Focusing is a special way of paying attention to yourself, so that you sense the whole way you are feeling about situations or issues in your life. This is different from just having emotions or just getting in touch with feelings. Focusing involves having a different kind of relationship with emotions and feelings. It's as if you are becoming your own good listener. The result is greater calm, wiser choices, and a deeper sense of connection to your own life and being.

What do people use Focusing for?

Focusing has a very wide range of uses, from enhancing your creativity to improving your thinking ability. Focusing can enhance and deepen every part of your life. Focusing can be used for the following:

• releasing blocks to action
• making clear decisions
• knowing what you really feel and want
• getting in touch with your life purpose
• releasing emotional burdens
• transforming your inner critics
• nurturing a sense of self worth

Where did Focusing come from: who developed it?

Focusing was discovered when Professor Eugene Gendlin of the University of Chicago researched the question: "Why is psychotherapy helpful for some people, but not others?" He and his colleagues studied tapes of hundreds of therapy sessions and made a fascinating and important discovery: successful therapy clients had a vague, hard-to-describe inner awareness, a bodily felt sense about their problems. Paying attention to the felt sense in specific ways proved to be a key component of successful psychological change. Gendlin discovered how to teach this skill, which he called Focusing.

For more about Eugene Gendlin and his Focusing Institute click here.