Wholebody focusing is a phrase that points to a search for self, for love. I tried many ways to make it happen until finally the whole structure collapsed and I ended up in pieces, on the hospital floor at the age of 35. At that moment I started to laugh, which really surprised me, because laughter did not seem to fit what was happening. Despair or helplessness seemed to be far more appropriate emotions. But there I was, lying in a pool of my own stuff just after a back operation. I laughed because I would expect that the caregivers would be taking care of me rather than trying to make my bed correctly. Though they had dropped me, they were trying to get the bed right at least. That was the moment where my life began to transform itself upwards. Something in me knew that there had to be a different way. Today I call this Wholebody Focusing to mark this journey. It is a step-by-step process developed as a way of inviting me to begin to put myself back together again. It started when I chose to lead an inner directed life without any idea of what that meant!
Wholebody Focusing is a natural process that invites the power of consciousness to awaken the inner wisdom of the living body, a knowing that is at the heart of every one of us. Beneath our conditioned and stressful patterns that are all too familiar to us, lies an inner wellspring of intelligence and vitality that knows how to unwind our stress and traumas and move forward our life situation. Wholebody Focusing offers us the resources we need to reconnect with this Body Wisdom, in order to reboot our particular life stoppages and to open us up to the fullness of ourselves.
In the end Wholebody Focusing became a training program where people could come and share this journey with us. Karen Whalen had this most remarkable ability to pull me out of myself in a way I could begin to articulate what was actually going on in this journey. Karen recorded those moments with the diligence of a scribe. What came between us in these moments we now call Heartfelt Conversation. What emerged was not only the building blocks of Wholebody Focusing, but what also emerged was a heartfelt connection that was unfolding naturally, as we become more grounded in who we were, making space for the other as we made space for ourselves.
I think what still captivates me the most is how this inner wisdom can awaken, come alive, and open my life to new possibilities with perfect timing when I’m ready to accept its challenges. And it offers the same for others, each in their own unique needs and readiness. It is as though we are all part of this vast wisdom, working in all of us, together.