Listening Within: An Embodied Path to Inner Clarity

Focusing  - a Process Model
Deirdre introduces focusing as a method of trauma informed self-inquiry that allows for a deeper connection to our body and inner communication. The core principles of Focusing can be a way of life. 

The Concept of "I Am the Space"
One of the core concepts of focusing is the idea that you are the space where all experiences—images, sensations, songs, or even nothingness—can be held. This space is always present and ready to embrace whatever arises.

Embracing Nothingness
Nothingness is framed as something meaningful, as it often transmutes into profound insights or emotions. The practice invites you to welcome even the feeling of nothing, as it can reveal deeper truths.

Exploring Inner Parts
Deirdre highlights how inner parts—such as emotions, memories, or even animal-like qualities—can emerge during focusing. These parts may represent unmet needs or unresolved experiences from early life.

The Depth of Early Experiences
Focusing can uncover very old, unaccompanied experiences, such as grief, panic, or joy, that may have never been fully acknowledged. These moments, when held with presence, can begin to heal and integrate.

The Power of Presence
Simply being present with what arises—without doing anything—creates space for transformation. The more you can be with your inner experiences, the more they can unfold naturally.

Eugene Gendlin’s Perspective on the Body
Eugene Gendlin’s work emphasises that the body is not a container but a dynamic interaction with the world and ourselves. Focusing is a way to engage with this interaction and access the body’s implicit wisdom.

The Focusing Process
Focusing involves moving between what you already know and the subtle, implicit wisdom of the body. This process helps reconnect with lost or unacknowledged parts of yourself.

The Four Steps of Focusing
The course simplifies focusing into four steps: arriving (grounding in the body), meeting (welcoming what arises), being with (befriending the experience), and closing (integrating insights). These steps create a container for deep inner work.

The Felt Sense
A "felt sense" is a murky, unclear bodily knowing that, when accompanied with patience and acceptance, can shift and reveal clarity. This is the heart of the focusing process.

Radical Acceptance and Curiosity
Focusing teaches radical acceptance—allowing whatever arises to be there without judgment. Curiosity is key, as it opens the door to fresh insights, even about old problems.

The Body’s Wisdom
The body holds a deep, implicit wisdom that knows how to communicate and heal. Trusting this wisdom allows for authentic, life-changing shifts.

Solo Focusing as Body Fullness
Solo focusing is likened to "body fullness," a practice of deep listening to the body’s messages. It cultivates self-awareness and connection to inner wisdom.

Emotional Healing and Health
Repressing emotions can take a toll on mental and physical health. Focusing helps release these emotions, reducing suffering and promoting self-regulation.

Connected Living
Focusing supports deeper connections to oneself, others, and the world. It fosters authenticity, self-regulation, and a more embodied way of living.

Practice
This course module includes a guided practice designed to help us connect with a hitherto unacknowledged or disowned part of ourselves. 

Clearing the Space Exercise
This practice helps manage mental busyness by visualising setting aside thoughts and distractions. It’s about temporarily placing concerns beside you, not pushing them away, to create inner space.

Core Powers of Focusing
The session outlines key powers: sensing, relating, meeting what’s there, and working with parts and ‘somethings’. These elements form the foundation that holds the entire focusing process together.

Felt Sense Recognition
Identifying felt sense in the body involves noticing subtle bodily awareness of situations. The practice includes finding words, images, or gestures that resonate with this internal experience.

Safe Inner Exploration
Focusing teaches staying with difficult or unclear feelings in a safe, non-judgmental manner. The attitudes of curiosity, patience, and non-judgment create the necessary container for this work.

Self-Compassion as Foundation
The practice begins with self-compassion and cultivating deep self-empathy. This supports the genuine desire to know oneself more deeply.

Present-Moment Body Connection
Focusing is always about being in the here and now, connecting with what the body communicates. Past and future concerns can be brought into present body awareness for resolution.

Resourcing for Grounding
Resourcing connects us with positive experiences, people, places, and memories that make us feel good. It helps access and remember one’s unique essence.

Inclusive Awareness ("And")
The power of "and" means including everything that arises, holding multiple experiences simultaneously. This allows one to hold both sides of a situation and accompany them just as they are.

The Felt Sensing Edge
Meeting the edge where felt sense forms is a pivotal moment in the focusing process. Here, the process takes over, and the body’s innate wisdom begins to do the work.

Trusting Body Wisdom
The focusing process trusts the body’s innate ability to transform without forced effort. The metaphor of a boat with space underneath illustrates this natural, effortless movement.

Going Inside
The practice directs attention inward to the throat, belly, and heart areas. This is where we encounter what’s alive, noticeable, and speaking to us.

Working with Parts
Parts are aspects of ourselves with strong opinions, shoulds, and judgments about our actions. They need to be heard and are actually trying to protect or mind us from past experiences.

Felt Sense Characteristics
Felt sense is a physical, not mental, experience that forms freshly in each moment. It’s vague and unclear at first but holistically sums up everything about a situation in one bodily experience.

Transformation Through Felt Shift
When felt sense shifts, it brings discontinuous, non-linear change and new possibilities. This "carrying forward" changes how we hold past, present, and future, creating clarity about next steps.

Defining Tangles
Tangles are repetitive, destructive patterns that resist change despite conscious efforts. They often feel impossible to overcome and can manifest as self-sabotage, unhealthy habits, or emotional blocks.

Common Manifestations of Tangles
Tangles can appear as repeated relationship patterns, mood shifts, or self-sabotage in goals or projects. They may also show up as sudden physiological shifts (e.g., fatigue) or conflicting thoughts about one’s capabilities.

Foundation: Inner Relationship Focusing
Before Untangling, Inner Relationship Focusing taught the practice of welcoming and being with internal parts (e.g., emotions, critics, or procrastination). This approach is especially useful when feeling overwhelmed or disconnected.

The Six Powers of Untangling
Untangling cultivates six powers: the power of now (present-moment awareness), resourcing, self and presence, deep empathy, including it all, and felt sense in stoppage. These powers help address past-based patterning in the present.

The Existential Core of Tangles
At their heart, tangles often contain existential questions or wounds, sometimes tracing back to early life experiences (e.g., womb time, birth, or bonding). Untangling involves digging through layers to reach this deeper, fundamental level.

The Role of Parts
Tangles always involve parts—internal aspects with their own perspectives, emotions, and motivations. These parts are not adversaries; they are trying to protect, save, or guide us in some way.

Engaging with Parts
Parts may surprise us with strong opinions or emotions, but the key is to listen without judgment. They often want us to experience or avoid something tied to past difficulties.

Cultivating Inner Relationship
Untangling requires building a relationship with our parts, recognizing them as intelligent strategies formed to support us. This involves empathic listening, curiosity, patience, and self-compassion.

How Parts Relax
Parts begin to relax simply through our presence—by spending time with them, listening, and getting to know them. As they relax, they reveal their true protective intentions and the historical context behind their behavior.

Demonstration
This module includes a demonstration of a short Focusing session which shows the elements of settling, finding a resource, letting something arise and being with it. The listening ‘companion’ holds the space attentively, thus supporting the process.