HOW IT WORKS

There are good reasons why your recovery may not be moving forward as you would like, and why you might feel stuck, stagnant, or frustrated.

For many people, it has to do with a set of natural but missing inner skills that very few people learn in recovery.

You’re probably already doing positive things for your recovery, but without reliable skills or an ability to connect with your own inner source of healing, you’ll likely remain stuck at a superficial level of recovery and you’ll struggle to move forward.

There’s a simple and respected method that can reliably connect you with the inner emotional healing that you’re looking for. It’s called Focusing. You can read more about it here. It’s not hard to learn and it removes much of the mystery of healing. It shows you how to find and remain in a reliable connection to the wiser part of you that knows what’s best for your life and recovery.

If you decide to learn these skills, there are a few principles that both I and the Focusing method assumes:

1) Human beings have a very powerful and natural ability to heal, in body, mind, and emotions.

When you learn how to create a protect a safe inner space of healing, your mind and emotions will automatically, without much effort on your part, move toward ease, calm, and deep resilience.

2) Although this ability is natural it is can be interfered with, disrupted, or forgotten. (But it is never lost, no matter how bad things seem.)

When you cut your skin, all you need to do is protect the injury and your body will do the work of healing. When it comes to inner emotional healing, it’s very similar.  Once you relearn how to create a safe inner environment, painful emotions begin to resolve. Stuck and repetitive thoughts shift and your thinking mind regains a sense of ease and flow. 

3) Modeling, support and practice are required. 

Learning how to heal your mind and emotions is much like learning a new physical skill such as playing tennis. You must practice. You can’t just read books about tennis. And practicing by yourself will only get you so far. You need to spend time practicing with an instructor, who can immediately correct problems in your swing. You need to practice with peers who will keep you motivated, helping you through challenges and celebrating successes. Any skill worth learning, let a alone one as important as inner healing, nearly always requires a community of likeminded people.

At a more practical level, learning Focusing in a combination of four ways:

1) Group classes

Group classes are one of the best ways to build the skills themselves. The classes are where the skills are mostly taught, practiced, and built into daily life.

2) One-to-one sessions

One-to-one sessions are the best place to get a feel for the power of Focusing. You don’t need any skill or experience beforehand. The method is simple enough for Focusing guide and lead an absolute beginner, who is then able to have a deep experience.

3) Partnership practice

Self-exploration and healing are nearly always deeper in the context of another person. Partners are trained in the group classes (see #1 above) and available at mutually agreed upon times. People often continue their partnerships for many years after the classes end.

4) Reading articles and watching videos

Once you’re trained, you have a special set of skills for inner emotional healing that you can draw from any time.  Articles and video about Focusing can both further your knowledge and skills and guide you deeper into the levels of healing you’re discovering.

Finally, just to be clear most of the “how-to’s” or theory comes via classes, reading, and videos. The most important thing is the actual practice, which comes in one-to-one sessions and partnership practice. Partnership practice, specifically, is by far the best way to build regular and reliable deep healing into your life.