The International Focusing Institute
(Draft July 2022)
An important aspect of the ethos of Focusing is to respect all persons as individual human beings. The heart of experiential listening is to put aside assumptions and pre-conceived ideas as much as possible, in order to respect a person for who they are. Each person is influenced by their various identities, situations and communities, but never defined by them. There are many groups that are discriminated against in many contexts. Historically, this has included discrimination based upon sex and gender, race and ethnicity, national origin, economic status or caste, religious affiliation, and physical ability or disability. We recognize that none of us is immune to biases which make us elevate one group above another. Therefore, we strive to be ever more conscious of our individual and group prejudices.
We acknowledge that these ways of bias represent social frozen structures that are antithetical to our work. TIFI is an international non-profit organization, and with members in more than 50 countries, we are richly diverse internationally. We aspire to be still more diverse, equitable and inclusive, and to make our operations, governance and programming ever more open to all people.
Our efforts include:
- Seeing diversity, equity and inclusion as ongoing processes, always trying again as new understandings emerge
- Being willing to stay with the discomfort that can arise when we are confronted with our failure to be diverse, equitable and inclusive
- Navigating through any tensions which arise in a compassionate way, using our tools of Focusing and Thinking at the Edge
- Seeing diversity, equity and inclusion as connected to our mission “to keep Focusing alive and available to everyone”
- Intentionally expanding offerings that try to meet the needs of underrepresented constituencies
- Reducing barriers to participation for those living with disabilities
- Learning to become more aware of biases, unquestioned assumptions and habits which may create unwelcoming or unsafe spaces