Sensed Ecology Year 1 – Focusing Skills Programme
Certified by The British Focusing Association & The International Focusing Institute
What if the part of you that longs to let go… isn’t quite ready to be let go of?
There’s something so human in that edge, the place where change wants to happen, but something in us isn’t ready. In Focusing, we learn not to push past it, but to sit with it. Gently. Warmly. Curiously. And from that place of deep presence, something new begins to move. Life shows us the next step, not imposed, but emerging from within.
This programme offers a slow, rooted path into your own inner knowing, where sensing and ecology meet. It is for those who feel called to be more in tune with their bodies, the natural world, and the quiet inner threads that guide us forward.
What is Focusing?
Focusing is a simple and profound practice of inner listening, a way of tuning in to what your body knows but may not yet have words for. It invites us to sense freshly into how we are, beneath the surface stories or reactions. And it helps us be with even the most tangled or stuck places in a way that’s gentle, respectful, and non-judgmental.
When we listen like this, to ourselves, to others, to the world around us, something in us begins to flow again. Clarity comes. Grounded movement. A felt sense of “yes, this is the way.”
This course weaves together the richness ofEugene Gendlin’s Focusing, whole-body sensing, and the grounding context of Sensed Ecology, a practice that reminds us we are not separate from nature, but part of it.
Sensed Ecology Focusing
Sensed Ecology grew from years of listening and study, not only inwardly, but outwardly too: to forests, weather, soil, birdsong, and the slow language of place. It is a way of experiencing ourselves not as separate from nature, but as sensing participants in its unfolding. Just as a forest listens and responds to change, we too have an inner ecology, subtle, alive, and deeply relational that is inherently available.
This practice opens the door to becoming nature, to remembering ourselves as living organisms within a greater web of life. Through attuned sensing and presence, we discover that our inner knowing is not isolated but connected to all that lives. It offers us a space of emergence, where we can meet other beings, human, and more-than-human, with openness and possibility.
Above all, our bodies carry a unique way of relating with life, distinct and alive in each of us. Sensed Ecology helps us find that thread. It’s a return to the body as a place of wisdom, and to the Earth as a co-guide in our unfolding.
Rooted in the philosophy of Eugene Gendlin and informed by ecology, perception, and somatic presence, Sensed Ecology encourages a way of learning and being that emerges from relationship: with the body, with place, and with what is alive in the moment. It’s a way of listening not just with the ears, but with the whole body, with skin, breath, imagination, and instinct.
In Sensed Ecology, Focusing becomes more than an internal practice, it becomes a conversation with life itself. A walking-with. A sensing-with. A being-with. A way of reweaving ourselves into the living web of things, and allowing new understanding to arise from that wholeness.
A Course in Five Modules
A Course in Five Modules – September 2026 – April 2027
Weekly sessions – Mondays (Irish Time)
Morning group: 10am – 12pm
Afternoon group: 4pm – 6pm
(Participants choose one group)
Each module includes:
- 5 weekly online sessions (2 hours each) – 5 on weekday (Monday)
- Nature-based invitations and sensing practices
- Paired practice with fellow participants between sessions
- End of year Sensed Ecology Retreat – 22nd to 25th of April
Themes across the 5 modules:
- Coming Home – First steps in your Focusing journey
- Inner Ecology – Deepening Focusing and sensing the biology of perception
- Joy of Sensing – Exploring the senses and the body as a gateway to presence
- Walking with Life – Building inner trust and finding your unique rhythm
- Wholebody Knowing – A sensing lab for integrating depth, slowness, and emergence
What You’ll Learn & Experience
- How to stay with challenging emotions without overwhelm
- A deep sense of body-trust and self-companionship
- A way to befriend the inner critic and invite gentleness
- A new way of listening to others that builds real connection
- A grounded capacity for presence, in life, in relationships, in work
- The sense of being part of something larger, an ecological community
A Space of Companionship
This is not just a course, it’s a small community. A space where your presence matters, where we share our learning, our questions, and the subtle shifts we each go through. There is space for intimacy, depth, and mutual support. Between sessions, you’ll be invited to practice with a focusing partner to deepen your learning.
What Happens in Each Session?
- Embodied welcome & attunement
- Introduction to key themes and practices
- Guided Focusing exercises and demos
- Time in pairs or small groups to practice
- Whole-group sharing and integration
- Optional nature-based sensing invitations between sessions
How We Meet: Online, Gently Held
We’ll meet on Zoom in a shared space that feels warm, relational, and grounded, even though the screen. Each session is recorded for your own reflection. You don’t need prior experience, just a willingness to slow down and listen to what is quietly waiting in you to be known.
