Note From Catherine
Dear friends,
At the beginning of summer, we launched the Stepping Up campaign. I am delighted to say that we have raised about $60,000 of our $75,000 goal, and we hope you'll help get us over the top! Thank you to those who created Facebook pages for us to help out. We are excited that this is the first major capital campaign that the Institute has had, incorporating several important initiatives:
-Bringing Focusers to the Weeklong who don't have the resources to pay all their own costs. In addition to money for the Janet Klein scholarship, which has been long established to help this happen, the Stepping Up campaign is helping three wonderful Salvadorans to attend. Please see this video (in Spanish) where they talk about their hopes and dreams for deepening their work in Focusing by being with us in Chile this January!
-Funding the Institute's Gendlin Center for Research. The Gendlin Center's mission is to promote research which will demonstrate the efficacy of Focusing, as well as furthering Gene's philosophy. The Steering Committee has just announced a grant for those conducting psychological research. Very exciting!
-Creating a powerful, multi-lingual website. Our new site will allow our Certified Focusing Professionals (Trainers and Coordinators) to upload information about their offerings easily, in their own languages. It will allow us to have a modern site which is much more user-friendly. All this is going to mean that when people are looking for how to learn Focusing or find all the great resources that are out there, they'll be much more able to find them. We can't wait!
-Strengthening our connections. Our membership committee has done a great deal to help our members connect with one another. One member of the committee, Mariana Pisula, has written an article all about their amazing work. There is still so much more to do!
If you haven't done so already, please make your donation in this first phase of our Stepping Up campaign. We are stepping up, and we want you at our side!
With warmest regards,
-Catherine Torpey, Executive Director
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The International Focusing Institute has launched a special fundraising campaign called Stepping Up. This campaign will radically boost our ability
- to nurture growing communities of Focusers in resource-poor areas
- to support those teaching Focusing
- to make sure that Focusing takes its rightful place in academia
- to connect you with our community
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The Board,
the International Leadership Council
and the Nominating Committee
NOMINATING COMMITTEE: The Nominating Committee has been hard at work. It now meets year-long, so that when it's time to nominate new people to the Board or the International Leadership Council (ILC), it has had a long process of felt sensing and deliberation. We've incorporated more Skype interviews with more people. We are always interested in learning of people who might not be on our "radar," so we encourage anyone to offer names of potential candidates to us at [email protected]. We are nearly ready to give names to the Board, and an email will be sent to all members very soon. Members of the current Nominating Committee are: Paula Nowick (chair), Dana Ganihar, Patricia Manessy, Sergio Lara, and Catherine Torpey.
FROM THE ILC:
Thank you to Akira Ikemi
and Hejo Feuerstein
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Current ILC members |
Akira Ikemi's first 3-year term on the International Leadership Council (ILC) ended in the summer of 2017. Board and ILC members are eligible to serve second 3-year terms; Akira agreed to stay on for one extra year, in order to help the ILC launch its Pilot Program for the Naming of Coordinators. We are grateful for the tremendous work that Akira did, as one of the original group of six (the other originals being Hejo Feuerstein, Barbara McGavin, Marine de Fréminville, Ruth Hirsch, and Sergio Lara). Together with them and the members who have joined since, he helped to figure out what this new entity called the ILC would be. He was also the major force behind having a proposal on the Naming of Coordinators to bring to the Coordinators' meeting in Cambridge in 2016. Thanks, Akira, for all your hard work for - especially considering that most meetings ended around midnight Japan time!
Hejo Feuerstein's term has ended, and he is leaving us at the end of summer. Hejo was also one of the original group which formed the ILC, and so he has helped to shape what the ILC is today. He has been one of the most loyal attendees of its meetings over four years. At two meetings a month, plus joint meetings with the Board, he has attended well over 100 meetings. Hejo's passion has been in looking at how the Institute is organized, and what model of organization will be the most sustainable for the long haul. His background in organizational theory and his belief in self-directed leadership has given him a strong vision, which has been an important part of challenging us all to think about our structure. His warm listening presence and his delightful sense of humor - which sneaks out, even on Zoom meetings - will be very much missed. Thank you, Hejo, for your years of faithful service!
