“When it itches, I react, I scratch… and then feel guilty and ashamed.”
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Mary writes: “For some time I have experienced redness and soreness on my face. I expected it to just clear up again, but it hasn’t. Now I keep finding myself merged in an angry exchange with this part – when it itches I react, I scratch and of course make it worse and then feel guilty and overwhelmed. Also recognizing a deep resistance to focusing on this issue alone or with a partner. Am writing because I would like to explore this, to understand what is happening and know how to help.”
Dear Mary,
It sounds like you are already aware of a lot of what is going on in this uncomfortable situation.
You write about finding yourself “merged in an angry exchange” with the redness and soreness – so you already know that in getting angry with it, you are identified with another part of you…a part that I suspect is not only angry, but also worried, scared, and feeling helpless.
It is that part of you that needs attention first, or everything just escalates. So try saying, “Something in me is angry about this itching on my face. I’m saying Hello to this feeling of angry…” and keep sensing. You’ll probably sense next that it is worried… scared it won’t go away… hating to feel so helpless…
When you can stay in the place of being with this part of you, listening to it, making sure that all of its feelings are heard, then the space of you gets bigger. You have room in you for all of this — for the part of you that is reacting AND the part of you that is showing up in this redness and soreness.
Listening to the Body’s Language of Symptoms
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When something manifests physically as a symptom — redness, soreness, itching, headache, burning, pain, etc. — it makes sense to try to find the cause and alleviate the symptom. I’m all for that.
At the same time though, let’s also use a Focusing quality of attention to listen to the symptom. It can’t hurt… and it can shift the whole dynamic that is producing the symptom.
So after you have spent time with the parts of you that are reacting to the redness and soreness, and you can feel them calming down, it is time to turn toward the redness and soreness itself.
Start by sensing it exactly as it feels, right now. Never mind how it felt an hour ago, or yesterday, or last week. This is about right now. Release the usual words you have been using, like “pain” or “soreness,” and sense freshly, as if you have never felt it before.
Remember, there is nothing there that is trying to hurt you. It is not your enemy. It’s just something in you expressing how it feels — and it needs you to hear it.
After you have sensed exactly how it feels physically, you may already feel a relief. But you may also feel an intensifying. That’s because you are open, now, to just how strongly it feels. This is an important moment, your willingness to feel it as it is. Let your empathy go into it, and be open to the possibility that IT feels some emotion.
As in a regular Focusing session, it may show you images from the past and the anticipated future, as it shows you what is bothering it. Just let it know you hear it.
We have seen remarkable shifts and rapid healing from this kind of process. No guarantees about that, but the one thing you can be sure of is that your relationship with these symptoms will shift, and you will be bigger.
