"I'm a bad person … I'm stupid … I'm evil."
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A reader asks: "Often a memory of a past experience comes up. It briefly hovers in my awareness without judgment placed upon it. Next, an invisible critic-like something swoops in, very fast, evaluates the experience, and I find myself swept into a position where I feel guilt and shame. I find myself silently muttering: 'I'm a bad person. How could I have done such a horrible thing? I'm stupid. I'm evil.' It's as though an unpleasant physical action, like a blow, has coursed through me. In its path remain tension behind my eyes, shortness of breath and a dark, grungy, sick, heaviness in my chest. I feel sort of stunned, knocked out, something like a convicted prisoner in a jail cell who knows she's done something terribly terribly wrong and has to face the consequences. Needless to say, this arc takes me out of the present moment and hurls me back into unresolved feelings from years–even many decades–past.
"Is there any way to apply Focusing to this situation?"
Dear Reader,
This sounds like a rough thing to be going through, and I feel for you. And yes, Focusing can help.
To use the terminology that Barbara McGavin and I have developed for difficult life issues, you are getting hijacked by an attacking Controller and a collapsing Defender.
"Hijack" is a process where we get knocked out of Presence so quickly that it has already happened before we know it.
Hijack is difficult because you're already feeling bad before you're aware it has happened.
But as soon as you DO become aware that it has happened, establishing yourself in Presence again is the first order of business.
Find your feet… find your seat… and take some conscious breaths.
Then use Presence Language to start acknowledging what is going on:
"I'm sensing something in my chest that's feeling dark, grungy, sick, heavy. I'm sensing something in me that's saying I'm a bad person. And I'm sensing something in me that's judging my past actions, saying I should feel bad."
Once the parts and place have been acknowledged, perhaps a gentle Hello to each and a gentle hand on the one that is most bodily felt will help to hold that sense of contact: You as Self-in-Presence being with those inner places.
"It's so obvious. Of course!"
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Before I could respond, this reader had an illuminating experience. This was the next email I received:
"Dear Ann, I had a sudden–and liberating–realization today while reading your book Radical Acceptance of Everything.
"It's so obvious. Of course, I had been over-identifying with the shamed part, rather than saying, 'I'm aware that something in me feels extremely shamed, guilty and evil when it is attacked for having gone through a particular experience.' Once Presence entered the picture, I felt like I could at last take a refreshing deep breath of clear air after emerging from a thick, foul, suffocating lake of slime. That slimy lake of habit still looks enormous, dangerous and close by. But at least now I'm on the shore safely looking at it, rather than drowning in it."
Beautiful! I'm touched and honored that my book–and the empowering concept of Presence that Barbara McGavin and I developed–could be of such help.
And now let me say a little about what might come next.
Calling something a "slimy lake of habit" is a sign that my reader isn't completely Self-in-Presence yet. It's great that she's feeling relief… but she's still identified with something in her that's using negative labeling to push the emotional experience away. "Slimy" and "habit" are unlikely to be what the experience would call itself.
I predict that as she takes more time to settle in to Presence, she will become aware of this other identification that also needs to be acknowledged. Her sense of being Self-in-Presence will become more solid and more available. In time she will be able to sit with the painful feelings with compassion and curiosity.
What will unfold from that process of compassionate listening cannot be predicted, but it's likely to be something like this: Something happened–long ago–that was experienced by the organism as frightening, threatening, and life-forward movement was unable to happen in the way it needed to. Interpretations were made ("This means I am…") and guardians took on roles of fierce protection.
What seems to be slime will turn out to be something tender, small, and raw, just trying to be alive. This is what I predict. We'll see.