The Living Process. Practices in Experience and Existence Dr Greg Madison

The Living Process Episode 19

Neuroscience and Felt Sensing with Peter Afford

I’m pleased to share the next episode of The Living Process with guest Peter Afford. I’ve known Peter for many years as one of the “founding fathers” of the British Focusing Association and a well-known organiser and contributor to Focusing worldwide. Peter has been Focusing for most of his adult life, integrating it into psychotherapy, teaching workshops on dreams and TAE, and writing numerous articles as well as his recent book Therapy in the Age of Neuroscience. A Guide for Counsellors and Therapists (2019).

Peter has recently closed his therapy practice but he remains interested in teaching felt sensing to organisations and groups, especially those involved in addressing climate change. Peter is a Certifying Coordinator for The International Focusing Institute and has served as a consultant at Board level. Peter is about to move from London to a new home in rural Devon in the south western region of the UK where he will continue to write and teach about Focusing. 



In this episode Peter and I talk about his early discovery of Focusing as well as his recent work specialising in neuroscience and its application to therapy. We discuss the differences between right and left hemisphere approaches to situations, the use of neuroscience as a support to therapists as well as clients as well as the overlooked importance of felt sensing and how it could be applied in many different settings to help us creatively address human challenges, especially the impending climate catastrophe. Peter makes many fascinating distinctions in our conversation, for example the difference between handle words that arise from the left vs the right hemisphere. More information on Peter’s work, writing and workshops:

http://www.focusing.co.uk



Episode 19. Neuroscience and The Felt Sense https://youtu.be/JUwUjrqzmC0



The Living Process - all episodes and podcast links:

https://www.londonfocusing.com/the-living-process/



Living Process on the FOT Youtube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx3FqA70kQWuHCHmEiZnkn1VcrRIPbcvk



The Living Process is available on all podcast platforms.

Warmly, Greg Madison



#FocusingInstitute #focusingorientedtherapy #bodymind #Somaticwork #Bodytherapy #Gendlin #neuroscience #Focusing #trauma #somaticexperience #neurotherapy 

Episode 18 The Living Process

Living the Focusing Journey, with Nada Lou

I am happy to share this conversation with Nada Lou as Episode 18 of The Living Process. Nada is well known throughout the Focusing world as a Coordinator, teacher of Focusing, a contributor to Biospiritual Focusing and early developer of Thinking at the Edge along with Gendlin. She brought Focusing to many new regions of the world and she has documented countless workshops and presentations by Eugene Gendlin and other Focusing teachers through her valued DVDs (see her website). Nada talks about growing up during a turbulent time in Yugoslavia and though not mentioned in the interview, Nada was on the gymnastics national team for Yugoslavia and was a long-time coach of gymnastics when the emigrated to Australia and then Canada. It was in Montreal that Nada was recommended the Focusing book and then met Ed and Pete from whom she learned and then taught Biospiritual Focusing. In the episode we touch on many of these events and her deep resonance with Ed and Pete’s teaching of how to be ‘religious’ or spiritual ‘with both feet on the ground’. This embodied spirituality echoed her own theological studies. She talks about meeting Gene, her video work,  and how for her the video documents represent her self-expression of Gene’s teaching. Nada talks about her natural connection with Gene, the history of TAE and other fascinating points that will interest many of us in the Focusing Community. 

Her website and DVD list… https://nadalou.com/about/

Nada is a prolific video maker of more than 45 DVDs featuring Gene Gendlin and other Focusing luminaries. Since co-presenting TAE workshops with Gendlin, Nada evolved a personal approach to the TAE course called THINK DIFFERENT – (TAE), and she remains in the forefront of spreading the “method” of this practice around the world. Nada is the author of  “The Grassroots Manual Introduction to TAE”.

Nada is available to give workshops and presentations to groups around the world by invitation. In her teaching of TAE and Focusing, Nada highlights Gendlin’s philosophical ideas and in this way, awakens interest for the wonderful complexity that this philosophy is capable of drawing out.

CONTACT NADA:  nadalou@nadalou.com



Episode 17 with Nada Lou: https://youtu.be/erYgpnDbQMs



The Living Process - all episodes and podcast links:

https://www.londonfocusing.com/the-living-process/



Living Process on the FOT Youtube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx3FqA70kQWuHCHmEiZnkn1VcrRIPbcvk



The Living Process is available on all podcast platforms: For example, Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, Pocketcasts, Youtube Podcasts. Most of these platforms now offer free transcripts of each episode. Transcripts are also available on Youtube videos. 



Please spread the word about Focusing and The Living Process. 

