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•REVIEWS•
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After 15 years of consistent reprints A Revised Second Edition |
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| By Peter A. Campbell, Ph.D. & Edwin M. McMahon, Ph.D. What is BioSpirituality? |
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| The human body plays a remarkable role in spiritual development. Rarely do we realize that “meaning” is not only thought in our minds, it is also felt in our bodies. In addition to cognitive meanings which we can think in our heads and express to one another, we also experience less articulate “felt meanings” about choices, relationships, and everyday situations in our lives. Such body knowing is always present in awareness, influencing our perceptions and decision-making, whether we choose to notice it or not. BioSpirituality is about our body’s central role in developing an awareness of spirit. We add the prefix “BIO” to “Spirituality” in order to highlight the unique role of this body knowing in our on- going human journey into spirit. |
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| In the 1960’s Dr. Eugene Gendlin wondered why some people undergoing therapy got better and others did not. Healing and growing, he found, occurred when clients owned and allowed their feelings to express hidden felt meanings. He called these more embodied meanings “felt senses” and discovered tangible steps that could facilitate this process. He called this new approach, “Focusing.” Focusing teaches you how to turn your attention inside your body to listen, so the energy of your life can be freed to move forward. Focusing is a special way of coming home to yourself, and of encouraging others to come home to themselves. | ||||||||
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| In the 1970’s, Drs. Peter Campbell and Edwin McMahon, psychologists of religion, began to explore the link between Focusing and spirituality. They found that the body’s ability to experience felt meaning revealed a hidden bridge into the gifted experience of spirit if focusers were helped to create an inner climate of caring presence. This allowed them to let go of “fixing,” forcing, manipulating, judging, shaming—all the basically violent ways through which we abuse ourselves and others. Once people begin taking care of any feelings which have an edge of, “there’s something more in this for me,” for example when listening to the evening news, during an argument, or while watching a movie, then the habit of sensing deeper into the hidden “ felt stories” these experiences hold can become as much a part of daily life as thinking itself. Developing this habit of Noticing and Nurturing” felt meaning (or “ felt senses”) throughout the day provides greater availability to interact with a largely unrecognized “world of gift” (or “grace”) that our body-knowing can access. This is a world most people don’t even know exists because they are so busy escaping from their feelings or preoccupied with mind-knowing in our information-based culture. BioSpiritual Focusing deliberately nurtures a spirit based body wisdom which heals our inner disconnections, thereby balancing our dysfunctional lifestyles. It opens a new paradigm of human consciousness for exploration. The simplest things that touch our bodies each day, along with major issues like pain or joy can then reveal the wonder, the sacredness, and the gift of everything in life. After fifteen years of consistent reprints, BioSpirituality: Focusing as a Way to Grow, a central text in the study of Focusing is now updated and expanded by the original authors. |
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3441 North Ashland Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60657 Tel: 1-800-621-1008 ISBN: 0-8294-0937-8 $10.95 |
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