An Inner Place of Healing: Combining Focusing and Sufism

By Patricia Omidian

In Afghanistan last year, Sharifa (her name is changed to protect her identity), a woman I know, went into the hospital for the delivery of her first child. She is an educated woman, unlike so many in Afghanistan, where woman’s literacy in the rural areas hovers at just over 1%. Sharifa is urban, educated, and earns a good income. She was healthy, thanks be to Allah, and expected no complications in her delivery. She arrived at the hospital (a government run women’s hospital in the center of Kabul) and was admitted into the maternity ward. Her anxious husband had to wait outside as men are not allowed to be with their wives at the time delivery.

Sharifa saw herself as a lucky woman, because most women of Afghanistan have no access to health care or cannot afford it. But tragedy struck. An inexperienced doctor was unable to monitor the delivery properly and, after over 24 hours in labor, the baby died in the womb, and Sharifa almost died, as well. Another doctor came on shift after Sharifa was in the hospital for more than a day and took over. Sharifa’s life was saved but the baby was lost—a baby boy of about 8 lbs. Grief raged in both parents as they buried this son.

The greatest tragedy for Sharifa is that she knew that if she lived almost anywhere else in the world, the baby would have lived. In Afghanistan, a woman dies in from complications of pregnancy and child birth every 30 minutes. One in four children born in Afghanistan will not reach age five, and over half of these children die within the first weeks of life. Her son became part of a grim statistic.

Sharifa survived the ordeal but suffered emotionally from this terrible loss; one that no one could explain and which so many told her was the will of Allah. She listened to all the words of comfort, but they could not touch her heart. She was able to greet guests, who came with condolences, but her heart was heavy with grief. Sharifa, like so many women in Afghanistan had to manage her grief and her pain in silence. The pain was not lessened just because it was shared by thousands of others. The pain remained personal and private.

I, American Muslim who has lived and worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 1997, met with Sharifa shortly after her ordeal, during the 40 day mourning period. She was recovering physically and was grieving. We spent time sitting together while I sat with her in Presence (with the Beloved), as she focused. She wanted to meet the guest in her inner place of wisdom, the place in all of us where we can be closest to Allah. I was honored to sit with Sharifa, to listen and reflect on what she found inside.

Focusing, this meeting with the Beloved, is a simple and easily recognized means of dealing with emotions, trauma and stressors of everyday life. Focusing honors Afghan culture while helping Afghan friends and colleagues learn new skills to help them help themselves, their families and their communities. It taps into a very human process of coming into one’s emotions that has been documented throughout history by poets, philosophers and modern psychotherapists.

Underlying Focusing are two main tenets of Islam and of Sufism: The first is that, according to the Quran Sharif, Allah is closer to each person than each is to his or her own jugular vein:

It was we who created man, and we know, what suggestions his soul makes to him: for we are nearer to him than (his) jugular vein (Sura 50: Aya, 16).

This means that one does not need to look far for support from Allah when one is in trouble or feeling emotional pain. This leads to the second concept of Sufi tradition: that Allah is found in each of us. Externally, one sees only the signs of his work, but to speak to Allah, one must look inward. As noted above, Focusing relies on this inner connection, which, in Focusing jargon, is called “presence.” Approaching the divine in Sufism is akin to approaching “Presence.” The Sufis understand the inner world as being larger than the outer world that we see because therein we can find Allah.

The famous poet and philosopher Mawlana Jalalludin Balkhi, known in the West as Rumi, addresses this same process in many of his writings. As described in one poem (titled The Guest House as translated by Coleman Barks), Rumi notes how one can be in Presence with emotions and body reactions to life’s events:

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!

One does not usually want to face painful emotions; in the same way, one does not want to invite unwanted guests into one’s home. However, in Afghan culture, guests are considered “gifts from Allah.” When Afghans are asked what they would do if someone comes to the door, maybe an unwanted relative, whom they do not like or want to see, they admit that they would, of course, invite the person into their home and serve them tea, food and conversation, as if the person were a familiar and welcomed guest. So too, it must be with the inner guests in one’s life.

As Rumi recommends, one of the most important things to learn is how to listen to and accept any painful or unwanted emotion from a place where judgment is suspended or even absent, from Presence. Listening skills, active and without judgment, are key to this process. When one learns to listen well to oneself, listening to others becomes easier. And learning to listen without an agenda or a goal offers painful emotions a place to be heard in safety. Then, by being heard and not judged, these emotions can begin to change on their own without the focuser having to make the changes happen.

As Sharifa sat with her inner guests, I watched a transformation occur. She sat in Presence and met a very painful guest inside. She told how she wanted to catch the guest and hold on tight so that the guest would never leave, but the harder she tried to hold on, the farther away the guest ran from her. By sitting still, inside, she was able to allow that guest to be as it needed to be, to change into something that included hope and a precious memory of her pregnancy. She felt a calmness come into that place and her tears changed from grief to something open and forward moving. She found peace there.

Today this woman is the proud mother of twin sons. She has an open place inside where she can visit and sense her guest, that place that is all about the death of her first baby. She says it is not painful to visit there.

Patricia.Omidian is a medical anthropologist with 17 years experience with the Afghan refugee community. She lives in Afghanistan and speaks Dari.