Welcoming our new chairperson Therese Ryan

I’m honoured to be the new chairperson of the Irish Focusing Network succeeding Margaret Quinn who has stepped down after three years as the first chairperson of our network.

At the beginning of 2020 the word “zoom” was just a simple verb. Little did we realise how we would come to use “Zoom” to describe an online platform through which we would connect with people all over the world. In Spring of 2020 at the beginning of Covid, Margaret along with Mary Jennings emailed Focusers in Ireland with the idea of coming together online. Before long, weekly Focusing sessions began on Zoom and in 2022 The Irish Focusing Network was born.

Margaret brought tremendous energy and expertise to the role of chairperson and helped build a solid organisation dedicated to nurturing Focusing and connecting Focusers. Her unwavering commitment and vision ensured the growth and development of our network into the wonderful welcoming community it is today. We’re delighted that Margaret will continue to be involved in carrying forward new IFN initiatives.

Jayne Goulding has also stepped down from our committee. Jayne, like Margaret, has been a long-term member of the Focusing community in Ireland and a stalwart committee member since the network’s formation. Along with Kay McKinney and Maggie Neary, Jayne led a practice Focusing group for new members. We’re very grateful for her loyalty and dedication.

I’m delighted to welcome our new committee members, Marta Fabregat and Marta Wanczyk. Together with Caroline Moore, Elaine Goggin and Kay McKinney, I look forward to a fruitful year working together to grow and develop our community.

Our Spring gathering on 20th April will be a welcome opportunity to connect and Focus in person. We’re delighted and grateful to Marta Fabregat for hosting this event at An Tionol in Gort, Co. Galway. Our Autumn gathering will take place in Dublin on September 28th .

We’re excited to launch a monthly programme for enhancing Focusing skills, and we also look forward to an online evening in May with Gordon Adam from the British Focusing Association. Our bi-monthly poetry sessions hosted by Marie McGuigan and Elaine Goggin continue and all are welcome to join. And of course our weekly online Focusing sessions continue thanks to our generous hosts. If you have a workshop you’d like to offer either in one of our in person gatherings or online, please get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.

Therese Ryan
Chairperson

Introducing the New Committee Members:

Marta Wanczyk

Marta Woo, Polish by origin, Irish by fate, Focusing Practitioner by calling. Over the past decade, she has immersed herself deep into the Focusing practice, with the last four years under mentors Marta Fabregat and Beatrice Blake. Blending her passions, Marta integrates Focusing with diverse modalities like art, creativity, body and sound therapy, and nature-based approaches in her evolving practice: Embody. As she progresses through teacher training and facilitates one-on-one sessions, Marta dedicates herself to fostering communities around Focusing practice.

Focusing came into my life around 2010-2011 on a Nonviolent Communication retreat. But really it was already happening in an organic way in my life. When I arrived in Ireland in 1999 as a young woman searching for ways of living that promoted peace and creativity. I had been a human rights activist all the previous years since I was a teenager, and probably even since I was born. My family, specially my grandparents were the onces that had a great impact on my search for peace. They taught me about the dangers of judgement and right and wrong ideas and beliefs. So in a way Focusing was who I was, as a mother and a human being trying to find the place in me to hear beyond the ideas and to pause in my body with what was alive, through Zen contemplative practices and mindfulness at the time. Later when I met Eugene´s Gendlin phylosophy it felt like a big sigh in my life, and still continues to be a sigh that is growing and informing me how this peace can be experienced, a green breath.