Being Like a River: Felt Community in Action

Many of us value our Focusing partnerships as a place where we can be in Grounded Presence with ourselves and another human being from a very deep inner place. A Focusing partnership is a beautiful path of committed practice of witnessing and being witnessed, and over time can permeate even the most challenging aspects of life with a sense of openness to new possibilities.

A long-term Focusing partnership or a solo Focusing practice imply their own next step – a carrying forward into Felt Community. In this spirit we are inviting you to consider joining us next summer for a Wholebody Focusing Retreat where we will co-create activities that support the forward movement of life in each of us.

A free, undammed river flowing down a mountainside and into a floodplain will naturally spread out in many streams and rivulets that join and separate in an ever-shifting pattern. Hydrologists call this natural way of being a river a “braided river”. A Focusing Retreat is just like a braided river: many streams of felt sensing flowing together, flowing apart, whirling around deep pools, moving alluvial soils to a new place to create fertile ground for new growth.

“Co-created” is the operative word: unlike a Focusing workshop or week-long with a set program, the retreat is what we -you and I and he and she and they – make together. What does that look like? There will be learning activities facilitated by participants who wish to do so; time for partnerships and time alone; opportunity for vigorous movement assisted by canoes and bicycles; and many, many Heartfelt Conversations. ‘Smores and campfires are a definite possibility!

For more information and to reserve your spot please click here.

The retreat will take place on the shore of a lake on beautiful Vancouver Island in British Columbia, nestled within extensive gardens and a second-growth fir forest. We will invite our bodies to sense into the presence of nature and how it may support our Grounded Presence and well-being.

In a time of climate upheaval and warlike posturing that threaten human extinction, we believe that intentionally being with each other in a Focusing way is a gift to ourselves, and to present and future generations.

Ana Simeon, with Barb Fotta, Joya D’Cruz and Melinda Darer, the 2020 Retreat Planning Committee. Please contact Melinda@focusinginternational.org  if you would like more information.

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