Creating Space for Lasting Change

Basic skills start HERE! Join us if you would like...

*to nurture trust within yourself and become your own best friend.

*to develop social and emotional skills that make it easier to be your authentic self in the world.

*to explore the essence of change and the healing capacity of our own body.

*to heal trauma and learn to support yourself and others in change processes.

*to rewire your autonomic responses toward safety, belonging and resilience.

*to experience yourself as living process, evolving toward a greater sense of wellbeing.

*to maintain a healthy brain in a world struggling to know what is real.

 *to begin your journey toward Certification as a Focusing Professional with The International Focusing Institute.

We will be do this by Creating Space. 

Together.

For ourselves and each other.

You might not quite know what that means and that is how it should be. We'll be unlearning our traditional cultural ways of relating with ourself and others and rewiring our neural connections toward safety and connection as our natural way of being in the world. Much of what we learn to do here revolves around the Gendlin's concept that 'change requires being in relationship'. Here are some of the inner relational skills we'll be developing here: 

Making space for what you sense inside.

Sensing body sensations, images, emotions, thoughts, movements

Forming relationships with what comes up

Staying with them

Sensing when they change

Sensing what fits and doesn’t - checking back for a yes, no or more...

Being able to tell whether what you observe is aware of you being with it

Being with one body sense even as you’re sensing something new arising

Enjoying positive feelings

We will all find our own way to doing this. We practice in partnership here to make it easier for us to stay with our own process. Companioning others comes with a variety of gifts, one being that our body finds new ways to communicate with us by observing what works for others.  

Part 1 is also a good place to return to after you have been Focusing for awhile. This is spiral learning and something new comes every time around. It still does for me and each of our Learn Focusing teachers and assistants.  

6  Wednesday evenings – 7-9 pm Eastern New York Time or your equivalent

Feb 4, Feb 11, Feb 25, March 11, March 25, April 8

*Note Daylight savings time changes occur on March 8

Course fee $180 ($130 to repeat)

Prerequisite: a Guided Session with a certified Focusing Professional, preferably within the previous year. I offer a 75 min First-time Guided Session for $115.

How do Creating Space Courses work

There are 4 parts to the Creating Space for Lasting Change journey. The first 3 parts consist of six 2 hour classes, the 4th part is longer, eight or nine 2 hours classes. I space the classes two weeks apart as I've found it's more likely that you'll find time to practice the exercise again outside of class with your partner. Plus, we want to be practicing these skills in our daily life, so you have more opportunities to develop these habits if we are together for a longer period.

You will receive a class roster, reading and partnership schedule at the beginning of class. I will send out an email one week before our class that covers the suggested reading preparation. In addition to the Inner Relationship Focusing we read from the two Student Manuals, I provide articles, poems and additional handouts that I design.

Class time is as experiential as possible. I review key points, offer demonstrations, answer questions, and lead whole group exercises. Breakout spaces are used for small group and paired exercises. You will be paired to practice a Focusing exercise with another participant each class session. There will also be an additional paired homework exercise between sessions that will take approximately 45 min.

Please plan to attend all sessions for the full time of the meeting. Missing one class is acceptable. I will provide an audio recording if you miss.

If you miss more than one class, we will sense into your situation together. It may be best to repeat this level or we find a way to give you extra practice. Each person's learning journey is unique. I do my best to support your process.