Deep Listening Down Under: Deep Listening with the Focusing Attitude in Every Day Life

Saturday, 29 February, 2020 from 9:30 to 11:30 am AEDT

Friday  28 February at 5:30-7:30 PM EST (US)

Times worldwide: convert to your time zone

We are very pleased to offer this new series of Focusing Roundtables at a time friendly to those of us in Australia and New Zealand. We invite you to join us at these virtual Focusing “cafés” in which participants can share their interests and feelings and get to know one another better. If you are not a member, please join at https://focusing.org/page/join-or-renew, then return to this page to register. This program will afford members a valuable opportunity to engage in casual peer-to-peer conversation with other members who share Focusing-related interests.

CONNECTION>CONVERSATION>COMMUNITY

Welcome to the second Down Under Focusers Roundtable. Even if you were unable to attend the first Roundtable held in November 2019, we invite you to join in part two of the discussion on Deep Listening.

In our first discussion we spent some time getting to know who makes up the Down Under community of Focusing practitioners, students and interested people. With a focus on chapter 11 of Gendlin’s iconic text, Focusing, we opened the space to a consideration on what participants' experiences of being listened to were and in turn, their experience of listening to others. Useful and nourishing ideas were shared among those gathered.

In this Roundtable we will continue that exploration, drawing upon personal experiences and understandings of what is meant by “Deep Listening”. We will also take the discussion a step further with the aid of chapter 12 of Gendlin’s Focusing. Gendlin wrote, "Once people experience what is at first vague and murky opening into step after step of one’s inner detail and change, then living without this in people becomes lonely and shallow." (p.177).

We invite you to join us and share your thoughts and experience on this topic. Some ideas we will consider include:

•    Focusing as a mindful and embodied practice.
•    Developing a Focusing Community Downunder, with Deep listening, the Pause, Space, Presence and relationships.
•    Focusing, relationships and everyday life.

Other issues may emerge from our mutual exploration during the Roundtable.

What to expect from Focusing Roundtables:  Each Focusing Roundtable is designed to promote informal peer-to-peer conversation. Rather than acting as expert presenters, the Hosts will serve as conversation moderators to encourage sharing and exploration of the topics from the participants’ own perspectives.  All participants’ sharings are welcome and valuable, no matter what level of experience or knowledge you have on the topic. To preserve the nature of informal conversation, the program will be offered live only and no recordings will be available. Registration is limited and on a first-come, first served basis. Participants are encouraged to create follow up opportunities for connection among themselves after the Roundtable.

Focusing Roundtables are presented as a free benefit for members of TIFI. If you are not currently a member, you may attend this Roundtable by becoming a TIFI member at https://focusing.org/page/join-or-renew, and then return to this page to register. By joining at the $25 Friend Level or higher, you will be eligible for this and all future Focusing Roundtables and other benefits of membership during the year following your membership date.

Registration is limited and available on a first-come, first served basis until the spaces fill. Aussies and Kiwis will be offered an early opportunity to register before February 14 AEDT, at which time registration will continue to be open for our Down Under members as well as for the rest of the world-wide Focusing community. Registering early will help us greatly.

We warmly encourage you to register and settle down with us to join other Down Under Focusers passionate to explore topics of interest and get to know each other better. If you have an area of interest, curiosity or passion you would like to see opened up in a future Roundtable, please let us know.

About your hosts:

Sue Burrell is a counsellor and Focusing Trainer, and trained in Archetype and Dream Pattern Analysis with the Assisi Institute (USA). She co-hosts the Sydney Changes Group. She is keen to see the Down Under Focusing community connect and grow, and become a mutually supportive resource for developing Focusing in our increasingly polarized world.

Heather Rogers is a Counsellor and Focusing Therapist in Private Practice living in Palmerston North, North Island, New Zealand. She is a Focusing Teacher, Certifying Coordinator and member of TIFI’s Membership Committee. She is committed to training and developing the Focusing Community in New Zealand, with passion for incorporating Focusing in her daily life and work.

Frances Conchie Stanley is a Focusing student who has completed the first four levels and has benefited greatly from the many Focusing retreats, workshops and courses run within the broader Focusing community. Frances has an academic background in Psychology and Sociology, an enduring love of language and looks forward to pursuing further training, connecting and building relationships with like-minded professionals, academics and students of Focusing.