Focusing and spirituality: body as teacher

Focusing and spirituality

Fr Ed McMahon’s amazing quote about Focusing and spirituality shows how our body can become our spiritual companion and teacher:

Resurrection was always meant to be felt as a continuing NOW deep in the cells of our bodies,

Where something so mundane

As simply pausing to own our feelings, in a caring way,

Could call forth,

From an eternal and timeless presence,

Such a PENETRATION of those cells,

That our changing body ITSELF, would become our spiritual companion and teacher.

–Fr. Ed McMahon

Fr Ed  shares his inspiring story in this 5-minute video. Thanks to Nada Lou sharing this video!

How can it be that our changing body itself becomes our spiritual companion and teacher? In Focusing, you pause and become aware of your feelings, in a caring way, as he suggests. relationship of Focusing and spirituality by doing exactly as he suggests, pausing and owning your feelings in a caring way.

Too often spirituality is associated with criticizing ourselves for how we feel, rejecting how we feel, blaming ourselves for not being spiritual enough, not disciplined enough, not compassionate enough.  Paradoxically, by owning our feelings, they are transformed. Key to this is getting a bodily felt sense of the situation. The body will reveal your truth. 

Focusing, spirituality and the Great Turning

More and more I get the feeling that the Great Turning is a spiritual transformation. It has to do with us realizing that we are all part of the miracle of creation. We are all in this together.

Our bodies were made to live on this miraculous planet. Our lungs were made to breathe the air on this planet, our digestive systems were made to eat what grows on this planet, our bones and muscles were designed to enable us to walk upright on this particular planet. As human beings, we are part of all creation.

– Learn Focusing and Listening for yourself!

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Monseñor Romero’s version of Focusing

Here is a beautiful quote from Monseñor Romero that could be used to introduce Focusing, the Pause, Thinking at the Edge (first in Spanish, then in English):

“Vivimos muy afuera de nosotros mismos. Son pocos los hombres que de veras entran dentro de sí, y por eso hay tantos problema. En el corazón de cada hombre hay como una pequeña celda íntima, donde Dios baja a conversar a solas con el hombre. Y es allí donde el hombre decide su propio destino, su propio papel en el mundo. Si cada hombre de los que estamos tan aproblemados, en este momento, entráramos en esta pequeña celda, y desde allí, escucháramos la voz del Señor, que nos habla en nuestra propia conciencia, cuánto podríamos hacer cada uno de nosotros por mejorar el ambiente, la sociedad, la familia en que vivimos.”

“We live very much outside ourselves.
Few people really enter inside themselves,
and for this reason, there are so many problems.
In the heart of each person there is a small, intimate place [like a monk’s cell], where God comes down to converse alone with us. That is where each person decides his or her own destiny, his or her own role in the world.
If each of us who have so many problems, in this moment, would enter into this small cell, and from there, listen to the voice of the Lord, that speaks to us in our own conscience, how much could each of us do
to improve the environment, the society, the family
in which we live.”
–Monseñor Oscar Arnulfo Romero,
from his homily of July 10, 1977

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