You can’t bench press 500 pounds on your first day

There’s a tool in Focusing called the Experiencing Scale. It was developed as a way to measure where a client is in the focusing process; based on how deep they’re at, you could determine whether they would have a felt experience, a felt sense, and eventually a felt shift.

I use it differently. I use it as a guide to help clients go deeper.

Because when I’m with a client who isn’t able to drop into what’s going on in her body, my goal isn’t to get her all the way there in one move. My goal is: can I help her go one level deeper from where she is right now?

If you want to bench press 500 pounds, you don’t start there. You start with 10, 20, 30, 50 pounds. You work your way up slowly, until you can eventually get there.

Same with the Experiencing Scale. So often, a client is talking about things in her life, and we jump straight to “and where do you sense that in your body?” And we expect her to suddenly drop from a 1 or 2 on the Experiencing Scale all the way to a 5 or 6, or even a 7.

That’s not practical. And it’s not how people actually get there.

We all naturally go through the process of the Experiencing Scale on our own. Some of us go through it more quickly, some of us more slowly. But if we can use it as a guide, then we’re actually building the capacity, instead of demanding it.

Whether you’re a practitioner helping clients go deeper, or a self-employed woman trying to access your own inner knowing, you don’t get to depth by demanding it. You get there one step at a time.

Ready? You don’t have to do it alone. Click here to schedule a one-on-one session and let’s take that next step together, at your own pace.

Warmly,
Rena

P.S. Don’t forget to connect with me on WhatsApp. I share visual reminders to anchor these ideas and link to new content weekly.

This week’s book recommendation: If this email resonated with you, I recommend Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: A Manual of the Experiential Method by Eugene T. Gendlin. Where the original Focusing book gives you the concept, this one gives you the clinical application — specifically, how to work with clients in those difficult moments when nothing seems to be happening, and how to stimulate and enable a client’s capacity for direct experiencing and felt shift. If you want to go deeper into the moment-to-moment process of what actually happens in a Focusing-oriented session, this is the book. Order a copy here — this is an affiliate link which doesn’t cost you anything extra and helps support my work.

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