“In the meantime, my life is going by…”
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Alexander writes: “I found Focusing this year and it has greatly enhanced and accelerated my growth process and comes very naturally to me. But I have been persistently intending to make some changes in my life and having significant shifts and openings internally without seeing much change on the outside.
“I believe there is a part of me that won’t let love in, won’t let a full out happy life happen. But it is elusive and difficult to work with. I mostly hold the space for it. The core seems to be an underlying powerlessness, hopelessness, and sense of abandonment.
“But in the meantime my life is going by.”
Dear Alexander,
Yes, I really hear that longing to see actual change “on the outside” result from your inner work. Your words could have been my words, about 15 years ago.
And I want to say, Yes! For inner work to be complete it must and will have an effect on your actual life! You have an inner knowing about that… and I want to validate that inner knowing and agree. As long as things stay stuck in your life we know that there is still something within that needs attention.
I find that this “stuck life” is a very effective place to start, like a lever that can move a big weight.
Step One. Start with “I want to ________” and fill in an action. “I want to _________ but I don’t.”
Step Two. Change that sentence slightly like this: “I want to ________ and something in me doesn’t want to.”
Step Three. Invite the part of you that doesn’t want to _______ to come into awareness, in a Focusing session. Your job will be to make a safe space for it to tell you its story, and show you its emotions, without being argued with by other parts of you.
“There is a part of me that won’t let love in…”
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You already have a sense that there is a part of you that won’t let love in. You’ve been spending time with it, but you have found it elusive and difficult to work with.
Whenever I hear that a part is “elusive,” my first thought is that IT doesn’t feel safe. When we are feeling the urgency of life needing to change, it can be challenging to really give unconditional acceptance to a part of us that is perceived as being in the way of that. And if IT doesn’t feel it will be accepted, it will not even show up — or it will blink in and out, now you feel it, now you don’t.
If this is what is happening — if it is difficult to be that totally compassionate Self-in-Presence to a “blocking” part — then before anything else we need to spend time with the parts that are impatient, that are eager for change, that are unhappy with life going by with no movement in sight.
Say “I am sensing something in me says…” about those more impatient parts of you, and listen to what they are worried about and what they want for you, until they step back and allow you to be a compassionate listener to the part that is in the way. I suspect that this one is the one in you feeling a sense of abandonment… though it may be the other ones that are feeling powerless and hopeless.
Change is possible… and being Self-in-Presence is key.
1 Comment
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This is very reflective article. It focuses on the life’s reality. The different feelings and emotions that are usually unbecoming.
