“How about if we spend half an hour a day doing what you want to do…”
Dear Ann:
The other day while Focusing I got in touch with a part of me that doesn’t want to clean up my clutter and get my desk organized. It says it wants me to spend more time playing and nourishing myself, and cleaning up clutter is boring.
I felt like I wanted to bargain with it and say, “How about if we spend half an hour a day doing what you want to do, then can we also spend half an hour cleaning up clutter?”
What do you think of that?
Dear Reader:
I’m glad you asked — because I am not a fan of bargaining with parts, and I’m happy to get a chance to explain why.
Bargaining with a part carries the assumption that that part has the power to say yes or no. We do not want to empower our parts.
Empowering your parts is like letting a child drive your car. You should be driving your car. And you should be the one making wise choices about what to do with your time.
Yes, there has been a part of you stopping you from cleaning up your clutter. And yes, it is good to get in contact with that part in a Focusing way and listen to what it is not wanting and wanting for you.
But that doesn’t mean that the next step is to bargain.
Rather, when you listen deeply to what that part is trying to protect you from (“boredom”) and what it wants for you (“play”), and you let it know you hear that…your Self-in-Presence gets stronger, and the part starts to release what it is been holding separately into your wholeness. You get stronger. The wanted feeling (in this case, play, or rather the body feeling that play brings) becomes more available to you all the time.
The next time you are in front of the clutter, you may find yourself cleaning it up playfully. Or you may find yourself playing for a while and then de-cluttering for a while. Or you may find yourself deciding that the clutter is just not that big of a deal. Whatever happens, the action and choice flows from your whole self, and not from a part of you.
