More Video guides to Focusing practices are on their way, and I will be periodically putting up new ones and eventually replacing these with other versions. If you’d like to be contacted when new ones are published, contact me here…CONTACT

If you’re using these videos as a companion to my book, Mastering the Moment: A Mindful Approach to Changing Our Relationship to Our Habits and Ourselves, note that I will eventually re-film these videos so that there are two separate videos for each exercise- an introduction and the exercise itself. This will give you a shorter video of just the exercise with which to refer.

For anyone following along with these videos- this kind of inner awareness work can be difficult for some people as the idea is to sit with a vague inner sense of something, to be curious and non-judgmental about “it” enough to allow this sense to unfold, and to engage with “it” in whatever way feels right to you at the time. If you find you feel nothing, or don’t understand what I’m referring to, know that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you and you’re not doing it wrong. There’s no wrong way to begin to be curious about your inner experience. Some people live very close to their inner and direct experience, and some (often because of trauma, anxiety, or simply how we were taught to be with ourselves by our disembodied culture) are further away from their inner experience. It doesn’t really matter where you are on that scale, the therapeutic value of doing these exercises is in moving slightly more towards your inner experience from wherever you are. We’re interested in simply beginning a relationship with these parts of our experience that we usually skip over. Each time you revisit this work, it will will be different. The more you do it, the easier it will be to sit with this vague sense of something and to know “its” value and the ways in which you can engage with “it.” As you go through the videos, feel free to press pause to give yourself more time if needed. If you have any questions about these videos or this process of Focusing, please feel free to contact me at tara@imagineapath.com. You can also email me for more information about how to obtain a copy of the book, or join a "Mastering the Moment," 8 week series workshop based on the book.

The Grounding Exercise:

The first Focusing exercise I recommend is what I call the “Grounding Exercise,” adapted from Bala Jaison’s “Love Exercise.” This exercise is a great way to begin to understand what we mean by inner experience. This exercise is being in a place we feel centered and a sense of grounding. I suggest you try a this exercise as a daily practice, or whenever you’re engaging in something you love. It helps you to expand the goodness of what you love, to make that experience more intricate and expansive. This is the first week’s Focusing exercise in my upcoming book, Mastering the Moment: A Process of Gaining Control Over our Habits Through Mindful Awareness and Process Partnership, a book using Focusing to address unwanted habits. As you go through the video, feel free to press pause to give yourself more time if needed.

Focusing can be profoundly therapeutic when we use it to attend to something in us that is sensing something icky or off. It may be vague, but if we engage with it in a Focusing way, we allow it to be whatever it needs to be and therefore stop resisting it, pushing it away, trying to put other feelings over it, avoiding it, or denying it. When we allow these senses to be and put some attention on them, they almost always shift, even if incrementally. This shifting most often feels just a little bit better, and sometimes significantly better. Once we’ve attended to something in us that’s come up, it has less energy, and we are no longer acting from it. This is why I’ve relied so heavily on Focusing for my book, Mastering the Moment,” which teaches us a way to address unwanted habits. If we can use Focusing to recenter ourselves when we’re triggered then we can act in accordance of our ultimate goals, rather than from some part of us that feels icky and drives us toward our behavior. The next video is on an exercise that helps us to do that.

Focusing Exercise- Wanting to Engage in the Unwanted Habit: In this video, I lead you through a mindfulness-like exercise as a companion to my book, "Mastering the Moment: A Daily Process of Changing Our Relationship to Unwanted Habits Through Mindful Awareness and Process Partnership." This exercise is in chapter 2, where we attempt to meet what I call, the "Continuer," the part of us that wants to continue engaging in the unwanted habit. You're encouraged to find your own name for this part of you. In this exercise, you'll attempt to allow and invite in this sense of wanting to do the unwanted behavior and to engage with “it” to better understand what this part of you needs or wants in the moment now. We’ll notice that inviting and interacting with these felt senses in us will most often allow “it” to shift, just a little bit. In the 60 day process outlined in my book, you will practice pausing, attending to this part of you, allowing it to shift, realigning your motivations, and then adding in a positive habit. The idea is that at that point you will decide if you want to engage in the habit or not, and at that point you will be deciding with your whole brain, and not habitually responding with this part of you that is often the loudest once you’re triggered. As you go through the video, feel free to press pause to give yourself more time if needed.

