Have you ever heard of Focusing? It’s a sort of inner yoga and it may be just what you’ve been looking for. Focusing teaches you to access your own deepest, wisest self. It takes you to a deeper level of awareness than is ordinarily possible. It teaches you to be with yourself in a compassionate, caring way.
Check out the reasons it may be right for you.
1)Are you wondering what underlies your anxiety, shyness, depression, malaise?
2)Do you have voices in your mind telling you you’re no good, stupid, unworthy, lazy, dirty, bad?
3)Do you feel you’re to blame for the bad stuff that happens around you?
4)Do you have trouble being compassionate with yourself?
5)Do you have trouble making decisions?
6)Do you look to others to tell you what’s right?
7)Would you like a sure-fire way of knowing your life is on the right track?
8)Would you like to experience yourself as a unique and wonderful organism in the universe?
In other words, would you like to have a way of knowing what’s right for you without asking somebody, tossing a coin or getting out the Ouija board?
Would you like to be able to check inside your body for guidance? Focusing teaches you how to recognize your body’s signals, those physically felt responses to your life that are meant to keep you doing whatever is life seeking for you.
In my book, Confessions of a Trauma Therapist, I tell how Focusing helped me safely access my repressed memories of child sexual abuse and how this practice guided my healing. If that sounds useful to you, I’ll suggest some ways you can learn to Focus.
You can learn to Focus from the Bantam paperback by the same name or go online and find a teacher at www.focusing.org. It’s simple to learn and, as most profoundly simple things, it can take you to some very deep places.
Showing posts with label focusing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label focusing. Show all posts
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
How our brains protect us
I’m in Germany where I have been teaching the participants at the annual International Focusing Conference how our brains protect us from whatever is too terrible to assimilate into consciousness.
I explained that normal memory, like the memory of being in my workshop, is an explicit memory. That is, it has details. They will remember much of what I said, who was there and so on.
On the other hand, implicit memory, as in traumatic memory, is carried in the body. It lacks a narrative and details.
A normal event is first registered by the thalamus of the brain, then goes to the amygdala and then to the hippocampus for storage. However, if the event is traumatic, the amygdala acts as a watchdog and doesn’t pass it on to the hippocampus for storage. That means that maybe there never was a whole memory. The memory might fragment into pieces that are visual or olfactory, but lack a context.
The mind doesn’t know about the terrible event, but the body does. Fear is the major emotion of trauma. Anxiety and depression result, even though the person cannot attach a reason for the disturbance.
Time does not heal traumatic memory. The feelings are in the present. It seems as if something terrible or threatening is happening in the present – or is about to happen. The task for psychotherapy or any type of healing is to put the past into the past. This means changing the way the brain experiences your existence.
I explained that normal memory, like the memory of being in my workshop, is an explicit memory. That is, it has details. They will remember much of what I said, who was there and so on.
On the other hand, implicit memory, as in traumatic memory, is carried in the body. It lacks a narrative and details.
A normal event is first registered by the thalamus of the brain, then goes to the amygdala and then to the hippocampus for storage. However, if the event is traumatic, the amygdala acts as a watchdog and doesn’t pass it on to the hippocampus for storage. That means that maybe there never was a whole memory. The memory might fragment into pieces that are visual or olfactory, but lack a context.
The mind doesn’t know about the terrible event, but the body does. Fear is the major emotion of trauma. Anxiety and depression result, even though the person cannot attach a reason for the disturbance.
Time does not heal traumatic memory. The feelings are in the present. It seems as if something terrible or threatening is happening in the present – or is about to happen. The task for psychotherapy or any type of healing is to put the past into the past. This means changing the way the brain experiences your existence.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Confessions goes to Germany
As I write this, I am attending the annual International Focusing Conference in the Black Forest of Germany.
I have just given a presentation about childhood trauma. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. I knew I planned to read from my book to illustrate how lost memories surface. And I knew I wanted them to hear about the actual breaking through of my awareness of sexual abuse at the hands of my father and grandfather.But I wasn’t prepared for how moving and moved the participants would be.
In the room there were of course Germans, then Greeks, Italians, one Palestinian, Brits, Netherlanders, French, Spanish, Belgians and many other nations represented. Most of these countries are just beginning to deal with the presence of child abuse in their societies. The recent sexual abuse charges against the Roman Catholic church here in Germany has stirred awareness of the prevalence of child sexual abuse.
After my reading, no one spoke. There was absolute silence for many minutes. I looked around the room. The eyes were closed or they sat pensively staring at a spot on the floor. I could only assume that each person was having his or her personal experience touched off by my very honest disclosures.
This was one more step in sending Confessions of A Trauma Therapist out into the world to plant whatever seeds find fertile soil. That’s what I wish for my book: to be heard and taken in by those who need to hear my message.
Today’s presentation felt like one more small step to reach out and help our world deal effectively with this crime against children.
I have just given a presentation about childhood trauma. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. I knew I planned to read from my book to illustrate how lost memories surface. And I knew I wanted them to hear about the actual breaking through of my awareness of sexual abuse at the hands of my father and grandfather.But I wasn’t prepared for how moving and moved the participants would be.
In the room there were of course Germans, then Greeks, Italians, one Palestinian, Brits, Netherlanders, French, Spanish, Belgians and many other nations represented. Most of these countries are just beginning to deal with the presence of child abuse in their societies. The recent sexual abuse charges against the Roman Catholic church here in Germany has stirred awareness of the prevalence of child sexual abuse.
After my reading, no one spoke. There was absolute silence for many minutes. I looked around the room. The eyes were closed or they sat pensively staring at a spot on the floor. I could only assume that each person was having his or her personal experience touched off by my very honest disclosures.
This was one more step in sending Confessions of A Trauma Therapist out into the world to plant whatever seeds find fertile soil. That’s what I wish for my book: to be heard and taken in by those who need to hear my message.
Today’s presentation felt like one more small step to reach out and help our world deal effectively with this crime against children.
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