Oceania Focusing Roundtable - The Coracle on the High Seas: Focusing as a Navigational Guide

Thursday, February 10, 2022 - 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm EDT (New York - US)

Friday, 11th February, 2022 - 10:00 am - 12:00 pm AEDT (Sydney - Australia)

Times worldwide: convert to your time zone

A coracle is an ancient small, round-shaped boat, its wooden frame covered in animal skins. In this Roundtable, we are imagining ourselves as the coracle, our skin and sensory perceptions connecting us, like the coracle on the ocean, to the vast, constantly changing  environment in which we live.

In times of transition and change, the territory we must navigate is the unknown, the new, what is sometimes called the Mystery. There is no map - the  path is being created as we go.

In Focusing as we explore our inner space, we usually close our eyes, and look to the body, to explore the more, the unknown.

Andrew and Sue in their own exploration found the image of the coracle on the high seas really resonated for them as a metaphor for how it feels to find our way in challenging and often confronting new situations.

Andrew will use this image of the coracle on the high seas as a departure point for our investigation into how we can use our own stories, experiences, Focusing Presencing and the support of each other in connection as we navigate the high seas in this time of multiple transitions and upheavals.

We will consider the following questions, using our Focusing skills like scouts to sense into new terrain. We will be sensing into the implicit intricacy of the situations or paths we feel led to explore, or which are emergent between and among us.

• What if we choose to go out and meet the Mystery, the Unknown?
• Where are we going, or where is life leading us?
• Can we trust the ‘current’ that carries us, and the winds that drive us?
• Are our different experiences connected and of service to each other?

Each of us will focus on our own meeting with the Mystery, the Unknown, and find a way to share in a way that fits our journey. We will sense into the implicit intricacy of the situations or paths we feel led to explore, or which are emergent between and among us.

We also will explore these questions In pairs and small groups, When two of us focus around a common centre/situation, what does that centre offer us. We will consider how the other person’s experience added to our own.

Habits, patterns, and rules from our ‘normal ‘ lives can assist when meeting the new and unknown, but they can also hinder us and blind us to seeing what is really there. In our group sharing, we will consider what we have noticed about ourselves in navigating without a map, staying with the unknown, and tolerating uncertainty.

Andrew will share some of the helpful and unhelpful personal and cultural patterns he has written about in his book Evolutionary You. His book shows a new path forward for our world, which, like Focusing, values the Whole, and like Focusing, offers Inclusion and acceptance, valuing the contribution of those normally Excluded or Exiled.

Who might be particularly interested in attending this Roundtable?

Any Focusers who are curious and interested in this topic.

CONNECTION>CONVERSATION>COMMUNITY

What to expect from Focusing Roundtables: 

We warmly encourage you to register and settle down with us to join other Oceania Focusers and Focusers from around the world who are 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.

Each Focusing Roundtable is designed to promote informal peer-to-peer sharing. Rather than acting as expert presenters, the hosts will serve as sharing moderators to encourage exploration of the topics from the participants’ own perspectives. All participants’ sharing’s are welcome and valuable, no matter what level of experience or knowledge you have on the topic. The main emphasis is on connecting and listening to each other.

To preserve the nature of informal conversation, the program will be offered live only and no recordings will be available. Participants are encouraged to create follow up opportunities for connection among themselves after the Roundtable.

The TIFI Membership Committee is pleased to offer this series of Focusing Roundtables designed especially for members of the Institute. Roundtables will afford members a valuable opportunity to engage in casual peer-to-peer conversation with other members who share Focusing-related interests.  If you are not a member, please join at http://www.focusing.org/membership, then return to this page to register.

About your hosts:

Andrew MacDonald hosts consciousness groups for Pathfinding in the new wilderness" of our day. His book Evolutionary YOU is about welcoming the outsider and finding a way to tell our truth where we are.  Andrew became a Focusing trainer in 1995 and lives near Ottawa, Canada. Subscribe at andrewmacdonald.net to get key ideas delivered to your inbox.

Sue Burrell is a counsellor and Focusing Trainer with a background in education. She has trained in Jungian Archetype and Dream Pattern Analysis with the Assisi Institute (USA). Sue co-hosts the Sydney Changes Group, which meets in person and via Zoom on alternate months. All welcome. Details can be found on TIFI website at https://focusing.org/events.