FROM THE BOARD: The Board is in the process of shifting toward a portfolio model, where each members has an area of the Institute's work for which they act as a liaison and conduit of information. This is designed to help implement the Strategic Plan and to strengthen the formation of committees which can offer entry points for volunteers to get involved in the Institute. Portfolio areas include Governance, Finance, Programs, Outreach and Fundraising. The Board is also actively involved in the Stepping Up fundraising effort; some members are offering classes to generate income, or reaching out to friends and colleagues to support the Institute as it works to "build an organization that has the capacity to keep Focusing alive and available to everyone" (goal 1 from our Plan).
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Gendlin Grant for
Original Research in Psychology
The inaugural Gendlin Center grant is a competitive award for promising original research advancing the Focusing process as an evidence-based practice. Priority is given to research design that has high potential for publication in a quality peer-reviewed journal. Depending on the needs of applicants, there may be several smaller awards or one award, for a total distribution of up to $5,000.
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TIFI is Hiring!
- These are remote positions; no need to live in the New York area.
- To be paid, you must have the right to work in the USA, although you can reside elsewhere.
- If you would like to discuss volunteering for one or more of these jobs, please write to [email protected]. Volunteers do not need to have legal status in the USA.
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Plaque honoring Eugene T. Gendlin
in Vienna, Austria
The Viennese community of Person-Centered therapists arranged a very special memorial for Gene Gendlin.
On May 2, 2018, a year and a day after his passing, a ceremony was held unveiling a plaque in Gene's memory in the Alsergrund district of Vienna. The plaque is at the Erich Fried Realgymnasium, the school which Gene was attending when he and his family had to flee the country.
Brigitte Pelinka with Vienna city councilor Michael Ludwig
under Gendlin's plaque, and speaking at the unveiling ceremony.
Click on a photo for more photos of the event.
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A Pilgrimage to Eugene Gendlin's Vienna
by Akira Ikemi
Akira Ikemi is a professor of psychotherapy at Kansai University, a clinical psychologist, a Certifying Coordinator for TIFI, and one of the founders of the Japan Focusing Association. 本稿の日本語意訳はこちらをご覧ください。
The memorial plaque for Eugene Gendlin is fixed on the façade of the school where he attended, the Erich Fried Realgymnasiumin Vienna. As Gene is an Ehrenzeic hen der Stadt Wien (Medal of Honor, honorary citizen of Vienna), the unveiling of the plaque was attended by the Mayor of Vienna in May this year. Two months later, Lore Korbei organized a "Gendlin Walk" at the Conference of the World Association of Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy held at the University of Vienna. An international crew of 28 people signed up and attended the tour.
Eager to find out about Gene's life in Vienna, we stepped out of the metro Line U1 at Schottenringand and exited onto the street. Just as our feet landed on ground level, Lore gestured for us to look to the left hand side. There, right in front of us, at 25 Rossauerlände in the 9th District, was a magnificent-looking building: the building where Gene lived until age 11. From a window inside this building, one would see the Danube Canal right in front, surrounded on both sides by beautiful parks. It reminded me of Gene's apartment in New York City's West Side, where he later lived. His window there provided a splendid view of the Hudson River. Here in Vienna, many Jews lived in the 9th District, and Lore commented that this was a bourgeois area. She said she could detect a faint bourgeois-Jewish accent when Gene spoke in German.
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Dr. Urbanek and Lore Korbei
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We walked for a block on this street and turned away from the canal, and in a short while, we assembled in front of the gymnasium (high school) where Gene attended. We were joined by the historian Dr. Urbanek, who taught history at this gymnasium. In 1996, Gene returned and talked to students in Dr. Urbanek's 11th grade class.
