Picking up the thread entries with brushstrokes of the International Conference Focusing which it took place in Cambridge (United Kingdom) of 20 to the 24 July 2016, Interest Group Community Wellness Focusing (Focusing the Community Wellness) It was for me one of the points destados. It was an experience of creating a community of shared manner by listen out, the translation, our previous communities and the Focusing attitude.

It's been a few months, and I've been writing about my experiences (All entries appear in the final index this entry), and it arises me a warm and tender feeling when I remember to this Group. Each morning of the conference participants a whole we joined one of the fifteen Stakeholders. These were groups that wanted to be an open space to share personal and professional points of view on focusing in specific areas. To me they tempted me many titles (There was even a “No Specific Interest Group Interest”, although the joke sounds better in English). I am very satisfied with my choice, while I regret not being able to divide myself for being able to attend many others…

Interest Group Community Wellness Focusing on the International Conference Cambridge (RU), julio de 2016.

The Interest Group Community Wellness Focusing (Focusing the Community Wellness) It was coordinated by Nina Joy Lawrence, Pat Omidian and Heidrun Essler, who created the container space so that we could participate and, as they had already anticipated, for “introduce the skills and attitudes Focusing on our daily lives and community groups” even in our own group of interest-. Thank you!

The first element was the listen out. We were sixteen participants from six different countries (Afghanistan, Germany, China, Spain, United States and United Kingdom), and not everyone was fluent in English, so the first step in building our community was to ensure that everyone could express themselves and understand anything we said: That meant just using three different working languages (English, Chinese and Spanish). What it could have been a burden (translate, for example, what a Chinese participant said English, and then to Spanish, and then answer in English, and then translate the answer into Chinese and Spanish, etc) It became a precious gift: the ability to listen to each person from a profound attitude of Focusing, even before they had translated the words. So we cultivate a way of being in company with a leisurely pace, a space in which each person was listening to others who spoke foreign languages ​​and, somehow, in the end, we begin to understand the experiences of those who spoke before translation.

The second experience, which it was especially poignant for me, was the translation In herself. I've been in different situations and translating between different languages ​​more than two decades, and very often in professional environments (for example, forming translating foreign Focusing here in Spain). But for me translate a conversation Focusing always a special effort, to be aware of translating both the words and the implicit experience in these words chosen.

That led me to another level: the fact of being translated (between English and Spanish, in both ways) in a group I felt like a community reminded me of my translations of immigrant adolescents to build a partnership group that no longer exists. When I shared this double experience, on the one hand, satisfaction of being able to translate in a community setting and, for another, mourning the defunct association, other group members also shared on communities that had lost their part-and how our previous communities They were present and had a room in what we were creando-.

During those four sessions talk, We tried exercises, commented… As I shared in the final round closing, I had come to the group with the main objective to get ideas, techniques and exercises to create a community that uses the Focusing. However, I take a very different: a Focusing attitude which favors the presence, It is allowing the group and each of its members to pay attention to a quality other than be feeling, a connection that remains from the body.

Here are some lessons that will stay with me for a long time (in fact, I have already visited Focusing Initiatives International, the organization that helps spread the Community Wellness Focusing, and I've subscribed to Community Wellness Focusing Discussion List, mailing list that reports this current, English), like deep gratitude to our host and each member of the group. now it “carry forward” all these experiences by creating communities that have these attitudes Focusing.

I wish you read to me many profound experiences of community building like this.

F. Javier Romeo Biedma

Note: The image is published with the permission of the group members. No names are given out of respect for your privacy, except those of the host-moderator who publicly offered Interest Group.

Read this post in English.