Kevin McEvenue's Wholebody Focusing Blog
“When a part of me is able to feel loved, it awakens to its own healing!”
Christel Kraft is one of the original focusers who worked with Gene Gendlin when he first started teaching focusing. She has been a life long focuser and is now in her 80’s. During a recent Monthly Gathering of WBFers sponsored by Focusing Initiatives International, Christel shared with the group how focusing helps her connect to how her life is now.
It is important to document events in which the distance between body wisdom and our conscious selves grows smaller.
My Wholebody Focusing practice is mostly silent. I move into grounded presence and give my body permission to lead in the ways it needs. Automatic or spontaneous movements emerge. Words or images might surface, but not necessarily. I eventually settled on this type of practice because it allows me to remain in grounded presence in a deeper and more sustained way. Without the need to search for words or images, I do not get triggered out of grounded presence as easily, and I don’t have to worry about whether I am doing something “right” or if I’m addressing what is needed. My body takes care of that. Whatever emerges from my body is what it needs. I just need to give what emerges in my awareness equal regard and my consent.
Two dominant movements have consistently emerged. The first one is how every session starts. If I stand, my legs shake from the hips to the ankles. This movement first came to me during an automatic movement Qigong session many years ago. If I am sitting, my feet lift off the floor and shake differently. I have a vague sense of what is behind these movements. The leg movements seem to have a cleansing quality. It feels like a release of built-up tension or static that might get in the way of what my body might need.
The second dominant movement usually emerges while my legs are still shaking. My arms shoot up over my head and stay there. My arms can be moving or still. This second movement emerged during a foundational session about an image that has been with me for a long time—an image of a small bird with damaged wings that stubbornly refused to change in any way. This movement emerged during a health crisis.
In a grounded state, I brought my awareness to how this crisis was affecting my body. My arms flew up at the same time, and a Kundalini-like sensation of a tornado arose from my feet and moved toward the top of my head. My understanding of this movement is that it was a moment when this little bird tested its wings and found they actually worked. This was a turning point in this health crisis. This movement emerges each time I am in grounded presence, reminding me that anything is possible and giving me courage. Both of these dominant movements ebb and flow through my sessions in relation to whatever else emerges.
YongWei Xu lives in a small village, Wu Xi, outside of Shanghai, China. She has been studying Wholebody Focusing with Karen Whalen and her team since 2009. YongWei talks about how WBF has helped her to stop over-thinking her decisions. Her new ability to connect to the physical body and pay attention to physical symptoms, like tense shoulders, helps her connect to her emotions. Instead of running from one goal to another, she pauses to be with what each goal means to her. This process brings her to the question “Is this the life I really want?”
For YongWei, Heartfelt Conversation is “not just a little chat… It really comes from my heart.” It is the way that she and her friends feel united with each other and it helps her to feel less lonely.
In her small village, YongWei teaches Wholebody Focusing. What her friends, her group and her clients learn is a WBF lifestyle to support their daily life. The focusing community provides a warm place to use their curiosity to explore new things about themselves and each other together.
YongWei also offers us a New Year’s wish that, if you have not already learned focusing, you have an opportunity to learn. This will help you have more fun and happiness in your life.
Is this the Life I really want? in You Tube
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Many of us who are Wholebody Focusers have learned concepts and practices from many other modalities. In a workshop many years ago, I learned about the concept of “heart’s desire.” The practice I was taught in this workshop was to silently wish yourself your heart’s desire and then silently wish those around you their heart’s desire. We also learned that a true heart’s desire can only be for our highest and greatest good.
I live in New York City and take public transportation so I have ample opportunities to live this practice. It has helped me learn so many things. First, I struggled to remember to wish myself my heart’s desire. It would be ten minutes of concentrating on others before I remembered myself. Then mentioning me felt quite “selfish.” Eventually, it took less and less time to remember me and wishing myself my heart’s desire gave me a surge of energy.
Then I noticed how judgmental I was. I vowed to wish everyone in my subway car or bus their heart’s desire but I felt negative feelings coming about some people. I had to recognize that harsh part of myself that is so critical. Often the criticism would be about someone’s hairstyle or clothing but it also showed up when people seemed different from me too. My practice became noticing what came for me when I thought about wishing a particular person their heart’s desire. I would acknowledge what was there and let it go. When I added the wish for that person, my heart and the criticism would soften. It also helped me be with how all that criticism that emerged was really about me. This practice helped me be with both the wish to generate love for others along with a fierce need to separate myself through criticism of others. I needed hold those parts with equal regard. This eventually has led to much less criticism for myself and for unsuspected random citizens of NYC.
Wholebody Focusing Haiku # 12
Needing forgiveness
Of myself and my family.
Let my body move.
Diana Scalera
Being in contact with our energetic bodies means that we have cycles of awareness, feeling stuck, movement, not knowing, and healing. Our bodies also respond to the seasons and the times of the year. The holiday season can be a loving time and can also have some peril. The Haiku that came these past nine days were about what was cycling through me that was preparing for the holidays.
Wholebody Focusing Haiku # 10
A new movement comes
My hand on my crown moving.
Connection to my core.
Wholebody Focusing Haiku # 11
Not knowing is there
To help us be with ourselves
Until we are ready.
Wholebody Focusing Haiku # 12
Needing forgiveness
Of myself and my family.
Let my body move.
Wholebody Focusing Haiku # 13
Regular partners
Begin to find parallels
Parts that need your love.
Wholebody Focusing Haiku # 14
Holiday fears rise
When I think about all that.
Holding space for me.
Reiki Haiku # 5
Universal life
force
Please enter my body now.
Thank you for your help.
Reiki Haiku #6
Many ways to share
Your Reiki practice with world
Self, other, distance.
Reiki Haiku # 7
Do you love yourself?
My first Reiki teacher asked.
I became silent.
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“What is in it for me!” How selfish! Good experience in self loving and so much more….
Going Back to Basics – Why do I want to do this thing called Focusing – Wholebody Focusing.
What is in it for me?
I am very surprised what came in me when I asked myself this question, especially “What is in it for me!” How selfish! Good experience in self loving and so much more….
But just the right question?
It is about me, the felt sense of me! Finding me….thank you Gendlin for framing this experience for us.
Does something come for you too as you feel/hear/see me say this?
Kevin
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Our bodies’ inherent ability to heal waits for us to give our attention to what is present, continuously observing what is truly there with equal regard and accompanying our bodies as they explore their own healing in their own time and their own way.
This blog is based on the work of Kevin McEvenue. It is special because it is dedicated to those who seek healing by connecting to available abundant, benevolent energy to support the body’s healing wisdom. Stories of practitioners’ and teachers’ experiences lead us through their own healing .
The Blog is a resource with followers from over 60 countries and posts in English, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Norwegian, and Swedish. One can find examples of how special Wholebody Focusing can be and how it supports your special emotional needs. At the same time, it is also a source of beauty. The authors use prose, poetry, art, photography, music, and video to help you understand their work. Each author plans and designs their posts to express the power of their experience of this practice.
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Our bodies’ inherent ability to heal needs us to focus on what is present, continuously observing what is genuinely there. We do this with equal regard for whatever we find and accompany our bodies as they explore their own healing in their own time and their own way. This healing is deep and lasting. It doesn’t cause trauma, and we can experience new parts of ourselves emerging as they find their way.
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