Dr. Urbanek showed us around the gymnasium. Inside on one of the walls was a plate with many names. These are the students who were suddenly "expelled" from the school in April 28th, 1938 when the Nazis came into control. Gene's name, "Eugen Gendelin" is found on this plate, and a picture of him hangs on top of another list, where the students are listed by class. We find Gene listed in "2 Klasse," as he was eleven years old at this time, in his second year at the gymnasium.
Lore recalls that after talking to the 11th graders, Gene stopped Lore as they were at the stairway. The smell of the school suddenly awakened a felt sense in Gene. He said "everything just came back," and he was flooded with memories. There were tears in his eyes. On another occasion, Gene told Lore that he was not afraid of the people of Vienna, but he was afraid of the buildings. The buildings were almost the same as they were in 1938, and so memories of those difficult times must have flashed back to him.
We left the school and walked about 20 minutes to Bezirksmuseum Alsergrund, where there was a special exhibit of Gene until October this year. At this museum, Lore read Gene's autobiographical account about his flight from Nazi-controlled Austria. I had read this many times before, but hearing it here, the words seemed to take on a heavy sense of history. We left the museum and took the trolley to the Shottentor metro station, where this pilgrimage to Gene's Vienna came to an end.
Special thanks to Lore Korbei and Dr. Urbanek.
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Memories of Gene - 1994 & 1996
by Lore Korbei
Lore Korbei is a Coordinator for the Institute. A native of Vienna, she speaks German, English, and Russian. She was very engaged in the Russian translation of Gene's book Focusing, and continues to work in Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, and Moscow. She lives in Vienna, and so acted as host to Gene and his wife, Mary, on a number of occasions.
1994 Portrait of Gene
Translated by Evelyn Fendler-Lee
It is a hot August evening as I arrive at the Focusing Summer School at the Humboldt-Haus in Achberg, Germany. As so often here, there is a summer camp atmosphere full of colorful, cheerful company. Glasses clink, and metal scratches on porcelain in between hugs, shouts, and intense conversations.
Is he already there? Gendlin, the guru? A lanky, hard-to-describe man with dark hair sits there at Johannes Wiltschko's table. That's him. I compare what I see to my memory of him in the video, "The Body's Own Psychotherapy." His short-sleeved shirt and "'50s" trousers bring back memories of my father's dress style.
I know his CV by heart, since we have been exchanging letters for more than a year in preparation for my article about him in the book Wien, wo Sonst!: Die Entstehung der Psychoanalyse und ihrer Schulen. He had sent me photos of his parents, childhood photos of himself, and his national school certificates - all illustrating a boy's life in the 9th district of Vienna in the 1930s. But this life came to an abrupt and cruel end with the invasion of Hitler's troops, and the flight of his family under dangerous circumstances.
Gendlin in Vienna, 1996
Translated by Marlys Mayfield
"No, this is not the first time that I have been back in Vienna since times past," he says to me as I wait for him that morning in front of the hotel. Vienna is now clean-scrubbed, shining, and festive-blue.
Later in the car, he says: "You know, it is not the people here that I withdraw from; what disturbs me is this city - the buildings that look just like they did in the past." For him "the past" is the year 1938.
We drive to his former school on Glasergasse by way of the boulevard Rossauerlände where the apartment in which Gendlin's family lived still stands.
At Glasergasse a group of youths await us with questions from their study of the Fascist era in Austria. Gene is ready to answer willingly, mostly very directly, seldom academically - and he speaks in German with the accent and syntax of a Viennese Jew.
It is only afterwards when we are on the stairwell going down that his feelings hit him: memories from his life as a boy in that ninth district in Vienna, a life that in 1938 came to an abrupt and horrible end. He stands for a while on the stairway, a man now deeply moved: a lanky, middle-aged, dark-haired treasure of a man.
In the following days, similar memories would return.
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The First Felt Sense Conference
Jan Winhall is director of Focusing on Borden in Toronto, Canada. She is a Coordinator with the Institute, a Focusing-Oriented Therapist (FOT), and is on the facilitation team for the 2019 Weeklong in Chile.
