
















May your spirit now be free







Focusing is a practice, not a theory


The benefits of paying attention to the felt sense





Citizenfour: Edward Snowden and the felt sense












Teleclass: Listening that empowers people to heal

Learn to listen in a way that gives people the space to listen to themselves. This awakens a natural process of self-healing.
Change is not one-size-fits-all. In this course, you will experience the intricate meaning that each problem holds for each individual. Once this meaning is expressed and heard, next steps naturally emerge.
Parents, co-workers and helping professionals can benefit from understanding this process of change, formulated from the work of philosopher/psychologist Eugene Gendlin, PhD.
Small teleclasses form monthly. Dates and times determined by participants based on their time zones.
$95 for four weekly classes, 90 minutes each.
Classes can be in English or Spanish.
Participants must have computers, a reliable internet connection, and headphones.
For more information or to sign up, contact Beatrice Blake.

A Cycle of Fostering

The system said: Welcome to Fostering. You’ll make great foster parents.

We said: Thank you. We hope we can do well.


The neighbors said: Aren’t you wonderful people.

We said: Everyone gives back in their own way, this is just ours.


The system said: You are doing a great job.

We said: We are trying for the sake of the children.


The neighbors said: We couldn’t do that, we would be too heartbroken when they would leave.

We said: What makes you seem so uncomfortable?


The neighbors said: Aren’t they lucky children to have you.

We said: We are the lucky ones to have them.


The system said: We know they’re difficult but,

We said: We need help.


The neighbors said: You’re just doing it for the money.

We said: We were doing it before the money.


The system said: We give you enough training.

We said: We need more.


The system said: We know you’re in difficulty but,

We said: We can’t keep them any longer.


The system said: You’re not good enough.

We said: We are the same people we were when we started.


The Focusing teacher said: There is another way.

We said: Focusing does help us to deal.


The Focusing teacher said: Your problems are only part of you.

We said: We enjoy our other parts to help us deal with our problems part.


–Joanne Lowry, Focusing Trainer in Training




How to understand the universe as a process, rather than breaking it down into its component parts

When one tries to explain about experiential truth, or the knowing of the body, one runs up against philosophical constructs that are so much part of our culture that one doesn’t know how to speak without them. Constructs like a “body” that is separate from the “mind” that is separate from the “spirit” or “soul”. Concepts about “scientific, objective reality” as opposed to “what I know inside”. Our society honors and gives credence to scientific knowledge derived from breaking life down into “units”, as Gendlin calls them: neuropeptides, hormones, GABA receptors, etc. Gendlin does not diminish in any way the huge benefits that we have achieved by working from the “unit model” of the universe. But the “unit model” only works when things are divided up into their component parts.

Living things are interactive processes, so we need to adopt an additional way of seeing the universe in order to be able to address so many of the things that are going haywire because we have been dividing living things into units. How could we study life in a more relevant way?

A Process Model is Gendlin’s attempt to explain the world from a process oriented point of view. The book, A Process Model, can be quite difficult to understand if one is not steeped in the history of philosophy for the last several millennia. So Rob Parker, PhD leads a Process Model  class by phone. A well-known leader in the Focusing world, Ann Weiser Cornell, says “Friends don’t let friends read A Process Model on their own.” So I am starting Rob’s class today!

Why I visited the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia

I was visiting my son in Philadelphia and he had to work. On my previous visit to Philly in early February I had visited Constitution Hall and the Constitution Museum. I noticed signs for the Philosophical Society, and decided that the next time I was in town, I would go there.

I wanted to talk to an American philosopher about the Philosophy of the Implicit, because it has many answers that people need today. People need to be able to validate their own lived experiencing as human beings.

Many people think they have to fit their reality into some belief system or another, whether it be religion, atheism, paganism, science, communism, “the bottom line” or what have you, as if there were just one system that held the ultimate truth. Children are not encouraged to pay attention to something inside that feels and knows.

On the other hand, many people feel the miraculous mystery of life and have no need to believe or prove themselves right or argue about it.

The bodily felt sense is an excellent indicator of personal truth. When truth is there, the body feels full of life and meaning. It feels open, and new possibilities arise.

A body sense of wanting to convince, or of fear that if one is not an exemplary representative of ones belief system, one will “go to hell” or “be exposed as a hypocrite”—this body sense might feel tight, troubled, pressured, uncomfortable, limited and limiting.

The bodily felt sense of situations is part of the process of life and what moves life forward. It is not about belief systems or conceptual frameworks. Familiarity with felt sensing can help people get perspective on the polarization that is happening in America that prevents us from living the vaslues upon which our country was founded.

When we know how to Focus and how to Listen, we can listen for the reasons that each person feels as he or she does.

Gendlin’s Philosophy of the Implicit has a practice: the practice of Focusing. Since 2008, I have been a member of the Community Focusing Lab. We try out and share ways to teach Focusing so that children, young people and adults can use it–through games, art, play, learning to listen.

So that is why I came to the Philosophical Society. From a kind lady at the front desk, I learned that in Benjamin Franklin’s time, the word “philosophical” referred to natural history and science. So the American Philosophical Society does not actually deal with philosophy. I have gone on to have an interesting correspondence with her.

And I am sharing my thoughts with you, dear reader. Let me know what you think!





He is internationally recognized as a major American philosopher and psychologist.

