Focusing Tip #339: “It’s hard to do Focusing with my scary parts.”

“Focusing doesn’t work with scary parts because my attention avoids them.”

Anna writes:
“I’ve watched your YouTube video where you say it’s important to face ‘our darkest parts.’ And you’ve mentioned that even though they’re dark (a.k.a. unpleasant to see and realize they are there), it’s important to Focus on them. If these feelings were as easy to deal with as other sensations, no one would have a problem with them! It’s easy to be with a ‘scared’ or ‘reluctant’ part… but not so much with some ‘crazy’ part that has 100X intensity when it arises.

The regular way I do Focusing simply doesn’t work with scary parts since my attention slips and avoids them…I can’t look from some ‘Self-in-Presence’ perspective and say ‘it’s OK, it’s what a part in me has’…The immediate response, at least for me, is automatic, and it’s to shift my attention somewhere else, because I naturally don’t want to suffer, and that’s what finding out that I have these hidden parts causes me.”

Dear Anna,
Naturally you don’t want to suffer!

And yet there IS suffering going on, as long as these parts of you are going wild in there. They are suffering…that’s pretty obvious from your description of them. And their impact on your life, as long as they are un-contacted and unprocessed, is probably another source of suffering — for you.

I completely agree that it is easier to be with a scared or reluctant part than with a part of us that is full of intensity, that feels crazy or like a dark monster.

So I’d like to tell you about a move that should make it easier to be with even the scariest places inside of you. And that is to turn toward “something in you” that finds them scary, and be with that.

In your case, Anna, that means turning toward something in you that avoids and shifts your attention elsewhere.

“OK, there’s the scary part. And now I’m noticing that my attention is slipping away and avoiding. I’m going to acknowledge something in me that wants to avoid the scary part.”

So now you are not trying to be with the scary part. Instead, you are being with the part of you that wants to avoid the scary part. You’ll probably notice that this one really appreciates your company. And it will have a lot to tell you about what scares it, about the other one. Be the listener! The language that you use will help you remember that these are the feelings of this part of you, not of all of you.

“Yes,” you’ll say to it, “I really hear that you are scared of it, because you don’t know what it is [or whatever it told you]. No wonder you would be scared…Please tell me more.”

When this part of you feels heard, you’ll very likely feel a body shift that allows the other part, the one called “scary,” to be calmer and not as scary as before. It’s remarkable how that happens!