Table Of Content01* Title-copywrite Articles book 4/27/05 8:31 PM Page 1
T R A
HE ADICAL CCEPTANCE
E
OF VERYTHING
L F L
IVING A OCUSING IFE
A W C
BY NN EISER ORNELL
B M G
AND FEATURING ARBARA C AVIN
C P
ALLUNA RESS
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative
information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with
the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering
psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If
expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a compe-
tent professional should be sought.
Copyright © 2005 Ann Weiser Cornell
“The ‘Victim’, the ‘Critic’, and the Inner Relationship: Focusing with the Part
that Wants to Die” © 1994 Barbara McGavin
“Standing It” © 1996 Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin
“The Dog Story” and “Releasing Blocks to Action” © 2000 Ann Weiser Cornell
and Barbara McGavin
“What is Focusing?” © 2002 Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin
First edition April 2005
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval sys-
tem, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise,
without written permission from the Publisher.
CALLUNA PRESS
2625 Alcatraz Ave., #202
Berkeley, CA 94705-2702
USA
510-666-9948
Cover image: Kim Sohee
Design and layout: Barbara McGavin
ISBN 0-9721058-3-2
01* Title-copywrite Articles book 4/26/05 8:38 PM Page 3
For my beloved first family
Audra H. Weiser 1919-2002
David W. Weiser 1921-1988
Mark D. Weiser 1952-1999
Mona W. Holmes 1953-1999
radically unconditional love
and for my nieces and nephews who fill my life with
delight
Nicole, Josh, Corinne, and Christopher
01* Title-copywrite Articles book 4/26/05 8:38 PM Page 4
ALSO BY ANN WEISER CORNELL
The Power of Focusing:
A Practical Guide to Emotional Self-Healing
ALSO BY ANN WEISER CORNELL
& BARBARA MCGAVIN
The Focusing Student’s and Companion’s Manual,
Parts One and Two
02 contents 4/16/05 2:32 PM Page 1
Contents
Introduction 1
The Radical Acceptance of Everything
What is Focusing? ! 9
Three Key Aspects of Focusing 11
How I Met Focusing 17
I Am in Pain.... ! 23
The Radical Acceptance of Everything 29
Facilitating Presence " 43
The “Victim,” the “Critic” and the Inner Relationship:
Focusing with the Part that Wants to Die # 61
Treasure Maps to the Soul
The Treasure Maps Story So Far 71
Standing It ! 77
The Dog Story ! 83
Releasing Blocks to Action with Focusing ! 91
Radical Gentleness: The Inner Critic Transforms " 105
Focusing Partnership
Safe Focusing with (Almost) Any Partner 129
The Perils of Focusing Partnership 133
The Art of Facilitative Language
The Power of Listening 143
Focusing with a Family Member with Lung Cancer 165
Questioning Questions 173
For Focusing Teachers
The Difference Between Focusing and Therapy 185
The Origins and Development of Inner Relationship Focusing " 193
Relationship = Distance + Connection 207
Body? What Body? " 219
The Full Felt Sense 237
Focusing on Childhood 243
The Last Word
Five Reasons Why Focusing is Not Better Known (Yet) 251
Resources 257
References 261
Index 265
" newly written for this book
! co-authored with Barbara McGavin
# by Barbara McGavin
02 contents 4/16/05 2:45 PM Page 2
03 intro to whole book 4/16/05 1:59 PM Page 1
Introduction
This book is a collection of nineteen of my articles that have been previously
published (but usually in places that are hard to access today), four new articles
I wrote especially for this book, and one very special article by Barbara
McGavin. I began learning the Focusing process in 1972, and I began writing
about it around 1983. Why is this the right time, after 22 years, to publish a
collection of these articles? And how am I hoping people will use this book?
Kierkegaard said that we live our lives forward but we understand them
backward. As I hold this book in my hands, I have a sense of the life and work
that I have been creating over the last thirty-some years. There are themes that
emerge, and I can begin to say what some of them are:
(1) An inner process of radical acceptance–being in a state of Presence–is
an astonishingly facilitative environment for emotional healing.
(2) There are processes that enhance an inner relationship between an “I”
in Presence and a “something” which needs Presence.
(3) Many of these facilitative processes are linguistic; they have to do with
a facilitative use of language.
(4) Not everything that needs our attention is in our awareness; some
aspects have been exiled and need to be invited back again. (So radical accept-
ance of everything includes acceptance of aspects not in awareness.)
(5) The experience of helping another person find the inner relationship of
Focusing (also called “felt sensing”) is subtle, rewarding, humbling, and end-
lessly fascinating.
(6) People can be amazingly facilitative for each other, by not much more
than being there and saying some of the other person’s words back. This is the
gift of Focusing partnership.
(7) My own ongoing journey as a healing, awakening person is intimately
connected to (can’t be separated from) what I can give to or be for others.
