Pat Omidian spent about 20 minutes with one woman, showing her the Guesthouse poem (translated into Urdu) and having her say As-salamu’alaikum (saying hello–literally offering the wish for peace) to her inner guests. The woman came away amazed and told everyone in the household about […]

I am troubled by the news each day. And at the same time I cannot wait to read the next horrible thing. It’s like I have a toothache and my tongue just has to rub it to make sure it still hurts. It’s not a […]

Writing is a powerful process. One of my favorite classes at the Confidence Clinic I facilitated involved using a writing exercise I learned from Lawson Inada, a Japanese American poet who grew up in Pasadena, California, spending several years during World War II in one […]

( We are planning a webinar on the topics discussed below – your fears and uncertainties, unfolding political and social events that are affecting you, and being the ‘middle of action’. Please check back on this website for more information) When we are in the […]

We often think about and talk about the first two of these: ‘fight’ or ‘flight’. And those of us in the business of working with populations in trauma talk also about ‘freeze’ and its role in stress and fear. But something came to a friend […]

As Focusing Initiatives International completes its third year, we are excited to share how our work is moving to a new level. We have observed for some time that our projects and workshops have a far-reaching impact, as individuals typically take the tools they’ve learned […]