IF YOUR CRITIC MAKES YOU FEEL BAD

Everyone has a "critic," a nasty voice that comes and says something like "Anything you do won't work," or "You're no good. You're worthless, nobody would want you around" or "You messed up again, you always do. This is another one in that long string" or "You're just a wishy-washy, no courage, that's you."

Sometimes this voice will use true information, but even so, its tone of voice is so nasty, you can tell it is the destructive critic attacking you.

It is very important to sense that the critic is different from your own inward source. The critic is not your own felt sense speaking from within you. Rather, it is like a voice coming at you from outside, or above your head. It waves its finger at you, like an angry parent or a mean teacher.

Naturally it generates feelings in you, but these are not feelings to focus on. They are only constrictions and tight-closed tensions the critic makes in you. Do not respect your critic. The critic is not your conscience. Conscience is a "still small voice" inside. You can evaluate any information much better yourself, if you first send the critic out into the hall, to wait. Your own sense comes from within you and always feels like an opening, an unconstricting. You may find the same facts, or you may not. Either way it is an entirely different kind of body-experience to focus.

The best way to deal with the critic (everyone has one!) is to wave it away with some disrespectful com­ment. Mine usually says the same things, over and over. So I say to it, "Go away and come back when you have something new to say."

Or I say, "I don't have to listen to anybody who talks to me in that tone."

All psychologists have found this destructive part of every person and given it various names (super-ego, bad parent, animus, critic). Whatever you call it, don't fall for it. In focusing one must push it out of the way when it interrupts. Wave it off with your hand, and put your attention in your body. Let the constriction the critic has made there ebb away. Wait till you are again sensing your own inward source, where the felt sense of the whole problem forms.

One person put it quite well: "It used to give me a thud, a thump in the middle. It was a signal to feel terrible. Now it's a signal to get mad. It's like some­body kicked me. 'You stop that!' (She puts her fists up.)

Don't just believe your critic and focus on how bad it makes you feel. Instead, find out, underneath, what you really feel and perceive, and need. Work down where you feel and need things, and not just with your critic.

"I GO RIGHT TO MY BAD FEELING. AND FEEL BAD AS ALWAYS"

Some people, despite the careful and precise focusing instructions, skip them all and go directly to their usual bad feelings. Some people are used to turning to a single bad feeling inside, whenever they turn inside. So they begin to focus and there it is.

After I give focusing instructions in a group, I often ask each person to write me a note about whatever difficulty was encountered in trying to focus. One wom­an wrote: "When I came in here I felt fine, I focused on my bad feeling, and now I feel bad. Is this what focusing is for?"

Clearly, if that's focusing, who needs it? This is not focusing. Focusing involves letting a felt sense form something wider than and different from your old familiar bad feeling. Stay out of the old familiar sink­hole, stand back and take in a wider sense of the whole problem area that the bad feeling is part of.

For example, don't just remember your hurt at the love relationships that just broke up. Instead, stand back and ask for a felt sense to form -- a sense of the whole area: you and loving. Yes, yes, there's the hurt, but what else is there? What is the whole feel around and under it?

Sure, you know your particular depressed place. There might even be a suction drawing you into it, but don't sink. Ask yourself what that whole area of your life feels like, and you will find yourself out of the emo­tion, and a felt sense under it will come.

Strange as it sounds, focusing is lighter than heavy emotions. Sometimes heavy emotions do come in focus­ing, but a felt sense is always easier on the body than emotions.

Great passions, insane jealousy, tearing resentments, grand sufferings -- these are sometimes patterns set off by little feelings you hardly noticed. Focus on the "little" feeling that set it off, especially if the strong passion is one you have many times felt and pursued already.

When people first hear of focusing, they sometimes assume that they would need a free afternoon for it in order to have overwhelming feelings and privately go to pieces for a while. Focusing is not like that. The felt sense of the whole thing feels lighter than what you are feeling already. You can focus while you are waiting for a bus. Just see what's between you and feeling fine. Don't go into these, just say "yes, that's there ..." and feel the relief that comes from making the space. Then, if one problem needs working on, get the whole felt sense of it! "What is it like to have that there, now?" By the time you get on the bus you'll feel much better. The few minutes between things are good for focusing. Why carry your tensions around all day?

Focusing takes a few minutes, ten, fifteen, let's say even half an hour. But not more. Then it's time to talk, rest, do something else. Do not grind away at things. You will return later. Meanwhile, the body will process it.

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