“For months I have been trying to approach this part, but there is just silence back.”

Alex writes: 

There is a part of me that stays silent, frozen, mute…and has been that way for a long time despite all my Focusing efforts. For months I’ve been trying to approach this part, sit nearby, ask questions, wait for any response, but there is just silence back… There were guesses about lack of trust and the need of for different kind of attention (less demanding, less expecting, more accepting), but I am puzzled how to provide “other kind” of attention if I only have what I have.

So my question is – how can I let this part reveal itself?

Dear Alex,

As I hear you describe this part, what comes to me is: It is already communicating. It is letting you know that it is there. This is a lot! Let’s appreciate that.

Next, we understand that it is frozen and mute for some good reason. We don’t have to know what the reason is, but we can be confident there is a reason. So it would be wrong to try to get it to talk. Instead, we might imagine, what would that be like, to be mute, to feel that I must be mute? Even if it doesn’t say so, I can imagine what it’s like to feel frozen and that I must stay silent.

This is a kind of “empathic imagination,” that is also really helpful with other people. To connect with someone who isn’t talking with me easily, I imagine what it’s like to be that person. I may or may not put this into words, but the fact that I am trying to sense what it is like for them has an impact. I can tune into body posture, the look of the face, etc. (Even a part of you inside might well have a body posture: crouching, perhaps, or arms folded.)

The trouble with asking questions…

This is also relevant for therapists who have silent clients. As you sit with someone who isn’t speaking, you have a choice. You can get more and more distant from this person as you imagine all that you don’t know about what is going on in them. Or you can tune into what you doknow, what you can  sense — through all the nonverbal communications that are so rich.

The problem for me with asking questions is that they usually come from the former position, the “I have no idea what you are feeling” place. So questions are actually a statement of distance, of being disconnected.

Instead of asking a question, connect empathically. Sense what is there to be sensed. You could always be wrong! But it’s better to guess respectfully than to create a gap.

I also don’t like “ask it what it wants to let you know.” That is almost always too big a step. 

Through its frozenness, it is already communicating. It will reveal more, perhaps by its mood or its posture. It might never speak. “Speaking” is not something we should expect of it. Instead, it shows how it is with its being, like animals do. It has a slower, simpler, deeper communication, that you can receive, that you are already receiving.