Warmly, Greg Madison



#Focusing #Gendlin  #Bodytherapy #Experientialpractice #Awareness  #Somaticwork #bodymind #focusingorientedtherapy #TAE #Biospirituality #Focusingvideos #NadaLou #FocusingInstitute 

The Living Process Episode 17

Relating from an Authentic Heart, with John Amodeo, PhD

I am very happy to share with you The Living Process Episode 17, with John Amodeo. John has practiced and studied Focusing since the late 1970s when he completed his doctoral work on Focusing and meditation. Over the years John has also worked and studied with well-known luminaries at the intersection of psychology and spirituality, including John Wellwood, John Bradshaw, Ed McMahon and Pete Campbell of Biospirituality, and of course Eugene Gendlin. John himself is well-known for his many books, The Authentic Heart, Dancing with Fire, Being Intimate, Love and Betrayal, as well as his widely-read regular column in Psychology Today. In this episode John and I talk about his experiences as a Marriage and Family Therapist, especially related to his work on shame, intimacy in relationships, how to receive, and the importance of staying with embodied experience. We also touch on his deep understanding of Buddhist practice and Taoism.  



John Amodeo. PhD, LMFT, holds graduate degrees in both Clinical Psychology and Transpersonal Psychology. He has been a licensed marriage and family therapist for over 40 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices in San Rafael and the Sebastopol area.  He is the author of four books and was a writer and contributing editor for Yoga Journal  for ten years.  He co-authored a chapter on EFT and Buddhism with Dr. Sue Johnson in her edited book, The EFT Casebook. John is a Certified Focusing Trainer and Certified Focusing-Oriented Therapist. He has lectured at universities internationally, including in Hong Kong, Chile, Thailand, and Ukraine. John has featured on national television and radio programs, including CNN, Donahue, and New Dimensions Radio.  He has led workshops at Esalen Institute, JFK University, The Omega Institute, and The New York Open Center, and was an adjunct faculty member at Meridian University.  He has written blogs for the Huffington Post and is a blogger for Psychology Today, with over 5 million total views of his 140+ articles.  He resides in Sonoma County, California.

For more information on John and his work see: https://www.johnamodeo.com



Episode 17 with John Amodeo: https://youtu.be/810vDOgn0i8

The Living Process - all episodes and podcast links:

https://www.londonfocusing.com/the-living-process/

Living Process on the FOT Youtube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx3FqA70kQWuHCHmEiZnkn1VcrRIPbcvk



The Living Process is available on all podcast platforms: For example, Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, Pocketcasts, Youtube Podcasts. Most of these platforms now offer free transcripts of each episode. Transcripts are also available on Youtube videos. 



#Focusing #Gendlin #Zen #johnamodeo #buddhist  #Bodytherapy #Experientialpractice #Awareness  #Somaticwork #Zenmeditation #authenticity #bodymind #buddhist #shame #couplestherapy #focusingorientedtherapy 

The Living Process Episode 16

Zen and Focusing as Personal Practice, with Christian Dillo

I’m happy to announce The Living Process, Episode 16 with Christian Dillo. Christian and I were meeting for the first time in this episode. In this episode Christian and I speak about how he, even as an adolescent, would pause while speaking to say what he really meant and his later discovery of Gendlin’s focusing and how it put into words a process that he was already engaged in. He was committed to authenticity and pausing and not talking in a way that alienated him from himself. He asks ‘What does the situation require from me’ to carry itself forward. Christian’s Focusing is self-taught - he Focuses has never taken a Focusing class or workshop. He has also studied Gendlin’s philosophy and during the conversation, it’s clear that he has a deep understanding of how the philosophy relates to the practice. Christian talks about why Zen practice was the way forward for him rather than going into the Focusing world and how he remains open to further collaboration with us. He also discusses his depression as a kind of shying away from intensity and how his Zen Buddhist practice was helpful in his discernment of ‘field’ awareness and ‘focused’ awareness. We touch on phenomenology as a transformative practice and both Focusing and Zen Buddhism as examples of that. We explore whether Focusing is a spiritual practice and about the possible drawbacks of thinking of Focusing as a ‘method’. Meeting Christian has made me wonder how many ‘Focusers’ are out there on their own, without any connection to the larger community! Thank you to Iain Murdoch for suggesting Christian as a guest. 



Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the Resident Teacher at the Boulder Zen Center. He started his practice at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1996. For 20 years, he practiced monastically at the Crestone Mountain Zen Center. In 2013, he received dharma transmission from Zentatsu Baker Roshi. Since then, he has been the Boulder Zen Center Guiding Teacher. In 2020, he moved to Boulder full-time, where he now lives with his wife and son. Zenki Roshi teaches Zen on the understanding that, fundamentally, Buddhism is an embodied investigation of human experience with the intention of realizing liberation from suffering, wisdom, and compassion. He is the author of The Path of Aliveness: A Contemporary Zen Approach to Awakening Body and Mind (Shambhala, 2022).