Focusing Exercise- Meeting the Motivator: In the next video, I lead you through a mindfulness-like exercise in chapter 3 of Mastering the Moment, where we attempt to meet what I call, the "Motivator," the part of us that wants so badly to stop engaging in an unwanted habit that we've identified. You're encouraged to find your own name for this part of you. In this exercise, you'll attempt to meet this sense of wanting to make another choice, to engage with it to better understand what it feels like, how to bring it up when you feel your motivation is lost, and how to enhance this part of you and integrate it with your whole self. In the 60 day process outlined in this book, you will practice pausing after getting triggered, attending to the part of you that is wanting to engage in the unwanted habit when needed, addressing it until it shifts. In this moment, you can also bring up this part of you that you’re meeting in when doing this exercise, the part that is motivated and aligned with your ultimate goals, and then you would be adding in a positive habit. The idea is that once you’ve attended to whatever is coming up for you and made some space between your being triggered and habitually behaving, you will then decide if you want to engage in the unwanted habit, at that point deciding with your whole brain and not habitually responding with the part of you that is loudest once it's triggered. As you go through the video, feel free to press pause to give yourself more time if needed.

Focusing Exercise- Imagine a Path: In this video below, I lead you through a mindfulness-like exercise as a companion to chapter 4, in Mastering the Moment. This chapter is examining our motivation- from where it comes and where it goes. In this exercise, we attempt to visualize what I call our imagined path, what it feels and looks like to have been successful in addressing our unwanted habit. Knowing what this imagined path feels like in our bodies, helps us to connect with it at the deepest level so that we can use that part of us to further motivate us toward acting in accordance with our highest goals. As you go through the video, feel free to press pause to give yourself more time if needed.

Visualization Exercise- The Meeting House- In this video, I lead you through a mindfulness-like visualization exercise as a companion to my book, "Mastering the Moment: A Daily Process of Changing Our Relationship to Unwanted Habits Through Mindful Awareness and Process Partnership." This exercise is in chapter 3, where we examine motivation. Previously in the book, you're encouraged to connect with the part of you that wants to continue engaging in the unwanted habit and with the part of you that is motivated to change your behavior. In this exercise, we'll visualize invited both parts of us in to a safe space to interact however they would like. This is a step toward integrating these parts of us with our whole self, such that when we're triggered to want to engage in the unwanted habit, we might both feel the part of us that is drawn toward it as well as the part that feels very certain we don't want to engage in the behavior. Both parts are always present to some degree, beginning to integrate reduces the possibility that one part will dominate and that instead we can act from our whole, integrated self, that is aware of all the implications and not just acting from an urge. As you go through the video, feel free to press pause to give yourself more time if needed.

The Moment Between Us and Our Behavior- In this video, I lead you through a mindfulness-like exercise as a companion to my book, "Mastering the Moment: A Daily Process of Changing Our Relationship to Unwanted Habits Through Mindful Awareness and Process Partnership." This exercise is in the chapter on understanding and awareness, where we practice a pause button to create space between getting triggered and engaging in our unwanted behavior. In the 60 day process outlined in this book, you will practice pausing after getting triggered, attending to the part of you that is wanting to engage in the unwanted habit, addressing it until it shifts, bringing up this part of you that is motivated and then adding in a positive habit. The idea is that at that point you will then decide if you want to engage in the unwanted habit, at that point deciding with your whole brain and not habitually responding with the part of you that is loudest once it's triggered. As you go through the video, feel free to press pause to give yourself more time if needed.