4/24/2020
NY Metro Focusing Meeting Notes
DISCOVERING NEW DIMENSIONS OF OURSELVES
IN THE MIDST OF TERIBLE TIMES
Facilitated by Joan Lavender
On Friday evening, April 24, 2020, in the midst of the Coronirus epidemic, 50 Focusers and friends of Focusing gathered for NY Metro Focusing’s first-ever Zoom meeting. Marcella Calabi skillfully and expertly introduced participants to the technicalities of this Zoom meeting and then supported our evening’s facilitator, Joan Lavender, throughout the evening by managing participation of those who wished to share .
Susan Deisroth, the Coordinator of NY Metro Focusing, welcomed everyone. She said a few words about Focusing and its origins in the work of Eugene Gendlin, and about NYMF and its 12 years of exploration of Focusing in community. She then warmly introduced our evening’s facilitator Joan Lavender.
After determining that a few participants were new to Focusing, Joan briefly introduced the process of Focusing. Then with reassuring words that however we are in this moment, we are not alone, she led us in an attunement, guiding us into our experiencing selves to find how we were right now.
After some brief sharing of what came for a few of us, she continued with an imaginary conversation with Eugene Gendlin, philosopher, psychologist, and founder of Focusing. How would Gene respond to the dangers of Virus in the environment – OUT THERE? How would he help us to understand that our lived sense of the situation, our felt sense knowing, is a function of the interbeing of body and situation, and as we access this bodily-felt knowing, something in us is already shifting. In this imaginary conversation, she comes to understand that finding words to articulate our bodily felt knowing is already a form of adaptation!
Focusing is already a form of adaptation. And with this basic understanding, she invited us to ground ourselves in the midst of these Terrible Times, possibly find new dimensions of ourselves (both welcome and unwelcome). She posed questions to guide us into these deeper places.
1. Is there a moment that captures what daily life is like for you now?
2. What are the losses, bearable and unbearable, that you have encountered – personal, professional, existential?
3. What might surprise you about the way you are being with all of this
4. What might you need to let go of to radically accept this degree of uncertainty?
5. What might be emerging for you in all of this? What is your/our next step?
Themes that arose from these moments of Focusing reflection include:
abandonment and separation, along with hope and new sense of the future, identifying habitual contexts vs opening to new ones, loss of freedom and sense of competency, loss of being able to take things for granted along with finding being at home is like a duck taking to water, facing an intimate knowledge of death and aloneness, feelings of joyful appreciation of family, fears of just going back to the way things were/ not having gotten anything out of this.
Joan ended by reflecting on our ability to create meaning by touching into these deeply experiencing places and finding words to express them.
A surprise ending occurred when Joe Coletti shared a short video – Praise Song for the Pandemic, https://vimeo.com/404108104?ref=em-share , praising those who are tending to the sick and dying and those who are tending to the basic infrastructure that supports our living - bringing us directly back to the Reality of what we are facing.
Prepared by Cynthia Callsen and Naomi Glicken
NY Metro Focusing Meeting Notes
DISCOVERING NEW DIMENSIONS OF OURSELVES
IN THE MIDST OF TERIBLE TIMES
Facilitated by Joan Lavender
On Friday evening, April 24, 2020, in the midst of the Coronirus epidemic, 50 Focusers and friends of Focusing gathered for NY Metro Focusing’s first-ever Zoom meeting. Marcella Calabi skillfully and expertly introduced participants to the technicalities of this Zoom meeting and then supported our evening’s facilitator, Joan Lavender, throughout the evening by managing participation of those who wished to share .
Susan Deisroth, the Coordinator of NY Metro Focusing, welcomed everyone. She said a few words about Focusing and its origins in the work of Eugene Gendlin, and about NYMF and its 12 years of exploration of Focusing in community. She then warmly introduced our evening’s facilitator Joan Lavender.
After determining that a few participants were new to Focusing, Joan briefly introduced the process of Focusing. Then with reassuring words that however we are in this moment, we are not alone, she led us in an attunement, guiding us into our experiencing selves to find how we were right now.
After some brief sharing of what came for a few of us, she continued with an imaginary conversation with Eugene Gendlin, philosopher, psychologist, and founder of Focusing. How would Gene respond to the dangers of Virus in the environment – OUT THERE? How would he help us to understand that our lived sense of the situation, our felt sense knowing, is a function of the interbeing of body and situation, and as we access this bodily-felt knowing, something in us is already shifting. In this imaginary conversation, she comes to understand that finding words to articulate our bodily felt knowing is already a form of adaptation!
Focusing is already a form of adaptation. And with this basic understanding, she invited us to ground ourselves in the midst of these Terrible Times, possibly find new dimensions of ourselves (both welcome and unwelcome). She posed questions to guide us into these deeper places.
1. Is there a moment that captures what daily life is like for you now?
2. What are the losses, bearable and unbearable, that you have encountered – personal, professional, existential?
3. What might surprise you about the way you are being with all of this
4. What might you need to let go of to radically accept this degree of uncertainty?
5. What might be emerging for you in all of this? What is your/our next step?
Themes that arose from these moments of Focusing reflection include:
abandonment and separation, along with hope and new sense of the future, identifying habitual contexts vs opening to new ones, loss of freedom and sense of competency, loss of being able to take things for granted along with finding being at home is like a duck taking to water, facing an intimate knowledge of death and aloneness, feelings of joyful appreciation of family, fears of just going back to the way things were/ not having gotten anything out of this.
Joan ended by reflecting on our ability to create meaning by touching into these deeply experiencing places and finding words to express them.
A surprise ending occurred when Joe Coletti shared a short video – Praise Song for the Pandemic, https://vimeo.com/404108104?ref=em-share , praising those who are tending to the sick and dying and those who are tending to the basic infrastructure that supports our living - bringing us directly back to the Reality of what we are facing.
Prepared by Cynthia Callsen and Naomi Glicken