Welcome to this very first newsletter from Grounded Space Focusing!
Grounded Space Focusing is a small, part time business run by Vera R. Fryd Lyngmo Vera is a Certified Focusing Professional, a counsellor and a part-time teacher of education, counselling and adult learning in university, in addition to designing and offering Focusing and Felt Sensing courses on beginners and advanced levels.
In this very first newsletter I would like to say a little bit about myself and share some thoughts about what I might say Focusing “is” and what it has done for me.
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I, Vera, have a strong love for, and belief in Focusing as both a way of living and something that might help people in everyday life, or as one of the tools one can use in life and also in therapy or counselling. I started GSFocusing many years ago but has only started slowly growing in the last year. Yay!
Below you can see what I am offering and being part of in May this year
I also like trying out drawing to illustrate and clarify the Fousing process and the like.
Here is one of my last sketches that attempts to capture some of the Felt Sensing and With-Sensing process that I am teaching in my Felt Sensing and With-Sensing Training (I have a feeling it will develop a bit still).
Some thoughts about what Felt Sensing/Focusing is or does
Someone asked me the other day if I could say in 6 seconds what Focusing is, and I said “No”. I think I said something about listening to the body, hearing your inner voice and all that, which is true, and today I had another thought about what Focusing or Felt Sensing is or does:
We often hear about body-mind methods, acceptance, allowing feelings and being compassionate towards ourselves and others. Which is really great, I think, and very much needed in the world.
This also makes me think that there is one thing that often is missing, and that I can’t really explain, but that is what I have only found in Focusing so far: and that is that when we do this practice that I often call “Felt Sensing”, we don’t turn towards finished packages of emotions, feelings, memories, images and underlying felt somethings that are unchangeable. Only to then sort of change our “attitude” towards what is immovably and unchangeably there.
When we turn towards and “Felt Sense” something inside our bodies, and especially if we can let a Felt Sense form, we discover that everything inside has its own MOVEMENT, and IT will actually change as we sit with it!
The changing, moving nature of our body is so hard to grasp, believe and allow for the Western mind that is used to thinking of everything as “fixed entities” that have to be pushed around and rearranged for us to become “perfect”.
So it takes some time, practice, curiosity, openness and active patience in a welcoming environment to slowly discover that there is more…
In some way one might say that it is quite a shift in understanding of ourselves and the world.
For me the practice and learning of Focusing and Felt Sensing has so far lead to being much less scared of the world, the deeper appreciation of little things that everyone talks about, becoming more “mindful” of myself and others, and less stressed to be perfect, to mention some.
But the maybe more “revolutionary” thing it has done for me, at least it feels like that for me:
I feel more human and like I can see more humanness in other people.
Events and courses in May 2021
Being a person with another person
– 7 week advanced listening course
starting Sunday May 2 at 6pm CEST – click to convert to your timezone
This course is for you, if you:
- want to deepen your listening in Focusing partnership,
- are interested in the relational side of Focusing partnership,
- want to deepen your Focusing listening as a helping professional,
- have been looking for ways to bring Focusing listening more into your everyday life,
- want to use your Focusing listening skills to deepen your listening to yourself and to the life in you, as well as in your relationships.
Read more and book here: https://gsfocusing.com/services/advanced-courses/being-a-person-with-another-person/
The With-Senser (Listener)
May 6 at 6pm CEST – click to convert to your time zone
This is the second course of the 5 that together form the Felt Sensing and With-Sensing (Focusing and Listening) Training.
This is the second course of the 5 that together form the Felt Sensing and With-Sensing (Focusing and Listening) Training.
You will get to know the gentle and interesting way of listening without being responsible, and the liberation of being of help without having to know details of the other person’s content.
We explore ways of responding and reflecting as ways of supporting the Felt Senser without being intrusive to, but rather trusting in, the process.
The Joys and Perils of Guiding
– Part one of a two part advanced guiding and listening course (12 + 8 weeks)
– for Focusing partnership and client work
Starting Monday May 10 at 6pm CEST – click to convert to your time zone
Both Rogers and Gendlin have pointed out that we human beings are so used to being told what to do, growing up: in school for years, with parents and other “elders”, by teachers and by rules and legislations. As a result, we might also have been encultured into thinking that the only way of learning and growing is to be helped and told, and hence that listening and helping means we have to tell and advice the other person.
In this course we will explore the traps, the joys, the pros and cons of “stepping out of the way just about enough“, as a listener and guide in a Felt Sensing way.
As a result of the course I hope that you will feel more secure in each “skill”, and that your own, unique quality as a listener will emerge and/or be strengthened and solidified. I also hope that you, both as Focuser Listener and helping professional will feel more confident in taking vulnerable daring steps in the shared listening space. The Listener will feel more confident in being “corrected”, and be more attuned to letting the unique process of the Focuser or client guide your Listening and your Guiding.
Saturday May 22nd 8:00 am Eastern Daylight time – Sunday May 23rd at 8:00 am Eastern Daylight time
A 24-hour marathon of Focusing!
Click link for more info
First hour: Vera R. Fryd Lyngmo
For 24 hours, beginning at 8am Eastern Daylight time on Saturday, May 22, experienced Focusers will be on Zoom to offer you a taste of felt sensing and an opportunity to connect with one another!
COST – Donation-based
This is a fundraiser and we ask that you donate as you can. If you can’t give, it’s ok! We want you there.
LANGUAGES
Each hour will be given in a different language with English translation! We have 18 languages represented: English, Hebrew, Cantonese, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Flemish, Japanese, Polish, Norwegian, Turkish, Portuguese, French, Russian and Korean! Check the schedule for your language.
Each hour will offer a brief felt sensing experience with just enough instruction to orient the newcomer, and given in the language indicated on the schedule with English translation. Newcomers and experienced Focusers alike are invited!
You must sign up in advance to attend. We will send you the Zoom information after you’ve registered. Then attend as many one-hour sessions as you like for 24 hours! (Please come on time at the beginning of the hour and stay for the whole hour.)
Grounded Space Focusing 