Walking towards the menorah at Hebrew Union College, my body returns to a place of goodbye to our founder Eugene Gendlin. First I notice a tightness in my upper chest... and then a warm holding of this place around my center as we are greeted by Focusing friends. The belonging and connection encircle a beautiful felt sense as we enter the space where we held Gene's memorial one year ago.
Click above to see more photos
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Membership Committee Update
by Mariana Pisula
Mariana Pisula is a Focusing Trainer in Buenos Aires, Argentina and a grief counsellor. She occupies many volunteer roles at the Institute, including translating, updating our Spanish language social media, hosting Cafecitos (read more below about these Spanish language online meetings), as well as being on the Membership Committee.
The Membership Committee currently has 12 members: Nada Lou (Canada), Jocelyn Kahn (USA), Wendi Maurer (USA), Susan Rudnick (USA), Tina Swyngedouw (Belgium), Roberto Larios (Mexico), Carolyn Copestake (Spain), Mariana Pisula (Argentina), Jane Quayle (Australia), Heather Rogers (New Zealand), Susan Lennox (USA), and Ana Zunic (France).
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Mariana Pisula |
As a member of the TIFI Membership Committee, I am pleased to update the international Focusing community on our heartfelt work to connect and build bridges with our members around the globe. A major emphasis of the Committee's work this year has been to create more member programs in languages other than English.
For the Spanish speaking community
- The Cafecitos series was created to connect Spanish-speaking members together and to expand our knowledge of Focusing-related issues. As of July 2018, we have presented 13 programs with participants from Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Spain, Guatemala, Italy, México, Portugal, and the United States. Our very special first guest was Beatrice Blake from El Salvador in September 2016 and João da Fonseca from Portugal was a recent guest, this past July.
- On the Institute's Spanish Facebook page, we post Spanish language Focusing articles, videos, events around the world, and much more!
- The Committee is putting the finishing touches on a new brochure entitled "Your Invitation to Join TIFI," which introduces students of Focusing to the benefits of becoming a TIFI member. This brochure is being translated into Spanish by committee member Roberto Larios.
- With the help of Focusing Trainers and Coordinators, we have been releasing Guided Focusing recordings of different languages on our YouTube and Insight Timer channels. Two of these attunements are in Spanish: one by Rosa Martínez from Spain and another by Paula Riveros from Colombia.
For the Italian speaking community
The first series of four Italian Focusing Roundtables, designed by and for Italian speaking members, were offered monthly from January through April 2018. Each Roundtable was hosted by Francesca Castaldi and Nicoletta Corsetti, who laid a fine foundation for TIFI's Italian language programming to carry forward.
For the German speaking community
The Weeklong Goes to Chile!
Although the Weeklong is not an activity of the Membership Committee, I want to highlight that, having in mind Mary's phrase that "Focusing belongs to everyone," the Institute is taking the 2019 Weeklong on the road to Punta de Tralca in Chile. Please be sure to check out information about the Weeklong in English or in Spanish.
We welcome your ideas and feedback. Please send your comments and suggestions to the Committee at [email protected].
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Annette Dubreuil is the Communications Director at Canada's Ecofiscal Commission and a Certified Focusing Professional from Toronto.
Last month, about 25 of us met in Niagara Falls, Canada, at the Mount Carmel Spiritual Centre for the second edition of Follow Your Flow, a Focusing retreat. Put together again by the capable hands of Beth Mahler (Wayne, New Jersey), Jan Winhall, and Nicole Mitchell (both from Toronto, Ontario), this year's retreat was as lovely as the first.
In Focusing, we teach that the body knows the right next step, but sometimes it is difficult to listen. Our perfectionistic or action-oriented voices often move us to show up for life. But the result can be that we end up tired and over-worked. At the Follow Your Flow retreat, we were encouraged to take our cues from our bodies - much like the falling water follows the shape of the Niagara gorge.
People came and went from sessions in their own time, speed, and way. For some of us, this meant skipping some of the socializing, and getting to bed super-early. For others, it meant taking a good walk. We Focusers really know how to be in the moment. And we had some lovely moments!
