The Heart and Soul of Writing: Focusing as the Way In

Registration closed. Offering is full and waitlist is lengthy.

Friday, April 17, 2020  from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm Eastern Time

Live attendance required - no recording.

Times worldwide: convert to your time zone

The TIFI Membership Committee is pleased to offer this series of Focusing Roundtables designed especially for members of the Institute. If you are not a member, please join at https://focusing.org/course/membership, and 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.

You don’t need to take a book off a shelf to know there is a voice inside that is waiting to speak to you, and behind that was someone who truly believed that if he or she spoke, someone would listen. 

--Susan Orlean, The Library Book

In the creative writing process words have the power to express and transport our deepest and precious lived experiences from inside us to the world that is waiting to receive them. Focusing can be used to enhance every aspect of writing. When we go inside and make space for whatever comes, we can discover the seed of something. A felt sense can guide us to find the right words or images to shape it, and a felt sense can be used later on for revision.

In this experiential Roundtable we will work as a group and with dyads to discover and write a story that wants to be told. There will be opportunities to share and discuss our process. Issues we might explore together include:

• Who is the audience you intend for your writing?  Or is it just for you?
• Is your writing to honor someone?
• How do you work with the inner critic as it relates to your writing or writing process?
• In what ways can writing be a path to healing?

Please have pen and paper and a few index cards (if possible).

Who might be particularly interested in attending this Roundtable? 

• Anyone who has a story and would like to express it in writing.
• Anyone who wants to journey more deeply to find a story close to their heart.
• Anyone who is curious about the creative writing process and its power to transform.
• Anyone who has previously felt shy about writing.

CONNECTION>CONVERSATION>COMMUNITY

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.

About your hosts:

Susan Rudnick, LCSW is a longtime FOT practicing in NYC. She has recently published a memoir, Edna's Gift: How My Broken Sister Taught Me To Be Whole. Her writing journey took 10 years and was a transformative healing experience. Focusing informed her whole process, enabling her to connect in a vivid way to her childhood closeness with Edna and find the narrative thread that shaped her whole work.

Robin Kappy, LCSW is a Focusing-oriented psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice with over 30 years of experience. Robin’s presentations and essays about “beauty” have been very well received. Also a visual artist, her drawings and paintings have appeared in many venues.