ABOUT | Jocelyn Jacks Kahn

About Jocelyn

I first became interested in the notion of “enlightenment” as an 11-year-old.

At one time, this made me think,
“Wow – I had a spiritual bent from such a young age!”

In reality, what I had from such a young age was a sense of being a hopeless mess and a heartfelt desire to be someone else.

How I Came to this Work

I eventually grew up to join a spiritual center – still having my child’s sense that I would have some big experience that would transform my whole being.

What I discovered was experienced teachers who’d had deep and genuine awakening experiences – and yet interacted with their students in destructive and unconscious ways.

Deeply confused, I gave up on what I had taken to be a “spiritual” path. It was clear I’d made a wrong turn along the way, but I wasn’t sure exactly

what that wrong turn was.

Decades later, I came across Focusing teacher Ann Weiser Cornell’s book, The Radical Acceptance of Everything.

My immediate response to reading it was, “I’ve been looking for this all my life and I didn’t even know it!”

But it was only later that I realized exactly what it was that Focusing had gifted me.

Focusing showed me that the magic did not lie in searching for a different, better experience to replace the painful experience I was having. The magic lay in learning how to open up to the bodily felt experience that was happening NOW.

And I found that as I opened up to my bodily felt experience in this moment, my life began opening up to me. In turn, this deepened my capacity – in a wonderful beneficent circle –
to open up to the flow of Life that holds us all.

It gives me great joy to be able to pass this profoundly healing work on to you.

My Background

I was certified as a Focusing
trainer and guide in 2010.

Focusing was discovered by Eugene Gendlin, Ph.D. Working with Carl Rogers and colleagues at the University of Chicago, he analyzed hundreds of hours of recorded therapy sessions to determine why some therapy clients were successful and others were not. He discovered that the successful clients had a physically palpable feeling about the situation that they would continually check against as they spoke.
He came to identify this as a complex, bodily “felt sense” of a whole situation. Gendlin devoted his life to turning it into a teachable skill that everyone could benefit from. There are decades of studies exploring different aspects of Focusing.

A number of Focusing pathways developed over the years. My work has developed from two primary pathways:

Inner Relationship Focusing was developed by Ann Weiser Cornell, one of Gendlin’s original students and certified teachers. It emphasizes Focusing from a context of being identified as Self-in-Presence, rather than being unconsciously identified with parts.
Relational Wholebody Focusing was developed by Karen Whalen, Ph.D. It grew out of her earlier work with Kevin McEvenue, the founder of Wholebody Focusing. This work emphasizes bringing awareness to the importance of being connected to the larger Me Here, as well as finding the wholeness of Me inside of the much larger We of human relationships.

The Realization Process, founded by spiritual teacher Judith Blackstone, is another profound influence on my work – particularly her emphasis on the importance of the capacity to be in the body as fundamental to spiritual wholeness. I was certified as a Realization Process teacher in 2018.

A note about my logo.

My logo is a stylized sunflower.
I’d like to tell you the story behind it:

It took me an exceptionally long time to learn the Focusing basics. The first course I took consisted of four series of five weekly classes each. Between each series of five classes, there was a break of around five or six weeks to give students a chance to practice what we’d learned.

I tell you this so you will know that when I say I practiced constantly, I mean that I would take the opportunity to have practice sessions with the other students at least four times each week, including the weeks between official class time.

And yet – after maybe five months or so of continual practice – I had never experienced the promised sense of "fresh air," of something brand new emerging.

But finally, just before the beginning of the Level 3 class– about six months later – something different did emerge.
I no longer remember the issue I began with that day during my practice partnership.

What I do remember is seeing a clear image of a little one-room wooden shack.
It was as if I could see through the wall facing me. And inside the shack was a young girl.
Suddenly, it began raining INSIDE the shack – first, one drop began dripping from the ceiling.
Then, another. There was a pail in the shack, and the girl grabbed it and tried to catch
the first drop, then the next.

But then another, and another, and another drip came, until rain was pouring
down from every inch of the ceiling!

The girl, in despair, finally gave up and sat down, head buried in her arms,
weeping on the ground in the middle of the room as the rain drenched the room.

As I sat observing this scene, a surge of anger arose inside. Angrily, I thought to myself,
"So let something FRESH and NEW happen HERE!" – clearly feeling that this false promise
was certainly not going to be realized in the image I was seeing.

Suddenly, the image changed. As the rain poured down, gigantic sunflowers popped up
from the floor and filled the little room!

I had no idea at first of the significance of this vivid imagery– but clearly, to my wonder,
this was undeniably about something fresh and new emerging.

Over the years, the memory of this kept returning.
It was very gradually that I received the meaning it held.
Of course, a symbol of this kind always holds more
than you can pin down with words.

But it’s something like this:

My small, enclosed shack could not shelter me from the myriad small imperfections of my life from raining down on me. And I had to give up my frantic efforts at stopping all the relentless imperfections that were here, drenching my life, if they were to have the chance to enrich and nourish the ground of my life. I had to pause my frantic efforts. It was only then that something truly fresh and new and beautiful could emerge.