By Rachel Hendron, Group Facilitator
"I understood that one could accept a difference without turning it into a conflict. I also learned that it was possible to talk simply about oneself while respecting the presence of others. Having one's place while being with others" (11/19/2025)
I’d like to share my experience of offering “Being Focusing Together,” the name I gave to a group that met six times between May 2025 and March 2026 as a free offering for TIFI members that will reconvene in September 2026. The group is open to new and previous participants at each meeting with no commitment to attend in the future. We meet at a time that works best for people in the Americas and Europe. Since it is in English without translation, it is limited in that way to English-speaking members, but perhaps there could be similar groups in other languages and times set up in the future.
In writing my reflections of this group, I wanted to spread the experience of others anonymously throughout. I am also writing and sharing this experience from a "real wanting" and not leading from my habitual worrying that it's too long, slow, specific, unclear to share; instead, just like the group I want to describe, I hope that there is something here that you might find useful to your wanting.
“Being Focusing Together” came about as a response to the question, “If I wanted to offer something through TIFI, what would it really be?” Instead of guessing what people want and responding to that guess, the experiment began by asking myself what I would really like to bring!
"I love how Rachel in such a beautiful, respectful way gave the participants soft and encouraging frames."
"I was surprised in the final meeting that I wanted to move more, even to swivel in my chair, and that I had been restricting myself. I have been restricting myself in this way all my life, I think, which is probably why I have sought out somatic practices. But movement is kind of taboo in so many social situations." (03/18/2026)
My capacity to ask myself this brave question - what would I really like to bring to this - is a new felt edge for me, which has emerged from years of Focusing study with Charlotte Howorth, Lynn Preston and Jeffrey Morrison, years of dyadic practice, offering Focusing-Oriented therapy, years of fortnightly Focusing Supervision, reading Gene in “The Client’s Client” and “The Obedience Pattern” (both 1984), and considering quotes like the one below shared by Rob Parker in our philosophy group, in order to begin to expect to find a “real wanting” in myself.
“Nobody has time any more...Most of what we do all day is not from a real wanting; it’s from what we think we should want. There is a dictatorship and we work all day for this dictator, who is us. Or else we indulge ourselves in some way, we just passively sit and do something that is less stressful. But the trick of being free of something, is to find the real wanting." - Gene Gendlin, Facebook post (3/22/2012)
Habitually, any TIFI offering would typically be rooted in one of my patterns and labels: as Focusing Coordinator-in-Training, a trained mainstream teacher, a Montessori teacher, a psychotherapist with a couple of masters degrees. I know I “could” and probably “should” put forward a curriculum and plans to share Focusing and hold group process, but I have no “real wanting” to distribute even my own formulated content, and I shudder at managing group dynamics. Despite being very grateful to the other people who have taught me so much, the prospect of doing this leaves me instantly a little weary so I realized I’d need to look beyond my habit.
"I loved the article and the reflections expressed about it. I would love to explore more ways to bring it to daily life." (09/19/2025)
"I’d like for him [Gene] to have explicated much more about this!!!" (09/17/2025)
A few years ago, an opportunity came up to study A Process Model and Experience and the Creation of Meaning with Rob Parker so rather than pick from a known option, I joined and, at around the same time, heard Lynn Preston recommend Gene’s paper, “Fitting In and Pouring Out” (an unpublished manuscript which had once been left in her living room and has now made its way into the Gendlin Online Library). These “brewed” over the next two years and slowly became a murky wanting rather than anything definitive. It became a wanting to share something with others where I/we could be at the edge of our/my felt sensing, with others, relating from felt sensing and inviting others to do the same; witnessing what might happen in a Focusing space larger than a dyad; being in a carefully attentive group where the focus was not shared planned content; a sharing of process and a noticing of falling back on old habits of social chat or teaching and having choice about this. The challenge and interest for me was that I didn’t know how to do this, I didn’t know what it was like, and I wasn’t prepared – I hadn’t done this before. I’d seen excellent teachers and group process holders, but what would happen when I invited the group? How would we stay in the Focusing space? I found my “real wanting” and noticed that the phrase “to be wanting” means both that I am inadequate to the task and I am ready for what is implied.
"I wondered what it would be like to play in a space about finding myself in language and in relationship with others, especially in Zoom." (03/18/2026)
"The time felt precious. It reminded me of being in nature, just sitting, being with the trees.. Both relaxing and energizing. Experiencing what could be called "imagined reciprocity" since I can't really know if the resonance I feel with a tree or with an unknown person in a zoom box is a real thing…" (03/18/2026)
So, together with TIFI and Jill Kelly who volunteered to do tech support, I invited others to join us online in two-hour spaces to bring their “how” of Focusing and see what would happen if we were to “be Focusing” without any conditions regarding previous readings or classes, to simply come for the opportunity to experience ourselves (Being) while attending to felt sense (Focusing) with others (Together). I had committed to my wanting!
"[I liked] the group dynamic and listening to some people express what they were feeling." (03/18/2026)
"[I enjoyed] meeting folks from all levels of practice." (01/21/2026)
As the time grew closer to our first meeting I “found” (based on my imaginings) I needed to inform the group, just once, about all the information I could find about Gene’s work with groups and the social sphere. I leaned on Lynn Preston’s expertise to research Gene’s thinking on groups, to provide a historical basis, to prove my thinking was rigorous and to show I’ve done my homework. In doing this, I was preparing group content despite my real wanting. Additionally, my experience of groups told me that as a group initiator I was to help people manage. Groups can be scary places, and hosts make them less scary. As I think we’ve all emerged from groups quite traumatized at some point, I didn’t want “my” group to be traumatic, so I outlined protocols suitable to Zoom tools but quickly realized I was making just what I didn’t want, and it was all starting to feel more uncomfortable as I planned for our ease!