Episode 16 with Christian Dillo: 

https://youtu.be/AEXpOUkmLO8

The Living Process - all episodes and podcast links:

https://www.londonfocusing.com/the-living-process/



Living Process on the FOT Youtube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx3FqA70kQWuHCHmEiZnkn1VcrRIPbcvk



#Focusing #Gendlin #Zen #ChristianDillo #buddhist  #Bodytherapy #Experientialpractice #Awareness  #Somaticwork #Zenmeditation #authenticity #bodymind 

The Living Process Episode 15
Using Parts Work to Untangle Stuckness, with Barbara McGavin.

I’m happy to announce The Living Process, Episode 15 with Barbara McGavin. I first met Barbara in 1988 when she was co-leading a workshop in Focusing with Rob Foxcroft and since then we have developed a friendship as fellow Canadians and Focusing teachers. Barbara has been practicing Focusing since 1983 and she was a main developer of The British Focusing Association (BFA). She is a Certifying Coordinator for the International Focusing Institute and has a varied background in humanistic psychology, and art and design, and has developed workshops for creatives called Spark to Beacon, originally located in Bath, England.

Since 1991, Barbara has a creative partnership with Ann Weiser Cornell developing Inner Relationship Focusing which later developed into the well-known Treasure Maps to the Soul. This work is now under the title of “Untangling”, which will be the title of a new book they have co-authored due to come out in August 2024.

In this episode Barbara and I talk about her journey into Focusing and her eventual partnership with Ann, which continues to develop fruitfully. We talk about the importance of Self-in-Presence, Parts-work, and different forms of attention. Barbara touches on some of the upcoming contents of the book Untangling including their view that there are three kinds of parts and a distinction between parts and a felt sense. Near the end we also talk a bit about using this model for relationship work and what is similar and different in the professions of psychotherapist and Focusing Guide.
More information about Barbara and her work with Ann:
https://focusingresources.com/learning/treasure-maps-to-the-soul/

Episode 15 with Barbara McGavin: https://youtu.be/f3Cxap0f0-U

The Living Process - all episodes and podcast links:
https://www.londonfocusing.com/the-living-process/

Living Process on the FOT Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx3FqA70kQWuHCHmEiZnkn1VcrRIPbcvk

The Living Process is available on all podcast platforms: For example, Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, Pocketcasts, and Youtube Podcasts. Most of these platforms now offer free transcripts of each episode. Transcripts are also available on Youtube videos.

Please spread the word about Focusing and The Living Process.

#Focusing #Gendlin #Selfhelp #Bodytherapy #Experientialpractice #Treasuremapstothesoul #Somaticwork #Partswork

The Living Process Episode 14, Series 2. The German Focusing Institute: How They Teach, with Klaus Renn.

Klaus Renn, Director of the German Focusing Institute (Deutsches Focusing Institut DFI) describes details of how they teach FOTs. I am very grateful to Klaus for speaking with me in English. He put in a lot of generous effort to speak with me. The first Focusing Institute was formed in Germany and they hosted Gene Gendlin on many occasions. They started the first Focusing Summer Schools and they continue to run with large groups of participants. Most of our conversation explores the structure of their training and some of the exercises they do with their classes. For this reason, I suspect that the episode will be of special interest to FOTs and those of us who teach Focusing oriented Therapy classes. In this episode, we also talk about how Klaus first encountered Gendlin’s work while engaged in his client-centred therapy training and he immediately knew that this was the right path for him. He pursued training in Focusing and then worked together with Dr Johannes Wiltksho.

Due to the sound quality and difficulty in translation, I have added voice-overs to some sections so that the listener can get a clear sense of the important details Klaus is sharing with us. You might find that this episode is easier to enjoy with the video.

Klaus has written a book “The Magic Moments - What Focusing Is”, but the only English version is via an online translation service. Their group also has an English translation of Gendlin’s workshop teachings so many years ago, collated by Gerhard Cieslak. If you are interested in seeing either of these and perhaps helping to make them more widely available, contact Klaus. An excerpt from the book “The Magic Moments”, by Klaus Renn: “Writing this book has given me a lot of pleasure over 3 years. The book project gave me the opportunity to reflect on my 30 years of practice and teaching. I understood many things in a new and more essential way. Focusing inspired me while writing - so that the book actually wrote itself. With this book I want to let Gene Gendlin speak: his way of seeing and interpreting the world, experience, philosophy and psychotherapy. The rich treasure of his view goes far beyond my "carrying on" and interpreting. My wish is to point to him as an inspirer of new thinking…”https://youtu.be/MDssyD9ScgA
https://www.deutsches-focusing-institut.de
You can contact Klaus Renn directly at: k.renn@t-online.de

The Living Process - all episodes and podcast links:
https://www.londonfocusing.com/the-living-process/

Living Process on the FOT Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx3FqA70kQWuHCHmEiZnkn1VcrRIPbcvk

The Living Process is available on all podcast platforms. Most of these platforms now offer free transcripts of each episode.