NOTES
Notes from April 12, 2019 NYMF Meeting
Twenty-three participants gathered for New York Metro Focusing’s fourth evening of engaging with Eugene Gendlin’s words and ideas. The evening began with expressions of appreciation to Larry Hurst, who was transitioning off the Planning Group after more than a decade of service. Larry was a founding partner of NY Metro Focusing, has been a superb contributor to our programming and development, and will be sorely missed.
The topic of the evening was “It Fills Itself In: Addressing What Has Happened or Failed to Happen in Our Lives.”
This topic was inspired by and centered on a quote from Chapter 22 of rom Eugene T. Gendlin's book, "Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy":
Notes from April 12, 2019 NYMF Meeting
Twenty-three participants gathered for New York Metro Focusing’s fourth evening of engaging with Eugene Gendlin’s words and ideas. The evening began with expressions of appreciation to Larry Hurst, who was transitioning off the Planning Group after more than a decade of service. Larry was a founding partner of NY Metro Focusing, has been a superb contributor to our programming and development, and will be sorely missed.
The topic of the evening was “It Fills Itself In: Addressing What Has Happened or Failed to Happen in Our Lives.”
This topic was inspired by and centered on a quote from Chapter 22 of rom Eugene T. Gendlin's book, "Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy":
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The organism can fill in what should have happened in its infancy and early childhood. It can even do it relatively quickly. People wrongly assume that this cannot happen any more because the person is now an adult. Of course the present interaction is not one of nursing or child care. But the present interaction can implicitly and concretely provide the actual continuation of processes that were stopped in childhood. The body has implied the next steps ever since, and will enact them if the interaction makes it possible.
[more of this quote can be found below] |
Rachel Alexander, a member of the Planning Group, began by providing a roadmap. She told us the evening would include experiential exercises designed so that we could have a felt sense understanding of Gendlin’s complex theory about how the organism can fill in what needed to happen and did not.
In the first exercise Rachel asked the participants to remember a time when what needed to happen did happen and to have a bodily felt sense of what this was like. In sharing after the exercise, people described sledding downhill as a child, finding just the right bicycle to acquire as an adult, falling asleep when tired, and unexpectedly getting a ride home at the end of a long day. After these positive experiences, Rachel guided the participants in a second exercise in which we returned to a time when what needed to happen did not happen and we were left carrying the burden of an unmet need.
Next, Rachel’s colleagues on the Planning Group, Gail Miklatek, Naomi Glicken, and Susan Deisroth, spoke about the factors that are needed for filling in to occur. There needs to be a relational environment that is safe, protective and empathic, the person needs to be able to have a bodily experience in a visceral felt way, not merely a mental experience, and there needs to be space for the new experience to occur, rather than the person being fully occupied with the experience of lack.
Cynthia Callsen, also on the Planning Group, contributed this additional quote from the same work by Gendlin:
In the first exercise Rachel asked the participants to remember a time when what needed to happen did happen and to have a bodily felt sense of what this was like. In sharing after the exercise, people described sledding downhill as a child, finding just the right bicycle to acquire as an adult, falling asleep when tired, and unexpectedly getting a ride home at the end of a long day. After these positive experiences, Rachel guided the participants in a second exercise in which we returned to a time when what needed to happen did not happen and we were left carrying the burden of an unmet need.
Next, Rachel’s colleagues on the Planning Group, Gail Miklatek, Naomi Glicken, and Susan Deisroth, spoke about the factors that are needed for filling in to occur. There needs to be a relational environment that is safe, protective and empathic, the person needs to be able to have a bodily experience in a visceral felt way, not merely a mental experience, and there needs to be space for the new experience to occur, rather than the person being fully occupied with the experience of lack.
Cynthia Callsen, also on the Planning Group, contributed this additional quote from the same work by Gendlin:
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Some people say, “I never experienced being loved, so I wouldn’t know what that is.” Not so. Every organism is carried forward by being loved or cared for. The conscious person might misconstrue, might perceive old patterns instead, but the body will take a carrying-forward step if it can happen in the interaction.
In one respect what should have happened is only an idea; what actually happened is real. But in another sense what should have happened is more real. After all, what happened was due to the foibles and disturbed lives of the limited people who were a person’s parents. How they behaved was an accident. On the other hand, what is planned for in the organism is as real as the organs of the body. How each is meant to operate is given along with it. We are born not only with lungs but also with knowing how they breathe. |
A spirited discussion followed with people providing examples from their own lives or the lives of those they knew well. For instance, a mother who consistently denied what her daughter said she was experiencing could have instead asked “tell me about it.” The daughter, now grown, knew what would have met her need. Another participant gave the example of a grief-stricken young man who was longing to feel happiness again; when he moved from an abstract memory to a sense memory, he had a present bodily experience of the happiness he had believed was no longer available to him. A therapist mentioned that when her clients had experiences of filling in, she vicariously had similar experiences.
