Are you interested in deepening your ability to listen in a way that enables another person to touch into their body’s wisdom? Whether you are a mental health professional, partner, coach, parent, friend (or all of these!), focusing is a gift you can bring to every relationship – including your connection with your own self.
In this live, 8-week course, you will learn and practice focusing with master teacher Dr. Leslie Ellis. Join before Sept. 15 for a significant discount for the Proficiency in Focusing Partnership award program (aka How to Become an Exquisite Listener).
For those not familiar with Focusing, it is an amazing method for discovering what the body knows about your life and world. It’s a profound yet gentle way of getting a sense of yourself from the inside.
Focusing is not designed to do alone – it is inherently a relational listening process – and in this course you will not only learn focusing, but also how to listen in a focusing-oriented way. That is, you will learn to attune in a way that naturally deepens your listening partner’s relationship with their inner world.
In my first course for the Jung Platform, I offered the basics of focusing as a way of Accessing the Body’s Wisdom, mainly as a form of self-inquiry. This course takes you a step further so you can both listen to your own embodied wisdom and guide a partner in this process.
Focusing founder Eugene Gendlin said that the intangible magic of human connection is what makes focusing so effective at moving us toward new understandings. When we, as a listener, absorb and reflect back what the focuser is saying, our receptive presence adds more to the equation. This is felt by the person focusing, and allows them to say something further, to take a step they may not have arrived at on their own. There is a beautiful rhythm that is created, a conversation that is greater than the sum of its parts.
In this live course, we will meet for eight experiential sessions. In each, I will teach you an aspect of focusing, and will demonstrate it. Then you will have the chance to practice in small groups, one skill at a time.
You will learn how to deepen your listening partner’s experience of their own depths, but in a way that is safe and guided by the focuser. I will offer suggestions to help keep the process moving, but also manageable. For example, in one session, we will work with the inner critic, that derogatory voice that often pipes up when we first turn our attention inside.
We will also have fun with creative aspects of focusing, and there will be lots of time for debriefing your practice and for your questions, reflections and sharing of the magical moments that often arise in focusing.
Prior courses or experience are not required, although I do recommend that you read Gendlin’s little book Focusing as an introduction.
For those who want to, you can use this course as a stepping stone toward a deeper practice of focusing. When you complete the course and practice sessions, you will be eligible to apply to the International Focusing Institute for the Proficiency in Focusing Partnership Award. This award demonstrates your ability to listen in a focusing way, and enables you to connect with other focusing partners from around the world.
The PFP award is optional. And regardless of whether you choose to pursue it, you will leave this course with a deeper connection to your own body’s wisdom, and a reliable way to access it. And you will have the ability to guide others in this process so you can continue focusing as a practice well beyond the duration of the course.
Focusing pairs well with dreamwork, can help you as a therapist, coach or teacher to help your client or students find their own answers. It can be used to deepen creativity and connection.
The course is available at an early bird price of $295 until Sept. 15. Regular price is $345. Classes are 8 Tuesdays starting Oct. 8, 10:30am to 12:45. (90 minutes of class time, plus 45-minute focusing practice sessions).
For full details and to register, click here.