“I Know I Don’t Need That, I Can Let It Go”
Recently I redecorated my bedroom. I was able to go through piles of old clothes and other accumulated stuff, and say, “I know I don’t need that, I can let it go.” Now I’m enjoying a more spacious comfortable bedroom.
But we can’t treat our inner selves like that! And I shake my head with rueful empathy whenever I hear a new Focusing client say this sort of thing: “That’s my old [anger] [fill in the blank…], and I’ve decided I don’t need it any more.”
Treating our inner emotional process as if it were made up of objects that could be moved around or thrown away is, I believe, a profound misunderstanding of what we are.
We are not made up of “objects,” things that can be kept or discarded. We are process…
Somebody is Waiting and Hoping…
Rather than treating our inner world as full of objects, a far more helpful analogy is to treat it as full of “somebodies.” What looks from one perspective like a problem to be gotten rid of, from another perspective is somebody in there who is waiting and hoping to be heard, to be understood.
Why? Because anything that hurts, that’s in the way, that feels blocked or stuck, is stopped process waiting to be resumed.
Feeling stuck? Full of “inappropriate” feelings? Experiencing a struggle inside? These are all signals that something is missing, something is needed, life forward movement has stopped. How do we start it again? In one way only: by attending to and listening to the very place that is hurting. IT KNOWS! You can think all day about what’s needed and what to do, and it won’t bring a fraction of the “carrying forward” that comes from BEING WITH the stuck place itself.
And there’s immediate feedback: a sense of relief, even gratitude, from the “somebody” inside who is finally being treated with respect… not being prepared for the garbage heap but actually being heard for what it knows and what it needs.
No wonder just a few moments of direct sensing can feel nothing short of miraculous.