"[It was a] very welcoming environment, very spacious, [with] no frequent responsive commentary by the host."
"I still think a little more invitation at the beginning so everyone’s voice is in the room as we start really makes for a stronger group feel." (11/19/2025)
After we first met, I felt some personal relief that I wasn’t rebuffed and the content was not perceived as inaccurate, but it didn’t do much for the process. When we spoke it was similar to all the other usual social dynamics.
"The first time I attended I wasn't able to understand much of what was said. The other two times I attended we did a lot more focusing, which made it very valuable for me" (03/18/2026)
"The group “dropping down” to listen to the subtext beyond on the words. Rachel's welcoming openness, staying with process of no expectations." (11/19/2025)
The next three times we met we spent more time talking spontaneously, noticing how turn taking, pauses, silences and the wider group rhythm on Zoom are harder for us all to manage than when we are physically together. The lack of choices about eye contact and body language made it harder to identify and classify the type of silence, and so we were less sure what we thought about it and what we wanted/should/could to do about it.
"I feel there are so many mysteries here, maybe I would say the whole thing about no expectations and inclusive, safe, co-creative space feels huge. Rachel's leadership." (03/18/2026)
The most intriguing session for me was the fifth. The group became really bogged down with an uncomfortable silence we couldn’t shake. It felt painful, rudderless, effortful and long. This lead me to think about my role as the host. I noticed I was afraid of asking people about their felt sense. I perceived something bad could happen in a group if I directed attention towards a person’s felt sense; that I had a duty of care to others to keep them away from something too personal and vulnerable to share with the group. I noticed I was honoring people’s privacy at the expense of inviting a deepening and felt-sensing. I was afraid that they might fall apart and be exposed and then I would be a cause of harm, and that fear (a felt fear which had been implicit that I just noticed) was driving my participation. Then I was able to notice it wasn’t about the actual people in the group but the imaginary ones, where there is no experiential ground.
"There was a lot of silence, and silence often says more than words." (03/18/2026)
"Speaking from felt sense vs speaking NOT from there - that's a huge area of study and practice..." (03/18/2026)
Studying with Rob helped me to see I was treating this group as a social/pattern unit, the way a “kind” teacher would, or maybe a “nice” therapist or “sweet” Montessori teacher. We were all going to have a lovely time and everyone would come back safe with no scrapes or grazes. All I had to do was ensure that I didn’t really do what I wanted, and I’d probably try to stop anyone else doing what they wanted too. Instead, I needed to do what I was offering to do. To hold a Focusing space, all I had to do is be on the side of the felt sensing, to be inviting more felt sense reflecting, to be clear in my knowing there is no “right” way of doing this, to be vigilant for that inner critic which shuts things down, and to be politically on the side of choice, consent, opening up of dialogue, and encouragement, and to not fall into habit.
"I liked the challenge of being in the large group, the option to have mic on, the permission." (03/18/2026)
"Love it. think it should be further developed" (09/19/2025)
Happily, we still had one more group in the series where I could bring this concept to experience. I could be on the side of my real wanting and not lost in my own patterning/habits/obedience to something other than this! I could offer a Focusing space in which I would be a confident cultivator of my felt sensing - a weeder-outer of the inner critic in me to find this new space which I know is attentive and respectful of privacy, and safety and is directed towards experiencing, the process of checking in real time, and making choices from there.
"The lesser talking 'about,' the better for me" (03/18/2026)
"I came to realize how complex and fascinating it is." (01/22/2026)
I realized that this group was teaching me about the relating I had a real wanting to feel, to be more familiar with ourselves rather than refine our habits, to experience freshly and to do this together. To feel into what it is like to felt-sense with someone present; for us to do this together, to have only words when we feel much more than words; to know more and to know that we can’t express it, but to try to say something of this edge place anyway. To take conceptual understandings into the felt realm together allows me to experience the limits of my understanding, to experience into what I predict and imagine, and I can’t do that without you, so we find ourselves interdependent. We are each other's body-environment, each of us experiencing this from our different “places” that cannot be fully shared, so I thank each participant so much for joining me because we can’t learn without experiencing and experience without learning. I can only guess about why each person came, so I try to let you speak for yourself.
"Compared to this last session, please don't change too much! In facilitating these sessions you're sharing such a well-doing, even healing, space" (03/18/2026)
"Good and so much more that could be said or explored." (11/19/2025)
As we attempt to dangle right on the edge of our experiencing of felt meaning together without falling off, I hope you have found something of interest to you here and invite anyone interested to join us later this year.
Rachel Hendron is a Certified Focusing Therapist and Trainer, she is an Accredited BACP Psychotherapist and Supervisor and works remotely from England. She is very happily studying Gendlin’s Philosophy of the Implicit, Amerta Movement, making art and working as she travels through her website https://reset.cc/. She led a series of gatherings online, free for members of The International Focusing Institute, called Being Focusing Together, which will resume in September 2026.