What Does Inner Relationship Focusing Help With?
I often get asked about what Focusing helped with. And so, I made a Q&A video to discuss this inner work at length. I’ve also provided a transcript of the video below for easy reference.
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How often have you wished you had someone who listens to you without judgment, without advice, and instead really tries to understand what’s going on for you? Who gets you?
Countless times in sessions, clients get in touch with a younger self who longed for someone to have time to understand them, to just listen, to be present, to accept them as they are. However, there was no one there to do that - for various reasons. And so these young ones learned very early about loneliness, not being important, not being safe.
These deeply imprinted messages and beliefs then got compounded over time and stored in the cellular memory of the body. They inform the way we relate to others, how we respond and react to events in life. These imprints influence our values, how we make decisions and what we believe about ourselves.
So what has that to do with Focusing?
Focusing is a gentle, yet profound technique developed by philosopher and psychologist Eugene Gendlin in the 1960s. It is a method for accessing and working with the body's felt sense, or the bodily sensation that accompanies our emotions and thoughts.
Gendlin was a doctoral student of Carl Rogers, an influential psychologist at the University of Chicago and was interested in uncovering the mechanisms that facilitated meaningful and transformative change in therapy.
He explored why some people had successful therapy and others didn’t. After listening to many therapy session tapes, he and his team were able to predict the successful outcome of therapy within the first session. Those clients had a specific way of being present with what they experienced somatically that helped them to access a level of inner knowing that was essential for change. Those who didn’t find a way to move beyond what they already knew and continued to share their old experiences and stories, remained stuck.
Gendlin then developed a process, called Focusing to help anyone do what is needed to have successful therapy.
Ann Weiser Cornell, one of the first students of Gendlin, made some adjustments to that process and has been teaching what is now called IRF since the 1980’s..
A brief explanation of IRF
Inner Relationship Focusing is a therapeutic technique that helps you to connect with your inner selves and emotions. One of the core principles involves paying attention to your bodily sensations and feelings. By doing so, you learn to listen to your body and then to use these sensations as a guide for exploring your inner world.
When we experience emotions, our bodies often respond in physical ways. For example, when we feel anxious or stressed, we may notice tension in our muscles or a racing heartbeat. Inner Relationship Focusing encourages us to pay attention to these bodily sensations without judgment or criticism. Instead, we are encouraged to observe these sensations with curiosity and openness.
The more you can remain present with what you are aware of as a bodily felt sense, the more likely you access new layers of information. It’s as if there is an unfurling happening within, always at its own pace, until you are in touch with the core of the issue.
For example, many years back, I often noticed a tense area at the back of the right shoulder. As I kept it company, it slowly revealed a part that was stressed that things were going too slow. From its point of view I wasn’t fast enough, doing enough, I called it my slave driver.
So, I could have stopped here and listed a number of reasons why I was doing more than enough. In Focusing though, we keep a part company until we truly understand it. And there was certainly more to discover. Its need to protect me from failure, from feeling shame, and … of course its desire for my happiness and success. When this part felt truly heard and therefore understood, and I implemented some changes based on the insights I gained, that tension and pain disappeared.
In inner relationship focusing, we work on developing a compassionate and curious attitude towards different aspects of ourselves, such as emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations. We recognize that each part of ourselves has its own unique perspective and needs attention in order to be fully integrated into our lives.
So what does IRF help with?
Focusing certainly helps develop greater self-awareness - which makes sense because if you understand your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours better, deeper self-reflection will lead to greater self-awareness, which will lead to more informed decisions and actions in life. Understanding strong emotional responses or unhelpful patterns and behaviors brings the necessary clarity to align our choices with the desired outcomes.
Living a focusing based life helps to identify and address internal stressors more easily. When we take time to be present to ourselves and what we sense within, when we turn towards a felt sense rather than ignoring it, we can address and process underlying tension, unease, or discomfort and create a greater sense of calmness and relaxation.
