“When I just hear what it is not wanting, I have a feeling of not being fully connected…”
Victoria writes:
I’m curious about something and am hoping that you might be able to give me a bit more information about this “sensing what it is not wanting.” What I am wondering about is why you don’t just go directly to “sensing what it is wanting.” For me the “not wanting” doesn’t have enough information in it. Say for example here at our house that I leave my shoes in the middle of the floor and my husband says what he doesn’t want. “Could you please not leave your shoes here?” That leaves me with a feeling of not being fully connected to what is really going on for him and I can have all sorts of reactions to it. But if he says, “When you leave your shoes here I’m worried that I’ll stumble and I want to feel safe so could you try to be mindful about putting them away?”, then I have a very different experience in my body. I’m more fully connected to what he IS wanting which is to be safe and I reduce the reactions in myself and actually want to honor his request.
My question to you is, in your experience is there a benefit to asking what it is not wanting before asking what it is wanting?
Dear Victoria,
Barbara McGavin and I originally just went for the wanting. Obviously there is life energy behind every difficult emotion. It would seem that the way to get there is to ask what “it” (the part you are in contact with) is wanting.
But in practice, especially when the part was really caught up in being angry or afraid, it just couldn’t go there, to wanting. It was too big a leap. We would get responses like “I don’t know” or “it doesn’t know” or something from the head, like “I guess it wants…” or “it probably wants…” Or worst of all, it was angry, it would speak of wanting to destroy or damage. Not very life-affirming!
Then we noticed that this kind of part (often sad, scared, or angry) was very ready to tell what it didn’t want.
Then we noticed that if we stay with not-wanting, it deepens. It goes deeper. This can be invited as “what it is not wanting to have happen if THAT happens…”
You can see this in your example, what a lovely example it is! The first not-wanting is to not leave your shoes in the middle of the floor.
But if we stay with that, to sense what he’s not wanting if that happens, we get something further: Not wanting to stumble.
Then we could stay with that, what he’s not wanting if he stumbles…perhaps to be injured, perhaps to feel foolish.
At this point, when we have deepened the not wanting this much, we often see the wanting bubbling up naturally, without even having to be invited.
As in, “What I’m wanting is to walk safely and feel secure.”
With an inner part (as opposed to another person) this is even clearer.
Inner parts don’t have a wide perspective, so we need to help them go step by step
Inner parts don’t have the clarity and wisdom of whole human beings. They are partial-selves so they are limited in their ability to see others’ points of view and see a bigger picture.
So it’s even more important than it is with another person to find a method that facilitates gently, baby step by baby step, from not-wanting to wanting.
The “What it’s not wanting if that happens…” like “not wanting to stumble” in your example… is a way to deepen in, increasing our compassion, without trying to take such a big step that the process shuts down or goes into the head.