When It Feels Right But It’s Wrong
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A reader writes: “I agreed to take on a new project. I focused on it, and it really felt right in my body–and then I overstressed myself. I was so sure that this project was the right thing to do and that I could handle all the things about it. But it really was too much.
“Now I can see that when I agreed to the project I was identified with the eager part of me, the part that wants things to happen fast and wants to do the ‘right’ thing. This is the part of me that I like about myself and think ‘that’s really me’ –or at least that’s how it has been.
“When my focusing helped me discover I’d been identified with this part, I felt a relief in my body that I have never felt before. And it is still there. My bodily tension has really lowered. I don’t have to be anything at all! Just the light within…
“So my burning question is: How do I ‘unidentify’ from my most ‘beloved’ parts (I assume there are more than the ones I’ve discovered already!)–the ones that I am totally unaware of until something smashes me in my face and makes me realize I made a wrong choice? Although I had focused on it? Is it just to keep on focusing or maybe there is something I can emphasize during my focusing?”
Dear Reader,
Well, it’s not the end of the world to make a choice that you later change. Do we even want to call that a “wrong” choice? Maybe it was just what you needed as a next step, even though you later took a different path.
You’ve realized that when you agreed to take on that new project, you were actually identified with a part of you that something in you wanted to believe was all of you, the real you, with energy and able to do lots and lots of things.
Next you realized that you actually didn’t have the energy to do the project, and you needed to tell the people involved that you had to pull back. Maybe that was a bit embarrassing… maybe something in you is wishing that you hadn’t had to change your mind and let them down.
And maybe you’re also identified now… with something in you that feels you’re now “right,” that other way was “wrong,” and you’d better find a way to be sure not to be wrong again.
Focusing Includes Sensing How It is Now
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In Focusing there’s a flow of awareness. What we can sense is how it is now. Yes, that includes the “now” of the past, our memories and the reactions of parts of us to what happened before. And it changes.
If something was painful, Partial-Selves can take on the job of making sure nothing like THAT ever happens again.
When we are Self-in-Presence, we are able to be with and listen to those Partial-Selves, and let them know we really hear how much they are not-wanting what happened to happen again. Maybe in your case, dear Reader, not wanting the embarrassment of having to tell your colleagues that you have to pull back from a project. Something like that. (You could check and see if that’s it.)
As we keep listening, we might discover there is something more underneath that first not-wanting. And we can let it know we hear that too.
The flow of the process means that what happens next cannot be predicted… and what’s here now cannot be held onto. What we do know is this: there is a next step implied right now. What happens after that, we take on trust.