Holding Presence with a part that feels deeply ashamed…
A Reader writes:
“Do you have anything to say about holding Presence with a part that feels deeply ashamed? Because the feeling of shame is so compelling, it is very hard to find Presence with it. Instead, it’s easy (and familiar) to merge with it and side against a part that simply feels very anxious.
“Here’s what happens. Something comes up that feels very very anxious. It limits many activities I do and also affects others in my family because it keeps us apart or limits their activities too if they are with me. The moment I contact it in Focusing, something else comes that judges the anxious one as bad, stupid, childish and a burden to everyone. Then it quickly goes to deep shame. I know the judging, ashamed part is worried, but I can’t go there easily — the shame is so so strong. I feel engulfed by it. What do I do to find Self-in-Presence?”
Dear Reader,
You describe a classic challenging reaction pattern…an inner war where neither side can allow space to the other. And you’re absolutely right that this process needs for you to be Self-in-Presence above all.
Remember that Self-in-Presence is you, the real you, the natural state of your Self. So it’s not something you have to find, but something to be, to cultivate.
And I would invite you also to remember that in any difficult area of life it is hard to be Self-in-Presence. That’s really what defines it as a difficult area! So it’s understandable — we could even say “normal” — that Self-in-Presence is hard to find in a situation like the one you describe.
Perhaps the first acknowledgment (which I learned from Barbara McGavin) is this one: “I’m really sensing how hard it is to be Self-in-Presence right now.” When you do that, you are at least a little bit closer, aren’t you?
Then you might say to the part that is ashamed, “I really really sense how deeply ashamed you feel, how you feel that you want to sink into the ground and disappear and never be seen again.” (I’m just guessing. You would say to it what you sense from it about how it is feeling.) The important thing here is that YOU (Self-in-Presence) are sensing exactly how it is for IT, and letting it know you sense it — how it feels, how strongly it feels, as strongly as it feels that way.
What happens when you do this is that you start to embody the fearlessness of Self-in-Presence. You are willing and able to sense and be with how it is, there, exactly as it is. IT may be ashamed, but YOU are not. You are its listener, giving it empathy for how ashamed it is.
And then there’s the anxious part…
You were also speaking of another part of you, one that feels very anxious and limits activities you do, and limits the activities of others in your family as well. You were saying that even a touch of awareness on that part, in a Focusing session, brings up another part of you that judges it harshly.
If your emphasis is on how much it limits you and your family, it’s not surprising that your encounters with it bring up instant judgment. It’s hard to be Self-in-Presence with a part that is experienced as being so burdensome and limiting.
Maybe you need to start with the part of you that is feeling bad about being so limited. Don’t let it start to speak to the anxious part. Instead, you be the listener, and invite the part that is feeling bad about being so limited to express itself to YOU. Just listen sympathetically, saying to it things like, “No wonder that feels bad, if it’s limiting you from doing so much you want to do.”
If that one is heard first, it may not feel the need to jump in later and become a judge and a shamer of the anxious part. And eventually the anxious part too will get a turn to say what gets it so anxious…once it feels trusting enough.