Modules 1 to 5
Module 1: Rooting into Your Focusing Journey
A first encounter with body wisdom and the ecology of sensing
Module 2: Deepening the Path — Walking with What’s Here
Grounded presence and the art of accompanying what emerges
Module 3: Awakening the Senses — A Felt Encounter with Life
Wholebody listening, movement, and joy as gateways to connection
Module 4: Listening Alone, Listening with the Land
Confidence in self-guiding and the wild companionship of silence
Module 5: Seasoning the Practice — Resting into the Wider Web
Listening to complexity, creativity, and the deeper unfolding of self and world
Module 1: Rooting into Your Focusing Journey
A first encounter with body wisdom and the ecology of sensing
This opening module is a gentle initiation into Focusing as an embodied practice, a way of listening inward that grounds us in the wisdom of the living body. You’ll learn the basic shape of a Focusing process and begin to attune to the subtle language of the felt sense. We’ll also start sensing into how this inner awareness lives in relationship with the wider world, the quiet soil of your inner life meeting the rhythm of the seasons.
Themes include:
- A comprehensive introduction to Focusing
- Focusing partnerships and creating safe listening spaces
- Listening from the inside out, body, breath, and presence
- Sensing into the inner landscape through silence and imagery
- “Letting it be there” as fully as it wants to be
Module 2: Deepening the Path — Walking with What’s Here
Grounded presence and the art of accompanying what emerges
In this module we deepen the roots of your practice, learning how to meet what arises with gentleness, patience, and presence. As we walk with our inner terrain, we explore the nature of the felt sense as an ecological process: alive, relational, and always shifting. You’ll discover how to companion yourself and others through stuck places and how to create space for movement to arise naturally.
Themes include:
- The power of “something in me”
- Grounded Aware Presence (G.A.P.)
- Clearing a space, an embodied ritual of pause
- Listening to what is ready and what is not
- Becoming a true companion, with yourself and others
Module 3: Awakening the Senses — A Felt Encounter with Life
Wholebody listening, movement, and joy as gateways to connection
This module invites you to experience Focusing as a sensuous, enlivening encounter. Through gesture, movement, and the sensory world, we awaken the body’s natural ways of knowing. We explore the ecology of sensing, how pleasure, discomfort, stillness, and vitality all belong to a wider field of aliveness. Nature-based exercises and wholebody awareness help you ground into a more expansive inner space.
Themes include:
- The gifts of embodied sensing in Focusing and companioning
- Movement and gesture as expressions of felt meaning
- Welcoming the body’s own pace and direction
- Listening from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head
- Practices in stillness, silence, and natural presence
Module 4: Listening Alone, Listening with the Land
Confidence in self-guiding and the wild companionship of silence
Here, you’ll begin to travel more independently in your Focusing practice, learning to guide yourself through inner landscapes with skill and trust. You’ll explore how to deepen your relationship with inner knowing through silence, phrasing, and body resonance. We also invite the natural world as a silent companion, a mirror and co-regulator in your solo journeys.
Themes include:
- Self-guiding skills and phrasing
- The silent companion, how to accompany your own process
- Receiving and deepening contact with the felt sense
- Partnering with land and place as silent witnesses
- Listening as a cyclical and seasonal process
Module 5: Seasoning the Practice — Resting into the Wider Web
Listening to complexity, creativity, and the deeper unfolding of self and world
Our final module is a harvest and a deepening. You’ll integrate what you’ve learned, revisit stuck patterns with renewed presence, and explore how your Focusing process can support creative living and relational freedom. We reflect on how your practice is shaped by the wider web of life and how inner transformation echoes into your relationships, work, and
community.
Themes include:
- Meeting the inner critic with compassion
- The inner child
- Listening without collusion, being with paradox
- Creativity, expression, and the alchemy of the process
- Staying present with the whole field – beyond inherited filters
- Resting in the Limitless, belonging in the web of life
Contribution & Commitment
Contribution & Commitment
The total contribution for the full programme is €1500, which includes a final in-person immersive intensive at the end of the training.
This closing gathering will take place from 22nd to 25th April 2027, offering a space to deepen, integrate, and complete the journey together within the living field of Sensed Ecology. This would have an edition €250 to cover expenses of the retreat. ( Full board 3 days in the West of Ireland ).
To reserve your place, a €150 deposit is required upon registration (from now until September).
The remaining €1350 can be paid in one of the following ways:
– Monthly instalments: spread across 8 months (September to April)
– Per module: 5 instalments, paid at the beginning of each module (approximately every 6 weeks)
Once you register, your place is held for the full cycle of the programme. This is a commitment not only to your own process, but to the shared field we will be cultivating together.
Certification
Upon completion, you will receive a BFA Certified Foundation Course Certificate, which is also recognised by The International Focusing Institute (TIFI). This training serves as the foundational step toward becoming a certified Focusing Practitioner/Facilitator, or simply a deeper journey into your own self-accompaniment.
Ultimately, this course is an initiation, into a gentler way of being with yourself, a clearer way of listening, and a more whole way of living.
“Your physically felt body is in fact part of a gigantic system of here and other places, now and other times, you and other people – in fact the whole universe.”
— Eugene Gendlin