The Wonder of Life - using Focus to find it

Do you find it hard to stay in the present moment? Are you always either thinking about what is coming next or worrying about what has already happened?

Eugen Gendlin the founder of Focusing –(an experiential form of psychotherapy that encourages clients to get in touch with a “felt sense” of their bodies), tell us that the body has a natural tendency to say, “What’s next?” and to want to move forward. 

This can be familiar to many of us who have experienced something disturbing. There’s always a part of the person that wants to move forward to avoid the feelings in their body. “It’s like when the picture is hanging crooked on the wall and something in your body tells you to get up and straighten it”.

So how do we slow the urge to keep moving forwar

d? Coming more into the present moment and reducing the amount of time spent thinking about the future or ruminating about the past can be very helpful.

Mindfulness is very popular at the moment and is often presented as the solution. There are lots of training courses and advice on how to practice it. However it can be very off putting for people particularly if they associate mindfulness with sitting for hours trying to empty their mind.

Happily it doesn’t have to be that way, or even very complicated at all. We can have moments of mindfulness or focus woven into our day. This is where awe and wonder can be helpful. Mindfulness is really about staying in the present moment. We can do that in a number of ways.   Gendlin tells us, in life there “is a magnificence that we can sense. In animals, in trees, and in the rocks, there’s a magnificence that’s obviously there, and you can find it if you look out the window”.

Regularly focusing on items in nature – the horizon, the vast expanse of sky, the intricacy of a flower, the sheer magnificence of a tree, can ground us and activate processes in the brain that are very beneficial to us. Doing this practice or focus gives our brain a rest!

So next time you are feeling overwhelmed or feel like experiencing mindfulness simply look beside you out the window or get outside in nature and focus intently for a few minutes on the wonder of life and nature. Your body and mind will thank you for it!