“It seems like all of me doesn’t know who she is, and I find it hard to cope.”
A Reader writes:
“I’ve been doing your online course for 3 days now, and today I feel full of emotion and can’t seem to get a handle on what’s going on. This has been going on for some time, and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. I’m aware that this is Identity-level stuff and is about me not being sure who I am. So when I say things like ‘Something in me is feeling emotional…’ and ‘I am sensing something in me…’, it still seems like it’s all of me that doesn’t know who she is, and then I find it hard to cope. I’m very aware that I have been avoiding facing a lot of stuff for a long time, and it’s common for me to become impatient with the something in me/disinterested/disconnected….Today when I attempt to approach this, when I bring my hand to it/say hello, soon after I disconnect.
“Can you suggest anything to help make these feelings more manageable or how to manage the disconnect, because that seems to mean I just switch off, until I feel the emotion rising again and the scenario repeats. I know it’s important for me to learn to accept all of me, and this switch off feels so horrible — like the opposite of what I’m trying to do. How could that engender trust for that something in me?”
Dear Reader,
I am so glad you wrote, because what you are going through sounds hard, and yet rather common, so I’m sure others can appreciate what you are saying and hopefully my answer as well.
In fact, this is the kind of situation for which I created the e-course “Get Bigger Than What’s Bugging You.” But as you are discovering, even taking the course may not be enough. Sometimes we need some extra help, so again, I’m so glad you wrote.
If you are having trouble feeling who YOU are in relation to your emotional states, then the most important sentence is “I am sensing.” That is the fourth lesson of the course so when you wrote your email you weren’t there yet! Even though it is the fourth lesson, for issues like this one where we can start to feel shaky in our sense of our identity, the “I am sensing” language is the most important of all.
What you experience as disconnecting is a very natural way that our systems handle “too much” emotion, sort of like a circuit breaker handles too much electrical current. One thing you can do when that happens is say, “I am sensing something in me that needs to disconnect right now.” With acceptance, because that is OK too.
If you sense impatience, same thing. Say, “I am sensing that something in me is impatient.” And as you do that, sense in your body, and see if you can feel the difference that that makes when you say it that way.
I know it may not be easy…but being Self-in-Presence can help
The rising up of emotional states and the struggle to disconnect from them is something we call the “emotion wars.” These wars cannot be won, and the very fact that someone struggles between being taken over by emotion, and on the other hand disconnecting or dissociating, may well be an indication that trauma from the past is affecting the present life.
I hope that saying “I am sensing” and strengthening your sense of Self-in-Presence through grounding — feeling your body resting on support — will help you with this. You might also want to consider having some sessions with a person, however, because we get powerful support for learning self-regulation of emotional states from the accepting presence of another person.
One more thing…in my view, it’s not going to be so much that you begin to trust the “somethings” in you, but rather that they begin to trust you — to be Self-in-Presence — a steady, calm, holding presence for them.