"Cultivating Resilience"
Mindfulness & Focusing Training
To schedule an appointment go to the contact page or call 847/323-1717.
Have you ever felt the sense of relief in your body when you've arrived at a good decision or felt the tension when you're uncomfortable about something you're about to do? We are always being guided by our inner felt sense and experiencing feelings guiding us in a direction. When we are in touch with that inner felt sense, it's a sense that guides, that can lead to actions that are authentic and satisfying.
So how can we become attuned to our felt sense and allow this inner compass to aid us to make better decisions and live more effectively? The first step is to listen. So often we judge or doubt our own experience or let our usual analyses get in the way. Listening, openness, acceptance, the ability to "pause", and focus attention on our present experience--these attitudes enable you to focus on your experience in a way that leads to solutions that you hadn't come up with before. Whether its deciding which job to choose, what direction to take when you are lost or how to handle a conflict in your family, by checking in with a felt sense, a person's experiencing can come up with the next step or action that's needed to move forward.
Marsha Smith, LCSW
Marsha Smith, LCSW
Psychotherapist with adults and adolescents 636 Church 1818 Dempster
Evanston, IL 847.323.1717
Psychotherapy will help you find solutions and make changes to feel better,
deal well with life challenges and be more effective in life.
I see individuals in person and virtually. I can accept BC/BS PPO and Medicare insurance types.
Your Mind, Body and Spirit
Workshops and training for the community and for health care professionals.
Recent workshops:
April 21st, 9:30 to 4:30.
Felt Meaning and Transforming Fear
A workshop for therapists healing professionals and others.
Reactions to fear often happen without pausing to let a felt sense of the situation form.
Focusing is a mindful way to let a felt sense form, before ‘reacting’ with the limited set of usual options
such as fight or flight. In this workshop participants will learn how a “bodily felt” sense can produce
an opening to more meaning and new options for going forward.
Friday, April 21, 9:30 to 4:30. Heartwood Center, 1818 Dempster, Evanston, IL
An experiential training for therapists, healing and health practitioners, teachers, and all those interested
to learn a powerful process for personal, spiritual and therapeutic growth.
Participants will experience new ways to constructively work with fear and anxiety:
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Learning how to contact a bodily felt sense and allow the body to express new
feelings
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Recognizing phases that unfold naturally in therapy that
allow clients to make steps of change
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Learning ways to help others “be with” the experience of fear that leads to
emotional transformation
Focusing Therapy Training Program for Healing Professio
A client-centered, experiential, body-centered process of self-awareness and emotional
healing for self care and working with clients. CEU’s for social workers and counselors.
Here’s What You’ll learn:
A practical, step-by-step method for working through problems or stuck situations and f
inding relief, insight, and new steps of action, and ways to help your clients do this too.
Powerful body-centered methods to help self-regulate and find new possibilities and authentic
steps of change.
In a small consultation group, there will be guided practice and discussion to allow you to use methods
for your self careand your work with clients.
Recent Workshops:
April 29, 2016, .
The Essence of Change:
For psychotherapists, body workers, coaches, and other professional healers.
This workshop will demonstrate skills of Focusing Oriented Therapy, (FOT),
body-centered, mindfulness based psychotherapy and ways to integrate these powerful prcesses into your practices..
contact Marsha for more information and or to register.
Unity of Chicago, Spring, 2015, which was sponsored by the Heartwood
Foundation Women & Cancer Program.There was a lively discussion...one
participant said that the guided mindfulness practice helped "to acknowledge my
stressful emotions and at the same time set them aside. The process helped me feel more
relaxed and peaceful and bigger than my problems."
Access Inner Resources: stories from students and clients
I teach self-care practices and provide therapy to help with a variety
of emotional and social challenges, including relationships issues, anxiety, depression, parenting, work, loss and grief, and coping well
with health issues. I work with adults and couples. Just the self-help practice of mindfulness can bring a gentle shift from being static and stuck to an easing and an opening, which is a good starting point for exploring feelings.
After learning about inner resources of mindfulness and focusing, people often report a change in how they listen to their body and emotions, which helps them open up feelings that they hadn’t been able to feel before. To quote one client:
"Instead of being bothered when I notice an ‘uncomfortable’ sensation, now I'm curious and pay attention and then it often releases and becomes clearer what it's about, which is sometimes about feelings that I had not been able to fully feel before. I’ve learned to check in with my body and the sensations I'm experiencing, which has led me to new information and options when I'm at an impasse within myself."
Often by paying attention to sensations and feelings non-judgmentally, it becomes possible to experience new feelings and energy that the body was holding. From another client:
"After having been through two weeks of neck and shoulder pain, in talking about my feelings and thoughts, you invited me to notice where I feel the emotions in my body. I could feel my neck slowly releasing. This "felt sense" you prompt me to find, often leads to insights and 'solutions' that I know within myself."
" I got a lot out of all the sessions with you and
it has inspired me to tune into myself much more. I wouldn't be in this better place without my conversations with you."-AK
" I contacted Marsha because I was looking for someone to help me find a sense of direction and control in my life. As we talk she offers gentle prompts to point me to the answers within myself. "-JB
" Marsha has an intuitive sense of how to gently guide me to help myself and find clarity in my thinking. She's a compassionate listener and a caring and kind person. I would
recommend her to anyone in need of an advocate of his or her own spirit and inner knowing. Marsha will listen, respect and empower you."-JC
