“How can Self-in-Presence be lacking? Isn’t Self-in-Presence always here?”
Deborah writes: “In the last Weekly Tips you wrote ‘because Self-in-Presence is lacking’…
“I am having trouble understanding how Self in Presence can be lacking. I thought that Self in Presence is the place of Wholeness, no judging, and connected to something greater then itself. I understand that we have to ‘cultivate’, water, nurture this Self-in-Presence…
“My teenage part seems to get merged, takes over and I am not aware until afterward. It feels like my inner teenager is still back in the 70’s and not in the present with me. Is this an example of the lacking you are talking about?”
Dear Deborah,
Thank you for helping me clarify this interesting point.
No, we are not always Self-in-Presence. We do get merged with parts of us (“partial selves”) who act out in various ways. By definition, being merged with a partial self equals not being Self-in-Presence.
Being Self-in-Presence is an ability. We can get better at it. As you say, we can cultivate it. In times of stress, this ability can be more difficult to perform. We can use the help and support of other people, our environment, and so on, and sometimes all of that is not enough to be Self-in-Presence and not be merged with a part of us. That’s how life is!
Your question might be re-phrased as, “When I am merged with my teenaged part, where is Self-in-Presence?” That’s like saying, when I was so tired that I forgot my address, where was my memory? Like memory, being Self-in-Presence is an ability. It isn’t a place or an entity of some kind. One reason that Barbara McGavin and I developed the phrase “Self-in-Presence” (instead of the former “Presence”) is that the grammar of it is harder to make into an entity. We are BEING Self-in-Presence when we are ABLE TO be with all our feelings and parts with acceptance and compassionate curiosity.
“When Self-in-Presence is lacking…”
The full quote from the last Tip (#290) is this: “When life-forward energy is stopped and cannot live forward in the way it needs to, this ‘stoppage’ (as Gene Gendlin calls it) is traumatic and painful. Because Self-in-Presence is lacking, partial-selves emerge to try to solve the problem, and none of them fully succeed.”
I was talking about a description of trauma that Barbara McGavin and I have developed. It is not the event itself which causes trauma. Trauma happens when what is needed for the next steps of life-forward process cannot happen, AND the ability to be Self-in-Presence isn’t there in the person OR in the people nearby. (We appreciate Dick Schwartz of IFS for adding to our understanding of this process.) We all need help from the people around us to support our ability to be Self-in-Presence, and little kids need that even more.
My phrase in the last Tips “when Self-in-Presence is lacking” was a fast way of saying when the person AND those around her or him were not able to be Self-in-Presence at the time… so partial selves emerged to try to solve the problem.
Barbara and I have written a bit about this process in an article called “Treasure Maps to the Soul,” available at https://www.focusingresources.com/articles/treasure-maps-to-the-soul.html
As adults, we can find our way back to being Self-in-Presence more easily, but it’s an ongoing process… and one that I find endlessly fascinating.
