The Felt Gospel - Let Your Body Interpret The Gospel
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For 7 years we have been presenting weekly here in Brazil this proposal of felt interaction with the gospel. We slowly read a passage selected from one of the four New Testament gospel accounts of Jesus' life, and after a moment of silence the body receives our attention for everything that may arise. Every experience receives our consideration. Then we share our experiences.
Presented by The International Focusing Institute
August 30, 2023
For 7 years Matheus has been leading felt interaction with the gospel. The group slowly reads a passage selected from one of the four New Testament gospel accounts of Jesus' life, and after a moment of silence, all are invited to pay attention to everything that may arise in the body. Every experience receives consideration. Then people share their experience, multiplying the benefits from one person to all.
Although we are dealing with Christian sacred texts, people of all faiths (or no faith) are warmly welcome to attend and share. There is also no requirement of a background in Focusing. However, please note that neither Focusing nor the basics of Christian sacred texts will be taught. Will be presented in Portuguese with simultaneous interpretation into English (in a separate audio channel)
Matheus Cautiero Mota has known Focusing since 2002 and immediately felt that it was the path of his soul. He is a psychologist and his main therapeutic base has always been a person-centered approach. But he also did training with Roger Woolger on memory regression, he did training with the systemic view of family constellations, and also trained in a path of self-knowledge called Pathwork. Today he is a Focusing coordinator in Brazil where he offers training for therapists.
Before becoming a Psychologist, he had a very intense spiritual quest in his life. He knew several paths from the West and the East and developed a very open look in relation to spirituality. He spent his life watching his father study the gospel on the porch of his house early in the morning every day, where he was there, underlining texts, taking notes... With him he learned to love Jesus and his teachings and continued studying in study groups until he started to think it was all very rational. He was looking for a way of working that included contemplation and feeling. A beloved teacher named Walter Parreira introduced him to the possibility of using Focusing with reading "sacred" texts and thus he started a work group that he called Felt Gospel. This work has been taking place in Brazil for 7 years and today he has weekly meetings that create a new relationship with the texts of the New Testament. The focus of this work is therapeutic, what matters is the bodily experience felt by each one when listening to the words. The image that each one creates when listening to the scriptures. Then participants share their experiences and create a meaning that is expressed at each meeting, learning that nourishes the whole group.
A curiosity. The group once had a conversation at a Latin American meeting with Kathy McGuire and they asked her if she could tell us about Gendlin's experience in spiritual work. She said that he had a peculiar job where alone he would read some passages from the Gospel and then open himself to silence to feel more deeply the effect of those words! Matheus thought it was wonderful to know that Gendlin lived the Gospel by heart! It is a joy to realize that this sensitive work has made a transforming difference in the lives of so many people.
This live online class is pay-what-you-can. The suggested payment for US residents is $30.
Contact The International Focusing Institute with any questions Phone: (845) 480-5111
Email: elizabeth@focusing.org
