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![Living a Focusing Life [Blog]](../resources/nav_bar_library/lafl.jpg)
How to Use Focusing to Release Blocks to Action
This article originally appeared in the January 1993 issue of The Focusing Connection (Subscribe).
Writer's block, procrastination, being a pack rat... all these are action blocks. If you want to start an exercise program but you don't, if you want to keep your desk clean but you don't, if you want to be more creative but it just doesn't happen, you are experiencing an action block--and Focusing can help.
Action blocks are painful, and everyone experiences them at times. For some people, the struggle dominates their lives. Are you familiar with wanting to do something day after day, even cursing and criticizing yourself for not doing it? Do you know about making resolution after resolution, even changing for a little while, but always sliding back? Wouldn't you love to be able to break that cycle and act easily and confidently instead?
Focusing releases the stuck system by changing the dynamic that holds the action block in place. In an action block, there is a part of you that isn't being heard. Ironically, that's the same part of you that seems to be in charge: the one that isn't taking action. It has you in its iron grip, and yet it's lonely, isolated, unacknowledged. No one has really asked it yet, "How come you're so set against taking action?" (Remember, being sure that you already know why is not the same thing as asking it!)
The Focusing process starts by bringing in self-compassion instead of self-criticism. This alone begins the process of release, because self-criticism is the glue that holds the action block in place. It's funny, isn't it, that it often feels like just the opposite is true? I feel like my criticism of the part of me that won't exercise is my only hope of moving it, and that if I accept it, it will really take over my life! But actually, self-criticism holds the system in place because it ensures that the criticized part will not be heard, and everything will stay the same. And remember: compassion and acceptance are not the same as agreement or giving in. I can still want to change, while being compassionate to the part of me that doesn't want to.
Through Focusing, we create an inner atmosphere of safety, where any part of us can be heard without being attacked or criticized. This is important, because if you want to hear the truth and be released, you can't put pre-conditions on what you hear. "You can tell me anything except..." just won't work. In Focusing, it is quite literally true that the truth will set you free. So if you want to set the stage for allowing truth to come, start with an inner atmosphere of compassion, if possible. (If something in you says "No" to being compassionate, see if you can be compassionate to that!)
Listening to the Part that Blocks You
Next, you call for the part of you that is blocking action to come forth and be known. You invite a felt sense of that part to come in your body. For example, when I was working on writer's block, the part of me that didn't want to write felt like a band across my chest. I didn't feel it most of the time, only if I sat down quietly in Focusing and deliberately asked my body to give me the feeling of not wanting to write. Then it came.
Next, acknowledge the felt sense and find a handle for it. Imagine you are sitting down with it to get to know it better, in a friendly, compassionate way. Assume that it has some good reason for being the way it is--at least a good reason from its point of view.
One focuser, working on writer's block, sensed a rebellious adolescent part that didn't want to do what it was told. Another focuser, working on alcohol addiction, contacted a rageful demon that wanted to knock down cities. A focuser working on overeating found an emptiness in the stomach that asked for lots of patient attention.
These "parts that don't want to" all softened and changed with listening and attention. The miracle of Focusing is that sometimes compassionate attention is all that's needed for any block to release. Often it not only releases, it also becomes part of the energy that moves you forward.
Listening to the Part that Wants to Change
The other Focusing technique that's helpful for releasing blocks to action is to listen to the part of you that wants to change. After you've spent time listening to the part that says, "I won't," be sure to also listen to the part that says, "I want to--and here's why." But don't let yourself get into the pain and struggle of not being able to do what you want to do. Instead, imagine that you are living a life in which this action is easy for you. See yourself at your desk writing, or in the gym exercising, or on stage, or in a new job, or whatever--beautifully, joyously, freely, and easily. Then ask your body to give you the felt sense that comes with that.
There is a positive forward movement contained in the part of you that wants to change. As long as it's in a struggle with the part that holds back, it's hard to feel the good energy that's there. But when you allow it to be felt, just as it would like to be, that good energy can come, and draw you forward.
Sometimes, of course, something else comes up when you are imagining the way you want to be. One focuser thought she wanted to be able to throw things away more easily. But when she focused on her house with nearly empty closets, she got a feeling of loss. That led her to some learning about why the block didn't want to release.
Either way you win: either you get the good energy and feel it draw you forward, or you discover something else that's in your way and needs your attention.
At the end of your session, be sure to make a commitment to a specific action at a specific time and place in the near future. Let it be something that both "sides" of you can agree to. Even if the action step you choose is small, it will make a big difference in your energy if you do something. Focusing alone isn't enough; the rest of you has to help out a little.
Getting released from action blocks and being able to act feels wonderful, and it's what more of us need if we're going to create the world we want. Thank goodness for Focusing!
This article appears in The Radical Acceptance of Everything, by Ann Weiser Cornell, PhD and featuring Barbara McGavin (Calluna Press; 2005). Learn more about this book.
