"I feel for the first time I am in the right way to be with this problem I have always had in my life."

I feel a sense of joy here in my heart – it is like a sense of gratitude because all of these classes have been about something very deep inside.

I didn’t expect to bring out something so deep and hidden in my story connected to the food. I felt, and I feel, supported and held by the group around reaching these very deep areas of myself.

I feel also I am changed – a view and a perspective – and this is the beginning – and I am a little bit sad about stop this research, this knowledge of myself in this way. I will continue working on this. I feel that here a big door has been opened.

When you open your insides to people you need to have trust. I feel this group has been really supporting, especially with my partner – we made a lot of laughing and crying! I felt really supported like a baby in the arms in this research of myself by this group and by Jocelyn.

Before I began the class, my expectation was that the class would be about how to manage some situation where you are out of control with the eating process, and we would feel this, and look at this situation and talk about this – something like that.

I know, because I work with people with eating difficulties as a psychologist, that there is always something more deep about eating behavior. So I was expecting that something would come out - but not SO deep!

For example, for me – to see the tangle of food, weight and body image and to understand how to look at it. Before I started the course, I was IN the tangle, fighting against all the parts that came, and suffering.

The most important thing I experienced in this class has been to go outside of the tangle and to try just to observe, to accept, to stay there with the presence.

As a Focusing coordinator and trainer I’m used to just being there with a part or a feeling – but working with the tangle is more than that. This has been a very big teaching and very useful to me. 

And then also to have a Focusing process with the food – it was really surprising because for the first time I could deeply understand what it was inside that was really in relationship with the food. So I think this has been the most deep experience and discovery I have had during this journey.

I feel for the first time I am in the right way to be with this problem I have always had in my life.

I would also like to say that something has really changed in my life doing this journey: My way of being in rapport with people – the relationship with my body, with the world.

I don’t care anymore about where I am and what people think and say anymore – if I go to the beach, I don’t think anymore, “Oh nooooo!” Maybe not a year from now! But now I can be at the beach so quiet and relaxed about what I am today. This doesn’t mean I am happy about my tummy! But I can start to say, “OK – You are like that now. What can we do for you?”

And my relationship with the world, with the hurt, is different – so this is the big challenge and the big goal I have reached with this journey.

The guided sessions with Jocelyn were also really helpful – sometimes working with her was like magic!

It’s beautiful what she teaches us – to be connected to the heart – so I feel really much this connection to the group. This is the feeling I am bringing with me as I continue this journey.

Emanuela Fonticoli
Focusing Coordinator, Adult and Children
Focusing Trainer
Psychologist
Milan, Italy