As I sit with this list of seven themes, I feel an uneasy sense. The list sounds
rather dry and abstract compared with how delicious and rich it has felt to live
this work. And I can feel how the list is incomplete... but I know that if I tried
to add to it, it would still be incomplete. Holding the book, with the 24 arti-
cles and their introductions, feels more complete.
03 intro to whole book 4/16/05 1:59 PM Page 2
2 ! The Radical Acceptance of Everything
IIn choosing the articles for this book I had three criteria. They needed to be
(1) influential, (2) relevant today, and (3) my personal favorites. After I had
chosen nineteen articles that met those criteria, I realized that some major
areas of my work were missing, so I wrote four more articles to fill those gaps.
Finally, I decided to include an article by Barbara McGavin (with her per-
mission) because it had changed my life so profoundly and has formed the
basis of all of my work since I read it. In addition, five of the other articles
published here were co-authored with Barbara McGavin, and many of those
not officially co-authored with her are drawn from our collaborative work,
especially in the Treasure Maps to the Soul section.
HHow might this book be used? I am imagining four kinds of readers – though
of course one person might fit more than one category.
First, I am hoping that you will be drawn to this book if you are involved
in your own emotional healing, pursuing some of the issues I’m engaged with
here: releasing action blocks, transforming self-criticism, reclaiming exiled
parts of your self. This includes everyone who is touched by the words “radi-
cal acceptance of everything” and who feels an inner sense of “wanting more
of that.”
Second, I’m hoping for an audience of people who want to go deeper
into the remarkable Focusing (felt-sensing) process developed by my teacher,
Eugene Gendlin. Almost all of my articles were written originally for Focusing
“insiders,” people who knew what the Focusing process was and were able to
do it. Many of the articles were published in The Focusing Connectionnewslet-
ter, which is published for people using Focusing in their lives.
I am hoping that this book of articles will be accessible to people inter-
ested in Focusing but new to it. I have done my best to clarify what may be
unclear, in the introductions to the articles, as well as including some articles
at the start of the book that introduce the process. But if you find yourself
wanting to experience Focusing yourself (not always easy from a book!), the
very best way is to have a one-to-one Focusing session with a Focusing
teacher. I’ve included a Resources section in the back to help you connect
with the worldwide Focusing community.
The third kind of reader I envision would be Focusing teachers like
myself. We teach Focusing in one-to-one sessions and in workshops, or per-
haps we are therapists, life coaches, spiritual counselors, bodyworkers, etc.,
who bring Focusing into our sessions. Near the end of the book is a section
“For Focusing Teachers” where I’ve put some of the newest articles, because
this is an area that remains at the leading edge of my work. I welcome a dia-
logue about how we can be facilitative to the wonderful variety of people we
encounter, while still remaining true to ourselves.
03 intro to whole book 4/26/05 8:42 PM Page 3
Introduction ! 3
And finally, I have in mind an academic kind of reader, who is interest-
ed in the contribution these articles might make to the ongoing understand-
ing of psychological process, emotional healing, and facilitative language.
That is a large enterprise; I’m happy to make these articles more accessible so
that these ideas too can be refined and improved in the mill of those discus-
sions.
WWhat is Focusing? It’s a process of awareness, a learned process and also a nat-
ural one, that involves sensing inwardly, in the body, the whole way it feels in
there about situations in one’s life. The uneasy feeling in the pit of the stom-
ach, for example, that tells one that something is funny, not right, in the room
one has just walked into... We are familiar with that kind of sensation, but we
often don’t know, until learning the Focusing process, how every situation can
give a “felt sense” like that, or how those felt senses can open up, reveal intri-
cate information, and release, relax, shift.
Focusing was identified, named, and developed as a taught process by
Dr. Eugene Gendlin. It is based on research he and colleagues did in the late
50s and early 60s, and also based on his groundbreaking work in philosophy.
His book, Focusing, appeared in 1978, and since its appearance people from
all over the world have sought him out for workshops and training, many
becoming Trainers (Focusing Professionals) in turn. The Focusing process
now has a presence in over 25 countries, with the largest communities in the
US, Canada, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, the UK, and Argentina.
Gendlin’s nonprofit Focusing Institute, based in New York, helps connect
people with Focusing teachers and therapists using Focusing, and has an
online bookstore that includes books, audio tapes, CDs, and videotapes.
Their immensely helpful web site is www.focusing.org.
FFocusing has a history, and so do I.
I first met Focusing in 1972, when I was a 22-year-old grad student in
Linguistics at the University of Chicago. The story of my own evolution can
also be found in the pages of this book: how Focusing was difficult for me at
first, how I became a Focusing teacher almost by accident, how and why my
teaching of Focusing evolved and transformed from the ways I had been
taught. You’ll find my prejudices and my passions on every page, and I hope
the glimpses into the personal side of my story will be entertaining and help
you connect personally to the concepts and methods presented here.
IIneed to say a word about the contribution of Barbara McGavin to this book.
You will find her woven all the way through it. Few people are gifted with the
privilege of true collaboration. Barbara and I have worked together so closely
