“I Don’t Want to Know”
After last week’s newsletter on hearing the inner voice, I received an email from someone who said, “I’m afraid to listen to my inner voice.” Interesting, but not uncommon. I think many of us feel that way from time to time. I know I have.
There could be all kinds of reasons for this. Maybe something in you is afraid that your inner voice is going to ask you to change your life in a way that not all of you is ready for. “If I listen, I’ll have to do it.”
This is interesting, because of course it means that the part of you that doesn’t want to listen really already knows what that other one is going to say… maybe even knows that that is what would really be right for you. It just isn’t ready for that yet.
It reminds me of the joke that Woody Allen tells at the end of Annie Hall. It’s about the guy who goes to a psychiatrist for help with a family member who thinks she’s a chicken.
“Doc, you gotta help us!” he pleads… but adds, “Not too soon, though, because we need the eggs.”
Of course listening isn’t the same as doing. We can hear something and acknowledge it, and at the same time acknowledge something that isn’t ready for that yet. Just that acknowledging can bring relief.
“I Don’t Want to Feel It”
Another possible reason for not wanting to listen inside is that something in you is afraid that your inner voice has something painful to show you or tell you. Maybe something in you fears the painful feelings that might come when you really make contact with what is true inside you.
This is an easy place to get stuck when we are Focusing (or even before Focusing starts!) because we are easily identified with the part that doesn’t want this difficult feeling. It feels like *I* don’t want it. It can be hard to remember that *something in me* doesn’t want it.
You don’t have to go inside, you don’t have to feel something that part of you doesn’t want to feel. All you have to do is be with the not-wanting-to-feel. That itself has a richness. It can tell you a lot, and bring relief and change when it is heard.
And sometimes it’s by NOT trying to find out what’s inside that we CAN find out… safely. In the session shown in my new DVD “Demonstrations of Inner Relationship Focusing,” the Focuser finds a big locked door inside, the biggest thickest door possible. He says, “I can’t imagine ever getting through that.”
I say, “And what if we don’t even try to get through it, but just have a relationship with it, with the door itself.” His body relaxes… and within a minute he is safely and easily sensing what is behind the door. Something vulnerable; nothing really scary at all… once we’re in Presence.