Do you get discouraged because even though your traumas are healing there are so many yet to go? Read on…
A Reader writes:
I’m using Inner Relationship Focusing to bring compassion to traumatized parts of me that still affect my life now. But I’m feeling discouraged. There were so many different incidents of hurt in my childhood. I wonder: Will I ever be able to get to everything?
Dear Reader:
Good for you for using Inner Relationship Focusing for one of its most powerful uses: healing past hurts that get in our way of living a full life in the present.
As you know — but I’ll say it for my other readers — that process involves cultivating our ability to be Self-in-Presence, and thereby becoming the environment of change and healing for our various hurt parts.
You might have a part that eats compulsively and another part that shames you for doing that. And underneath those warring parts you might have a very young part who is still frozen in the hurt of the past.
As Self-in-Presence, you say to each one, “Hello, I know you’re there… and I am here with you now.” What creates healing is the relationship from Self-in-Presence with the parts… which wasn’t possible before.
So I can understand why you are worried that the process of moving into this healing relationship is going to have to be repeated for every instance of hurt… and that that will take forever!
But luckily, it’s not like that.
Our inner world is wholistic, not linear. When you bring compassion to one part of you inside, and you get a feeling of bodily relief, that affects your whole self. All of you experiences that shift, and it changes how easy and how possible it is to bring compassion to other parts of you.
Best of all, your ability to be Self-in-Presence grows stronger every time you use it. And that allows you to be in your current life and relationships as your calm, discerning, untriggered self. So nice!