One of these was the opening ceremony, where as a group we enjoyed many moments of silence, as participants found their own time to share what was stirring for them. It was quiet, precious, and beautiful.
This year, we were lucky to have Bebe Simon in attendance. Bebe regaled us with some lovely stories of Gene. For example, when asked how Gene avoided being a guru, she related his answer: "A little honesty goes a long way." Bebe also shared with us her Love Exercise. If you haven't experienced it, you can check it out here on Youtube.
This retreat also had a number of interesting crossings. We had Maria Skoufas who crossed Focusing with collage, where we tapped into our unconscious to create a piece of art on which to Focus. Peter Ryan crossed Focusing with mindfulness, in a workshop on concentration and compassion. Meanwhile, Maria Vieira crossed Focusing with the Mandala of Being, and Nicole Mitchell crossed Focusing with writing.
On the Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy side, Lorri Pacheco explored spending time with hard feelings; Jan Winhall examined addiction with her Felt Sense Experience Model; Beth Mahler looked at pain; while Nancy Falls explored the role of listening. Finally, Marine de Fréminville conducted a workshop on "background feeling."
This retreat also had a beginner track. Here Jon Herberman worked with the Focusing attitude to foster compassionate listening. I explored Richard Schwartz's eight Cs of Self-Leadership (calm, curious, clear, compassionate, confident, creative, courageous, and connected) to see which part of our grounded selves our body would like us to carry forward. And Amona Buechler covered the classic 6 steps and the language of Presence.
Complete with a walk to the falls, good food, good laughs, some lovely morning wellness sessions - and of course a few Focusing partnerships - we had an enjoyable weekend retreat. We look forward to the next edition in 2020. Hope to see you there!
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L'Inconscio E' Il Corpo
Si, Ma Quale Corpo?
(The Unconscious is the Body; Yes, but Which Body?)
di Germana Ponte
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Germana Ponte
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Below, Germana Ponte, a Certifying Coordinator in Italy, reflects on one's implicit intelligence. The English translation is here.
Dopo 12 anni di pratica e insegnamento del Focusing, una cosa mi è chiara... non si tratta del corpo fisico in senso stretto. Certo, anche quest'ultimo è coinvolto nel processo di formazione del Felt Sense; ma c'è di più. E' Gendlin stesso a dire che il corpo nel Focusing è qualcosa di più... di più esteso del corpo fisico. Io direi che si tratta del nostro intero essere al mondo.
Esaminiamo da vicino un caso pratico. Se qualcuno mi insulta, una delle possibili percezioni dell'evento potrebbe essere: 'è come se avessi ricevuto un pugno nello stomaco'. Osservate però la particolarità, 'è come se...', non ho veramente ricevuto un pugno. Si tratta piuttosto di una impressione corporea che riassume tutta la complessità di questo evento. E' evidente che dietro a tutto questo c'è all'opera una forma di intelligenza che sa, sa tutto di me, sa cosa rappresenta per me la persona che mi sta insultando, sa il peso che ha nella mia vita questa cosa, e molto altro. E non si tratta di un'intelligenza cognitiva. Quest' ultima riassumerebbe l'evento in tutt'altra maniera: 'come si permette questa persona di insultarmi', o 'forse me lo merito', o 'cosa ho fatto a questa persona perché si comporti così?', e così via...
E' proprio questa forma di intelligenza implicita che voglio mettere a fuoco. Sembra quasi che funzioni in sottofondo, indipendente dalla mia coscienza, eppure sa di me molto di più della mia parte cosciente. Elabora tutta la sua conoscenza alla velocità della luce e riassume il tutto con un Felt Sense, ricco di tutti gli elementi di questo piccolo dramma.