Rachel ended the program with a guided focusing exercise which moved us from an experience of not getting what was needed, to a contemplation of what would have been needed, to an imaginative sensing of what it would be like to receive what was needed.
People were very engaged and regretted that they were not able to continue discussing this compelling topic.
The evening concluded with Calliope Callias leading us in a fun group sing-a-along with lyrics written by Robin Kappy celebrating Larry, followed by cake, prosecco and our usual delectables. The lyrics are below.
Notes by Diana Kirigin and Susan Deisroth
Rachel ended the program with a guided focusing exercise which moved us from an experience of not getting what was needed, to a contemplation of what would have been needed, to an imaginative sensing of what it would be like to receive what was needed.
People were very engaged and regretted that they were not able to continue discussing this compelling topic.
The evening concluded with Calliope Callias leading us in a fun group sing-a-along with lyrics written by Robin Kappy celebrating Larry, followed by cake, prosecco and our usual delectables. The lyrics are below.
Notes by Diana Kirigin and Susan Deisroth
ADDITIONAL QUOTES MENTIONED IN THE MEETING
From Chapter 22 of Gendlin, "Focusing Oriented Psychology"
[continued from the excerpt above]
From Chapter 22 of Gendlin, "Focusing Oriented Psychology"
[continued from the excerpt above]
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In Chapter 15, on imagery, I showed that such a continuation can happen with images if they arise from a bodily process in a safe, protective, company-keeping interaction...
I pointed out that we can articulate this safe protective attitude as if we felt it about a child. I often ask clients how they would feel toward a child. Then I say "we" will keep the child company because I know the client can not usually do this alone. I explain that "we" adults do not know anything and should be wise enough not to push anything on the child. We only protect the child and keep it company... ...A quiet, contactful kind of being together over a long period implicitly provides the continuation of all sorts of stopped processes. The organism can fill the gaps in, even when the client only reports the week's events. It is more likely to happen when the client discusses what was lacking and is deeply heard and understood. |
From "Eight Worldviews and Practices," by Mark Nepo
Parabola Magazine at Parabola.org, October 27, 2018
Parabola Magazine at Parabola.org, October 27, 2018
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The Native American notion of All My Relations views all of reality and life as related and interconnected. Every aspect of life is seen as part of one intrinsic family. In the Blackfoot tribe, when people meet, they don’t say “How are you” but “Tza Nee Da Bee Wah?” which means, “How are the connections?” If the connections are in place, we must be all right. If the connections are not in place, then we need to tend them first. Inherent in the Native American view is that our well-being is based on how everything goes together. There can be no lasting individual health unless there is a working harmony among all living things. The practice that grows from this worldview is the need to discover, name, and repair the connections that exist between all things. This is considered sacred and necessary work.
The African ethic of ubuntu is often translated as I am because you are, you are because I am. It implies that we find our humanity in each other. Ubuntu literally means a person is a person through other persons. This heartfelt tradition concentrates on the irrevocable connectedness that exists between people. Based on this fundamental commitment to human kinship, there is no word for orphan in the African continent, because each tribe automatically assumes a lost child as part of its larger family. |
LYRICS TO THE SONG FOR LARRY
by Robin Kappy
sung to the tune of "To Sir, with Love"
"To Larry, With Love"
Those Metro days
of planning meetings and inviting guests are gone
But in your mind
you’ll know they still live on and on
But how do we thank someone
who has helped us clear our deepest spaces?
It isn't easy, but we’ll try
If you wanted one more Metro (meeting) title,
we would write it across the sky in letters
That would soar a thousand feet high
‘To Larry, With Love’
The time has come
for you to fly and (long last) your attunements must end,
and as you leave,
please know you’re one of our very best friends.
A friend who showed us (our own felt sense and) how to focus with our truest selves.
That's a lot to grok,
but what can we give you in return?
If you wanted the moon
we would try to make a start, but we
would rather you let us give you our hearts
by Robin Kappy
sung to the tune of "To Sir, with Love"
"To Larry, With Love"
Those Metro days
of planning meetings and inviting guests are gone
But in your mind
you’ll know they still live on and on
But how do we thank someone
who has helped us clear our deepest spaces?
It isn't easy, but we’ll try
If you wanted one more Metro (meeting) title,
we would write it across the sky in letters
That would soar a thousand feet high
‘To Larry, With Love’
The time has come
for you to fly and (long last) your attunements must end,
and as you leave,
please know you’re one of our very best friends.
A friend who showed us (our own felt sense and) how to focus with our truest selves.
That's a lot to grok,
but what can we give you in return?
If you wanted the moon
we would try to make a start, but we
would rather you let us give you our hearts