Focusing Tip #524 – “I seem to be going down a dead end street.”

“The patterns of getting triggered repeat in an endless loop.”

Leslie writes:
I seem to be going down a dead end street in some of my Focusing. I’ll get triggered around something in the present, I sit with it and it jumps back to when I’m a baby when I feel like no one will come back for me. I sit with that feeling of abandonment, with tears and emotions till it clears up, or lifts. The other pattern is I get triggered in present time and it jumps back to me as a young child who gets whipped by dad with his belt and I stay with that terrorized self until it shifts and lightens up. The problem I see is that these patterns repeat I can’t count the number of times! I feel I’m in a never-ending loop. Could you address what to do about this?

Dear Leslie:
It sounds like those triggered parts of you are calming down when you spend time with them, but they are not really changing, because they are just as triggered the next time.

No wonder you are feeling caught in a loop! That’s not really healing, it’s just band-aids.

So let me see if I can help. What we need is for something really new to happen. In those early traumatic times, what was missing was a person who could give you spacious, compassionate company.

Now, that person is you.

You say, “I sit with that feeling of abandonment, with tears and emotions till it clears up, or lifts.” But does IT know that YOU are there now? Here is how that might sound:

“I am sensing that part of me feeling abandoned. It is showing me how it was back then – and still is – that it’s so scared that no one will ever come back. I am letting it know I really sense how awful and scary that feels.

“I am sensing what kind of contact it wants from me right now. I am checking with it, if it feels that I am here with it.”

Our traumatized parts may be so completely preoccupied with their feelings that they do not recognize our presence with them. At first! But keep showing up, keep saying to those parts of you, “I am with you now.” When you feel the part knowing that you are there, then you are on the way to real change.