Focusing for Beginners (8 weeks)

In this eight-week course, we slowly get to know each of the 6 steps of Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing practice.

Each week, we learn about one or two steps and/or a new way of listening in Focusing partnerships. Here is the course overview by week:

1. Clearing a space and the Focusing attitude (receiving) + Holding space

2. Finding a felt sense + Saying back (mirroring)

3. Finding a felt sense about an issue + Felt Sense Polyvagal Model (continue mirroring)

4. Getting a handle and resonating + Reflecting with our own words (active listening)

5. Felt shifts + continue active listening

6. Asking + Helping your Focuser with general prompt questions (experiential peer listening)

7. Asking + Helping your Focuser deepen their experience with specific questions (experiential peer listening continued)

8. Noticing patterns + Helping your Focuser deepen their experience with specific questions (experiential peer listening continued)

As we go, we gradually grow our Focusing and listening skills, by building each week some of these skills.

You’ll learn to know where the Focuser is in the process, and when to ask questions which help the process move along, such as:

• “Where do you carry that in your body?”

• “Can you get a handle for that?”

• “What’s the worst about that?”

• “What would it feel like if it was all better?”

Each class begins with a centering/grounding practice and a check-in. We then have a a teaching piece of a Focusing step or two and/or some listening skills and a small embodied guided exercise (experiential). We’ll then have a short break and come back for a demonstration followed by breakout room practice (groups of two or three). We end back together in the main room for some Q&A, sharing and a brief closing.

To further your practice, it is encouraged to also form a Focusing partnership with another participant. This involves meeting between classes to practice, in an exchange of Focusing and listening. You can also opt to be assessed for the Proficiency in Focusing Partnership Award provided through TIFI in the final few weeks of the course.

Timing and other details

Next Groups—Dates, Times and Course Teachers (see more on teachers below):

• Saturdays,June 28-August 23, 3-5 pm UK time/10am-12pm Eastern time (break week July 26) (see your local time) with PUPA Focusing Trainer Ciara O’Neill—postponed by one week. New dates: July 5 to August 30th (break week still July 26)

• Registration deadline: June 25th July 2nd

• Tuesdays, August 5-September 30, 7-9 pm Eastern (4-6 pm Pacific)/Wednesdays, August 6-October 1, 9-11 am AEST (break week September 2/3) (see your local time) with PUPA Focusing Trainer Marg Peck

• Registration deadline: August 2nd

• Wednesdays, September 10-October 29, 10:30 am- to 12:30 pm UK time (5:30-7:30 am Eastern) (see your local time) with PUPA Focusing Trainer Mavra Root

• Registration deadline: September 7th

• Upcoming classes - dates to be determined. Please email me at annette@pupa.ca if you cannot make the above course to let me know when you would be available for this training. If you have previous listening experience or are someone who is an intermediate or experienced Focuser, you could also look at the 4-week version of this course.

Group size: each group has between 12-24 participants.

Who is this course for? The course is designed for beginners (both beginners in Focusing and listening). (There is also an intensive 4-week version of this course which may be better suited to you if you are an experienced listener but a beginner Focuser).

Course location: Zoom

Sliding scale pricing: This course has sliding scale pricing, offering multiple price points to make the course more accessible and reduce financial barriers for people with different levels of income. Please view the sliding scale fees page for details and codes.

• Full fee: US$320

• 25% off: US$240

• 50% off: US$160

• 70% off: US$96

• 80% off: US$64

• 90% off: US$32

Notes:

• This course is to learn Focusing in partnership. Breakout room practice and practice in between classes help build that muscle. As such, live attendance is essential. That said, we recognize that sometimes an absence is inevitable. Therefore the classes are recorded and shared with you. This includes the guided exercises, slide teachings, demonstrations and group sharing. Breakout room practice is not recorded.

• You can take this class as a stand alone experience, continue on with the whole PUPA journey, or whatever course or courses resonate with you.

• Consisting of five courses, the journey covers learning Focusing (this course), learning about who you are, discovering who you want to be and what you want to bring into the world with Thinking At the Edge (TAE, Gendlin’s second practice), transforming a large block using the 8Cs of self-leadership, and finally a course on taking action with embodied leadership.

• The journey can be extended to the PUPA Focusing Certification Program, which includes additional requirements to become a Certified Focusing Professional with The International Focusing Institute.