towards your inner parts.

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Flavio Rump is an entrepreneur and investor. He shares decision-making models from the world’s best decision makers. You can read his articles, watch his YouTube Videos or join his free newsletter to learn how to make better decisions.