Beyond AI Anxiety: The Most Human Capacity

AI anxiety (AInxiety?), it's everywhere, and underneath it all, we're asking:

🔸 What makes us human?

🔸 And what parts of that are worth protecting, practicing, and preserving?

Big questions.

More than 13 years ago, I became certified in Focusing, an embodied practice developed by ground-breaking psychologists Eugene Gendlin and Carl Rogers. Since then, it has shaped not only how I move through my own life but how I coach.

Focusing is a practice that builds the capacity to listen beneath the noise of analysis, advice, and endless information. It's a way of paying attention to the body's knowing and allowing meaning to emerge from lived experience.

A machine can analyze patterns.

It can summarize and synthesize huge amounts of information.

It can compare and contrast.

It can generate images -see below :)

It can identify possibilities based on preexisting choices. All valuable.

But it cannot live your life.

It cannot know what it feels like to sit in a meeting and sense that something is off, even when everything looks fine on paper. It cannot feel the tiny tug of curiosity toward a new direction.

It cannot hold the complexity of your experiences, values, relationships, disappointments, hopes, and longings from the inside.

AI is not capable of being curious about what lies beneath the words. And it won't intuit the right question to ask you based on truly listening to you.

That's human work.

Your experience of being alive belongs to you.

If you've been feeling overwhelmed by uncertainty, whether about AI, work, or what comes next, try this simple Focusing-inspired practice:

 Listen to Yourself - Six Steps

1. Pause - Slow down and make a little space inside yourself.

2. Notice - Pay attention to what's bothering you, pulling at you, or wanting your attention.

3.  Sense It - Instead of analyzing, notice how the whole issue feels in your body.

4.  Find Words - Let a word, phrase, image, or metaphor come that captures that feeling. ("It's like carrying a heavy backpack." "It feels trapped." "It's a knot."

5. Check - See if the word or image actually fits the feeling. Adjust until there's a sense of "Yes, that's it."

6. Listen: Stay curious and ask, "What's so important about this?" or "What does this need me to know?"

   Wait for whatever comes next (a subtle sense of relief, clarity, recognition, or a next step).

Sometimes what you most need is the ability to listen deeply enough to hear what is already trying to emerge. And someone to support that listening with their presence,

insight, and curiosity...human-to-human.

Judy Garfinkel helps you clarify "what's next." Her expertise in building confidence and resilience supports the development needed to navigate career and job transitions, especially now! She is a PCC-credentialed coach and certified as a Trauma-Informed, Whole Person, and Life Purpose & Career Coach. Judy crafts bespoke resumes, cover letters, LinkedIn profiles, and bios that open doors for her clients. And...her career onstage gives her unique tools to help you shine in interviews.

More – Judy is President Emerita of the International Coaching Federation - Connecticut Chapter, where she led a 10-person board and 250+ member coaches, and is currently a member of the Culture & Belonging Committee. When she's not coaching, Judy is either reading or dancing. (If only there were a way to do both simultaneously!)