When Something Won't Move
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Johanna writes: "I have a question for you which I can hope you can answer.
"I really don't like my job. I want to quit… a big something in me really wants to quit. I am so ready to take three months and discover what is next… and then the brakes get put on and another part will not let me quit. "It is a good job," "I will not have any money"…etc. It is a big black boulder that will NOT move. I have listened and acknowledged the various parts and just recently acknowledged the whole thing. But I don't feel like I am moving forward and that big boulder seems to always be there. Any insights on this?"
Dear Johanna, I suspect from what you're saying that you're identified with the need for it to move. Trying saying to it "You can be the way you are forever if you need to be." If you cannot say that with complete sincerity, then you have another part of you that needs attention before your inner world will be a safe place for this one.
(I emailed those three sentences to Johanna, and here is what she emailed back: "Thank you!!! 🙂 Awesome. That did it. Thank you!")
So what was I reacting to, why did I say what I did, and why was it so effective?
When Johanna said, "It will NOT move," it's clear that she has an agenda, that this thing needs to move. That's very understandable… but for Focusing to work, we need to not be identified with any agenda or goal.
Barbara McGavin discovered this in her amazing work with her own depression, and writes about it in an article that can be found on my website. In that article, she writes about how she learned to be able to say this, to the part of her that wanted to die: "This is hard to say, because there is a part of me that would like you to feel differently, but I promise you that you can stay just the way you are for as long as you need. I will not pressure you to change, or feel differently or be different in any way. I will do my best to make a space where you can change, when and if you are ready in the way that you want to and hear what you need heard and support you in the ways that you need."
When I read that article in the summer of 1994, it was the most radically accepting thing I had ever heard. I wrote my own article, "The Radical Acceptance of Everything," a few months later. Perhaps more important to me personally, I was able to find a way to accept myself enough to quit drinking addictively, in September of 1994.
Later, working closely with Barbara McGavin, we developed the concept of Presence to describe being in an inner state of acceptance that doesn't need anything to change.
Why Be So Accepting?
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What is the reason for such radical acceptance? Why is it so important?
When there is something in me that won't move, it always has a good reason for that, from its point of view. And that isn't a reason that can be discovered by guessing or wondering or thinking. Its reason can only be discovered by inviting it.
And it will only reveal its reason if it feels it is being invited sincerely and with respect. This part needs to feel safe, needs to feel that someone is listening who will not try to make it feel another way, who is just wanting to hear how it is.
(Don't we all long for that kind of listening?)
It is the ultimate safety for a part of us, to be told that it can be the way it is for as long as it needs to me. Try it yourself, you'll see. We aren't saying it shouldn't change, or it mustn't change. We are saying that change will not be imposed on it, or come at another's pace.
To say to a part "You can be the way you are for as long as you need to be" is a good test for Presence. If we can't say that sincerely, then we are identified with something, another part of us that also needs to be acknowledged. When we can acknowledge the part of us that is desperate for change, that creates more safety inside for the part that is holding back as well. Both can be heard, and in that space of Presence, true change is possible.