I found it to be one of the most gentle and safe ways to help clients dealing with trauma. By focusing on the bodily felt sense in a regulated manner, using specific language, clients can engage with traumatic memories and sensations in a safe way which is great for a gradual and manageable exploration of the traumatic experience.
Trauma can leave one disconnected from their inner resources and a sense of self. IRF helps individuals reconnect with their inner strengths, resilience, and innate wisdom, bringing back a sense of empowerment and self-compassion. In the same way that there is a disconnect from inner resources, trauma can also lead to a disconnect from the body. IRF is a wonderful process to econnect with and listen to their bodily sensations, helping to rebuild a sense of safety and trust in the body.
Focusing cultivates a compassionate inner presence and self-acceptance. This can support individuals in developing a kind and nurturing relationship with themselves, which is essential for healing and recovery from trauma.
Self-acceptance and the ability to turn towards an inner experience supports greater emotional resilience. Learning how to listen to your inner experiences with compassion and non-judgment, helps to regulate emotions and to navigate your inner landscape with more ease.
On the day when I was about to conduct my first IRF workshop, I was getting more and more nervous. Some level of nervousness can be ok, yet mine reached a level where I was overthinking, and not present anymore. So I applied what I was going to teach my participants.
I paused, sensed inward, and sat with this whole thing about the first class. There was a mix of anticipation, excitement, eagerness, worry, tension in the stomach, and thoughts in a loop. As I remained present to what was there within, one place wanted my attention. It was worried, worried to not being able to do a good job, to mess up, to not fulfill the expectations of the students, the list was long. And I just stayed present, acknowledged it’s feeling and at one point we came to its deepest wanting - that all students would have a good time and will take something away that will be helpful for their life. I got that. The nervousness was gone, I was able to concentrate again, and was completely present when the class started.
Part of the nervousness was an inner critic of mine. Inner relationship focusing is a powerful tool to help build an inner trust by identifying and addressing the inner critic. The inner critic can take on a harsh, negative voice that causes stress and anxiety in daily life. Working with the IRF process, you are able to explore different aspects of yourself and develop a deeper understanding of the concerns, needs and wants of the inner critic. This self-exploration can lead to inner ease and improved self-confidence and empowerment in both your personal and professional life.
Another benefit of Inner Relationship Focusing is its ability to enhance decision-making abilities. When we are faced with difficult decisions, it's easy for our minds to become clouded by conflicting thoughts or emotions. Through Inner Relationship Focusing, we learn how to tune out distractions so that we can focus on what really matters. Therefore, we can make decisions that are more aligned with our true selves. This can lead to greater feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment in our lives.
Creativity is another area in life where IRF has helped many people. In IRF, we give each part the attention it deserves to understand the different blocks, hindering beliefs that prevent us from accessing our intuition and creativity. Focusing provides a gentle and compassionate space to acknowledge and work through these blocks. By accessing the deeper levels of intuition and insight that arise from the felt sense we can gain fresh perspectives, innovative solutions and a free flow of our creative expression.
As we practice being with that felt sense with curiosity, empathy and without judgment, we finetune our listening skills and the ability to be empathic to those inner aspects. This skill helps enormously when we want to understand and connect with others. The same listening qualities help us to attune to the nuances of others’ experiences, leading to more effective communication and deeper relationships. The ability to stay attuned to one's own felt sense and to be fully present with another person can enhance the quality of interactions and promote a sense of closeness. Focusing can create a space for mutual growth and exploration within relationships. By engaging in Focusing individually or together, partners can support each other's personal growth, emotional well-being, and self-discovery. This can strengthen the bond and lead to a more fulfilling and enriching relationship.
Inner Relationship Focusing is a valuable and powerful tool to bring more peace, authenticity and self-awareness into one’s life. It can be explored as a stand alone approach to explore certain aspects of your life or in conjunction with other therapies.