Merilyn writes:
“A few months ago, I encountered a part that represented the desire to take hold of life, to engage fully with everything that life has to offer. There was a wild and unpredictable quality to this part, a sense of danger, that you couldn’t control this part or predict what it might do. It was very beautiful and attractive, but also quite fragile, being quite young and inexperienced and not having had much of an outing in my life till this point.
“A second part appeared, that wanted to control and manage this part – it was afraid for me, of where a wild and unpredictable part like this might lead me. The image came of the life-embracing part as a delicate butterfly, and the controlling part as a huge block of ice surrounding the butterfly, tightening and suffocating it. There was no doubt it was trying to kill the life-embracing part. A third part appeared, championing the butterfly, and demanding I do something to protect it, and not allow it to be killed. I actually had to stop the session, because I didn’t know how to go ahead.
“It didn’t seem at all right to say hello to the controlling part, sit beside it with interested curiosity, let it know it could be just as it was for as long as it needed to be, while it was in the process of slowly squeezing the life out of another part.”
Dear Merilyn,
You are so right! I love your trustworthy instincts!
Saying “you can be the way you are” to a part of us that is squeezing the life out of another part … no, that would not be right.
Yes, as Self-in-Presence we are compassionate and accepting. But we are more: we are also strong and able to set clear boundaries. I can accept a part of me and at the same time not allow it to hurt another part of me.
Imagine an older child attacking a younger child. A good parent will say: “Sweetie, I know you feel bad, and I know you are upset, and I love you, AND I am not going to allow you to hurt the baby.”
Be Self-in-Presence, step in between the warring parts, just as you might step in between battling children. Say: “I am here now.” Nobody did anything wrong, you are not accusing, you are just announcing that you have arrived. “And I am here to listen. Please talk to ME.”
Then I would turn first to the aggressive one. It is terrified. It needs to feel you there and trust your strength, because it has been all alone as the sole protector. It may not trust you yet. Trust is a process. You can keep telling it that you sense how upset and worried it is, and you are here to listen to WHAT IT IS WORRIED ABOUT.
Because you are listening, because you care about what concerns it — and because you are strong — it will begin to calm down. It wanted you there, all along.
