Dear David,

Thank you for your series of posts. I think that the distinctions that you have made are VERY useful in understanding how to expand and more deeply apply Focusing.

I want to respond to a few of them. I had written several things that I didn’t post a few weeks ago, and they seem to apply here, so I will blend them into my responses.

1) Distinguishing between Focusing and The Power of Focusing (and similarly, between NVC and The Power of NVC)

Yes! There is a difference between what is done now in Focusing, and what is possible to be done. Understanding some of the dynamics, or the key aspects of each of the practices points to the More that can happen.

2) Two directions in which Focusing has a great deal to offer:

I would say that The Power of Focusing lies in its strength as a process to facilitate our processing:

• whether to allow our processing to go deeper (further, broader, more precisely, evolvingly...)
• to heal stopped-processings, by always including awareness of felt-sensing

3) A more accurate understanding of the central Focusing movements

Focusing, as Gene often describes it, is not only felt-sensing, but rather a going back-and-forth — “zig-zagging” — between felt-sensing (implicit order) and language (logical order).

Nicely stated! I appreciate the wider view.

Since the discovery and articulation of the felt sense has been the signature of Focusing, it has been easy to overemphasize it. But Focusing includes movement between felt-sensing and other aspects of experience: thoughts, outer observations, images, etc.

Any felt-sensing contains language implicitly, and any understanding includes felt-sensing.

4) Expanded understanding of processing

You describe four “orderings”:

• felt-sensing (implicit ordering)
• understanding (logical ordering)
• in-the-worlding (situational ordering)
• homing (with/toward-Being ordering)

Processing always includes interaction among these.

5) The role of external feedback

Testing felt-sensing through in-the-world experience is vital. What happens in the world is more-than-logical and informs our next step.

6) Homing — the Compass aspect of Focusing

Homing is where we belong, and toward which we are called. It is essential to presencing — without it, Focusing weakens.

7) Processing includes all four orderings

Our processing always includes felt-sensing, understanding, in-the-worlding, and homing, even if attention emphasizes one.

8) Flow and stopped processes

Any ordering may be flowing or stuck. Healing may move through different pathways at different times.

9) Where Focusing is strong and weak

Focusing is strong in understanding and felt-sensing, and weaker in in-the-worlding. Expanding to include this increases its power.

10) The Power of NVC and empathy

NVC emphasizes empathy, presence, and “what is alive in the person,” which connects closely with homing.

11) What Focusing and NVC offer each other

Focusing excels in internal felt-sensing; NVC excels in interpersonal empathy and increasing life between us.

12–14) Needing, homing, and healing alienation

Needing connects us beyond individual separateness. Attuning to needing fosters empathy, presencing, encounter, and life-forward movement.

I like how you honor both the shared nature and individual intricacy of needing, and the connection between alienation and stopped process.

Very nicely done — this is a powerful contribution to Focusing and its integration with other practices.

Thank you again, and be well,
Bruce

PS I have much more to respond with regarding reflecting, but that will wait for another post.

[Later written in the 2011 Folio article under “Reflecting Systems.” See here.]