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Focusing Tip #594 – Focusing involves spending time with different parts of you. But do those parts have value?
Bhavani writes:
After a year of experience with Focusing I am yet to find anything good about my parts. They don’t seem to add any value. It’s like a bunch of little kids all shouting and screaming as they are unhappy for different reasons, making my life miserable. And if I gather some patience and listen to each of them they quiet down and the house suddenly feels peaceful.
I hear you say my parts have some value to offer. However I have found none so far. Can you say more about that?
Dear Bhavani:
Nobody chooses to have parts. Just like nobody chooses to be traumatized. Since parts come from trauma, it’s really the same question.
I’m not surprised that your parts seem like little kids to you because I believe that is what they are – child parts of us still frozen in past trauma, and trying to deal with that with child resources.
It sounds like you’ve experienced your parts getting quiet, but you haven’t experienced them changing. Oh yes… they can change.
In fact, they can melt and not be parts any more.
Their abilities and strengths will become you… no longer separated.
This beautiful process of listening to your parts goes farther than just quieting them down. It actually leads to transformation, where what has been separated out as a part is no longer separate.
And that is the treasure. The “value” of the wound is that when it heals, it brings with it all the learning and all the gifts you have gathered in being able to heal. You are bigger, more compassionate, more present. More yourself.
It happens through listening with empathy. You’re on the right track. Keep going!
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Hi AR – Thank you for your comment! You’ve really gotten my point from this article… that the hurt places inside us are not burdens to be gotten rid of, but precious roads to healing and freedom. So we turn TOWARD the stressful things we feel… not away…
I’m glad you’re interested in learning more! Do let me know if I can help with that.
This is a very interesting post. Thank you!
I found Focusing through on online MBSR course.. I did a short recording and read some articles.
This post brings up what I have been thinking about, and what draws me to this practice. – which is that perhaps we can be grateful for the ‘burdensome’ feelings and presences. Mine also feel like children, and I also have children. It’s a lot! But perhaps without them there is no road to healing. If they weren’t there, we wouldn’t know there was a problem in the first place. I thought of this intellectually of course, and hope to learn more and more about how this could be in practice.