Vi faccio un esempio personale... se dovessi riassumere il nucleo portante della mia personalità, direi che più o meno all'età di 4 anni sono giunta a questa conclusione esistenziale: 'andate a fà un culo tutti (gli adulti), faccio da sola'. Questa decisione ha poi determinato il mio modo di stare al mondo. Ma quella piccola bambina ha davvero pensato e deciso questo? Direi proprio di no. Ho un altro ricordo significativo che risale più o meno a quel periodo, volevo tanto 'capire'... quello che mi dicevano gli adulti, cosa veramente intendevano, la natura di ciò che mi circondava, ecc... Capivo un pochino di tutto ciò e poi c'era una grande nebbia davanti a me. Questo è nell'ordine delle cose perchè la facoltà cognitiva era in via di formazione in quel periodo. Eppure c'era già una forma implicita di intelligenza in grado di tirare le somme di tutte le mie esperienze e prendere delle decisioni importanti, che avrebbero dato un imprinting di base a tutta la mia vita.
Questa intelligenza implicita impara certo dall'esperienza, tuttavia è troppo complessa e straordinaria per attribuirla solamente all'evoluzione. Qualcosa mi dice che è più simile a un Programma, un Software, che date le linee di base si sviluppa poi nell'interazione col mondo; o per meglio dire una serie di Programmi che accompagnano la vita sulla terra in tutte le sue forme e livelli evolutivi, e le consentono di giocare il gioco della vita. Sono anche dell'opinione che questi programmi di base, che poi si personalizzano, siano fondamentalmente 3 come le Parti della nostra personalità, e gestiscano i 3 livelli evolutivi: l'esistere, il fare, il pensare (quest'ultimo appartiene solamente all'essere umano, per ora).
In una parola, c'è molto di più in noi di quello che abbiamo compreso fin'ora sulla vera natura degli esseri viventi. E il Focusing è lo strumento migliore che io conosca adatto a svelare questo meraviglioso mistero, poiché consente una scienza soggettiva, dall'interno, come disse il nostro maestro. E quindi tocca a noi portare avanti il suo lavoro.
Se vi interessa approfondire il mio punto di vista su questo tema, vi consiglio di leggere il mio libro: Il Focusing e la Saggezza Del Corpo: Dalla Persona all'Essenza.
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Upcoming Courses and Workshops
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Sep 15-16
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(German language Roundtable)
Gastgeber Hanspeter Mühlethaler & Donata Schoeller
17. September
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Exploring the Realities & Possibilities
with Beatrice Blake, Jim Iberg, & Kevin Krycka
September 22
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Healing Emotional Eating
with Matanel Weissman
September 29
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Oct 10 - Nov 28
Oct 18 - Dec 6
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with Ifat Eckstein
October 24
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Nov 11 - 13
Mercy Retreat Center by the Sea in Madison, CT
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Advanced and Certification Focusing Weeklong 2019
Jan 13-18, 2019
La Casa de Ejercicios (Retreat House)
Punta de Tralca, Chile
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Resources
- Russian Translation by Alina Kayukova.
- Russian Translation by Lidia Uschakova.
This section of the Institute's website has a sortable list of major International Focusing events.
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Ways to Help the Institute
Volunteers Needed
We would love you to bring your energy, enthusiasm and skills to our work. Some of our needs:
- Offering classes and online conversations in your language
- Translating our communications into your native language, and bringing content from other languages into English
- Producing and curating media for our website and social media in all languages
- Copyediting articles that are submitted to our newsletter in all languages
- Creating guided Focusing recordings in all languages
- Initiating your ideas through us when they are in keeping with our strategic plan and our resources to collaborate
Send us your Focusing-related high-resolution photos! By sending them to us, you confirm that you have the rights to the photos. You also authorize us to edit and use the photos on our website and communications.
If you have air miles that you are willing to donate, please contact us. Your air miles could be used for a variety of purposes, such as to help the volunteer members of the Board of Trustees and the International Leadership Council to attend their face-to-face meetings, or to help someone being certified to attend the Weeklong. Please help give someone the chance for these meaningful connections!
Bequests
Have you considered remembering the Institute in your will? Leaving a bequest can be a way to continue to promote Focusing well into the future. Please contact us if you are willing to do this or have done so already. Thank you!
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