NEW YORK METRO FOCUSING
4/4/14 Meeting Notes - Cultivating the Pause
We are pleased to share with you meeting notes from the April 4, 2014 meeting of New York Metro Focusing. Larry Hurst opened the meeting, which was attended by twenty-four participants. The meeting began with Community Announcements.
Cynthia Callsen began the announcements by introducing the Focusing Institute’s new Executive Director, Catherine Torpey. Catherine is a long time focuser. She attended nearly all of the Focusing Institute’s Summer Schools and volunteered on a focusing project in El Salvador. Cynthia said that what impressed her most in her meetings with Catherine was the way she really listens in an interaction, taking in what has been said by those around her and moving it forward.
Catherine then spoke to the group. She said that what she most wants to do at this stage in the life of the Focusing Institute is to function as a director of energy, to listen to all the ideas and see where the Focusing Institute goes next. She asked us to let her know what we want from the Institute by e-mailing her at Catherine@focusing.org. Catherine told us that she is a Unitarian Universalist minister with a congregation. For the next few months she will be working two jobs, transitioning away from her congregation and into the full time position at the Focusing Institute.
Catherine also reminded us that the Focusing Institute cannot function without member support. She encouraged those who were not already members to check out the web site, http://www.focusing.org and to consider becoming members. Catherine complemented the Board members, Nina Joy Lawrence, Rob Foxcroft, Robert Lee, and Cynthia Callsen, calling them “incredibly dedicated.”
After these words from Catherine, Naomi Glicken introduced the theme of the evening, “Cultivating the Pause.” Naomi said that our recent meetings had been delving into living the practice, how to make focusing practices into a ground for relating more genuinely, with tonight using the Pause as a central feature. After reading quotes that set a tone (“Pause creates a space for the felt sense to emerge.” “The Pause is not habitual. It is the place in which you can find the greatest change,”) Naomi introduced Sharron Kaplan, the evening’s facilitator.
Sharron began by saying that, eighteen months ago, Cynthia suggested we develop a program about cultivating the pause and sent Sharron many articles. Rather than reading them, Sharron directed her attention to her own experience and let her awareness of the pause grow in that way, only reading the articles much later. What Sharron found was that she had difficulty practicing the pause in conversation. She tended to interrupt when excited by the conversation. She found that she was afraid that when she was fully present to the other, she would lose contact with herself and her own ideas. She began to practice non-interrupting and saw that it was possible to hold one’s own awareness and still follow the flow of the other, and that doing so led to surprises.
Sharron then directed the group to divide into groups of four. She led an attunement that guided our attention to the breath and to the pauses between the in breath and the out breath and between the out breath and the in breath. We shared our experience of this in our small groups. We then returned to the larger circle and Sharron led the group in a second exercise that brought attention to what gets in the way of pausing. This led into a focusing conversation among the group on the different ways that people experienced the pause.
At the close of the meeting, many people expressed how satisfying it was and how skillfully Sharron had evoked an atmosphere of pausing and listening to ourselves and others.
Larry Hurst invited the participants - especially any who have not facilitated or co-facilitated before - to come forward with a theme that they feel passionate about and would like to offer. The PG has worked hard to create a helpful resource for them to visit at http://www.nymetrofocusing.org/opportunities-to-participate.html
We look forward to the next meeting, on Friday, June 6, when Susan Deisroth will facilitate the topic, Aging and Wisdom: Finding Ways to Access Our Personal Experience of This Hard Earned Gift.
Prepared by Diana Kirigin
4/4/14 Meeting Notes - Cultivating the Pause
We are pleased to share with you meeting notes from the April 4, 2014 meeting of New York Metro Focusing. Larry Hurst opened the meeting, which was attended by twenty-four participants. The meeting began with Community Announcements.
Cynthia Callsen began the announcements by introducing the Focusing Institute’s new Executive Director, Catherine Torpey. Catherine is a long time focuser. She attended nearly all of the Focusing Institute’s Summer Schools and volunteered on a focusing project in El Salvador. Cynthia said that what impressed her most in her meetings with Catherine was the way she really listens in an interaction, taking in what has been said by those around her and moving it forward.
Catherine then spoke to the group. She said that what she most wants to do at this stage in the life of the Focusing Institute is to function as a director of energy, to listen to all the ideas and see where the Focusing Institute goes next. She asked us to let her know what we want from the Institute by e-mailing her at Catherine@focusing.org. Catherine told us that she is a Unitarian Universalist minister with a congregation. For the next few months she will be working two jobs, transitioning away from her congregation and into the full time position at the Focusing Institute.
Catherine also reminded us that the Focusing Institute cannot function without member support. She encouraged those who were not already members to check out the web site, http://www.focusing.org and to consider becoming members. Catherine complemented the Board members, Nina Joy Lawrence, Rob Foxcroft, Robert Lee, and Cynthia Callsen, calling them “incredibly dedicated.”
After these words from Catherine, Naomi Glicken introduced the theme of the evening, “Cultivating the Pause.” Naomi said that our recent meetings had been delving into living the practice, how to make focusing practices into a ground for relating more genuinely, with tonight using the Pause as a central feature. After reading quotes that set a tone (“Pause creates a space for the felt sense to emerge.” “The Pause is not habitual. It is the place in which you can find the greatest change,”) Naomi introduced Sharron Kaplan, the evening’s facilitator.
Sharron began by saying that, eighteen months ago, Cynthia suggested we develop a program about cultivating the pause and sent Sharron many articles. Rather than reading them, Sharron directed her attention to her own experience and let her awareness of the pause grow in that way, only reading the articles much later. What Sharron found was that she had difficulty practicing the pause in conversation. She tended to interrupt when excited by the conversation. She found that she was afraid that when she was fully present to the other, she would lose contact with herself and her own ideas. She began to practice non-interrupting and saw that it was possible to hold one’s own awareness and still follow the flow of the other, and that doing so led to surprises.
Sharron then directed the group to divide into groups of four. She led an attunement that guided our attention to the breath and to the pauses between the in breath and the out breath and between the out breath and the in breath. We shared our experience of this in our small groups. We then returned to the larger circle and Sharron led the group in a second exercise that brought attention to what gets in the way of pausing. This led into a focusing conversation among the group on the different ways that people experienced the pause.
At the close of the meeting, many people expressed how satisfying it was and how skillfully Sharron had evoked an atmosphere of pausing and listening to ourselves and others.
Larry Hurst invited the participants - especially any who have not facilitated or co-facilitated before - to come forward with a theme that they feel passionate about and would like to offer. The PG has worked hard to create a helpful resource for them to visit at http://www.nymetrofocusing.org/opportunities-to-participate.html
We look forward to the next meeting, on Friday, June 6, when Susan Deisroth will facilitate the topic, Aging and Wisdom: Finding Ways to Access Our Personal Experience of This Hard Earned Gift.
Prepared by Diana Kirigin