An Introduction to Focusing — Part 2: A Part of Me
This is the second post in the series An Introduction to Focusing. Each post includes a short video practice and a written companion piece. You can start at the beginning with Part 1: Clearing a Space or jump in here.
There’s a small shift in language that sounds almost too simple to matter.
Instead of saying I am anxious — try a part of me is feeling anxious.
That’s it. Same feeling. Different relationship to it.
If you’ve ever tried it, you’ll know it’s not as small as it sounds. Something changes when you put those four words in front of an experience. The feeling doesn’t disappear — but it becomes something you’re having rather than something you are. And that distinction turns out to be significant.
Why language shapes experience
When we say I am anxious or I am depressed or I am overwhelmed, we’re making a totalising statement. The feeling becomes the whole of who we are in that moment. There’s no room to the side of it, no observer watching it, no part of you that isn’t it.
This is part of what makes difficult emotions so hard to be with. Not just the feeling itself, but the way it seems to consume the whole space — the sense that this is all there is right now, and it might always be.
A part of me changes the geometry of that.
It says: this is something happening in me, not the totality of me. There’s a part that’s feeling this — and there’s also a part that’s noticing it. A part that’s scared, and a part that can sit with the scared part. A part that’s overwhelmed, and a part that can acknowledge the overwhelm without being completely inside it.
That noticing part — the one doing the observing — is what Focusing works with and tries to strengthen.
This isn’t positive thinking
It’s worth being clear about what this practice isn’t.
It’s not about replacing a difficult feeling with a better one. It’s not about talking yourself out of what you’re experiencing or reframing it into something more acceptable.
The practice of saying a part of me isn’t a way of dismissing what’s there. It’s actually the opposite — it’s a way of taking it seriously enough to give it its own space, while also maintaining enough perspective to be curious about it rather than consumed by it.
I am anxious closes the conversation. There’s nothing to be curious about — it’s just what’s true.
A part of me is feeling anxious opens it. Now there’s something to explore. What’s this part carrying? How long has it been there? What does it need?
What this has to do with anxiety specifically
Anxiety has a way of making itself feel like the truth about a situation rather than a response to it.
The thought something bad is going to happen doesn’t arrive as a thought — it arrives as a fact. The feeling of dread doesn’t feel like a sensation passing through — it feels like an accurate reading of reality.
When anxiety is speaking in first person — I am scared, I am in danger, I am not okay — it’s very hard to question it. It’s just who you are right now.
When it becomes a part of me is scared, a part of me feels like something bad is coming — there’s suddenly a little space. Enough to ask: is this part right? What is it responding to? What does it need from me right now?
That space is where working with anxiety actually becomes possible.
How to use this practice
The video above guides you through a short practice using this language shift in real time.
As you work with it, a few things worth noticing:
Does the shift in language change anything in your body? Even a small difference in tension, or a slight sense of more space, is worth paying attention to.
Can you get curious about the part that’s feeling whatever it’s feeling? Not to analyse it or fix it — just to acknowledge it. There’s a part of me that’s feeling this. I notice you.
And notice the part of you that’s doing the noticing. That’s the part Focusing is trying to cultivate — steady, present, able to be with difficult experience rather than being consumed by it.
What’s next in the series
In Part 3 we’ll look at the practice of Acknowledging What Is There — going a little deeper into how to be with what you find once you’ve created some space and started to separate yourself from it.
An Introduction to Focusing is a series of short video practices and written companion pieces exploring the basics of Focusing-Oriented Therapy. Each post stands alone but builds on what came before.
If this way of working with inner experience feels relevant to something you’re carrying — whether that’s anxiety, difficult emotions, or a sense of being stuck — individual counselling is available in Squamish and online across BC. Focusing-Oriented Therapy is one of the approaches I draw on most in my work. You can read more about it on the about page.
