wholebody focusing
About Wholebody Focusing
WHAT IS WHOLEBODY FOCUSING PRACTISE?
Wholebody Focusing is a natural process which invites the power of consciousness to awaken the inner wisdom of the living body, a knowing that is at the heart of every one of us. Beneath our conditioned and stressful patterns of being, thinking, moving, and feeling, lies an inner wellspring of intelligence and vitality that knows how to unwind our stress and traumas and move forward our life situations. Wholebody Focusing reconnects us with this Body Wisdom, rebooting our particular life stoppages and unconscious holding patterns, and opening us up to the fullness of life. A deeply relational experiential practice, Wholebody Focusing creates conditions of safety and connection which allow us to meet ourselves in our wholeness and other human beings in theirs. From Foundational Training Manual One
Testimonials
From Diane Gillespie Registered Psychologist BA(Psych) MA (Psych)
PG Dip (Psych Prac)
‘from my experience this experiential training takes your mindfulness training to a deeper/different level’
From Dr Kay McKenzie
Registered Counselling Psychologist
“Wholebody Focusing is a practice that has contributed hugely to my professional practice as well as my personal wellbeing. I would highly recommend this training in Wholebody Focusing to those seeking improved mind-body wellbeing within themselves or for their clients. It can take our self-care and our skills as a therapist to a much deeper level.”
THE HISTORY OF WHOLEBODY FOCUSING
Wholebody Focusing was founded and originally developed by Kevin McEvenue
who melded his insights as an Alexander Teacher with his work as a Focusing Teacher over many years of experiential enquiry. He discovered that when the body is invited to function as a whole, it awakens a purposeful process of inner directed movements which carry with them a knowing of how to carry forward our particular life situation. (Van der Kooy and McEvenue, 2006).
A Foundational insight summed up by this phrase from Kevin McEvenue
'When a part of me feels loved, it awakens to its own healing'
Karen Whalen
is a relational and experiential oriented psychotherapist with background in energetic models of healing and consciousness. Karen offers a quantum model of human consciousness to explain the phenomena of the felt shift and experiential change in Wholebody Focusing Oriented Therapy (Whalen and Fleish, 2012). From her training in Energetically-based healing systems (Qi-Gong, Bio-Dynamic Cranio-Sacral Therapy and Polarity Therapy), and recovery from a serious spinal injury, she discovered that:
The living body doesn’t suffer pain the way that I do.
'When I give the body the space to relate to (my) pain in its own right way, the pain and suffering transforms into a sense of bodily aliveness'
DEVELOPMENT OF RELATIONAL WHOLEBODY FOCUSING
Kevin McEvenue and Karen Whalen have been teaching and writing together for the past ten years. They are on Faculty with the Focusing Institute of New York as Certifying Coordinators in Wholebody Focusing. They run training programs worldwide to health care professionals and private individuals. They also mentor individuals towards professional certification as Wholebody Focusing Trainers and Wholebody Focusing Oriented Therapists.
Most recently, Wholebody Focusing has evolved into a relational experiential process whereby two self-aware human beings in grounded presence engage with one another from a shared experience of wholeness of Self (Whalen, 2013a; Whalen and McEvenue, 2013b). Time and space are given to resonate with the four body spaces (inner energetic, physical, inter-relational, environmental) to connect to an embodied experience of the larger or true Self (the fifth body space – all of me here connected to the world life body). This deeply relational space where two conscious human beings meet, creates a wholebody heartfelt connection of safety and mutuality.
Rather than the focuser only placing their awareness on an issue in the bodymind, quite separate from their Wholebody Listener, the Wholebody Focuser also takes in a sense of the Listener, and vice versa, as both share what comes for them around a topic or issue of mutual import. This particular modality of Wholebody Focusing is called Sharing a Wholebody Heartfelt Conversation.
Both benefit from this genuine mutuality of experiencing in a dynamic back and forth of sharing what comes to self, being impacted by Other, whilst remaining separate within one’s own grounded presence. Because the Wholebody Heartfelt Conversation unfolds within the safety and separateness of our mutual grounded presence, a larger space of WE HERE emerges to the benefit of each. Both receive something that is right for their life body and being which we could not receive outside of this relational exchange.
For more information about Wholebody Focusing please visit founder Kevin McEvenue’s site: www.wholebody focusing .com
