Who is the “you” who can say Hello to your parts? Read on…
Jeff writes:
Thank you for Tip #808! It’s REALLY helpful to be reminded that the part that’s scared, stuck, or resisting “doesn’t have to change”! For me it sounds like real compassion in action.
I have a question though. You said “parts do not need to act. … You are the one who, once healing happens, take the needed actions.”
My question is, who is the “You” in this statement? Is it my “essence”? Perhaps my “true self”? The whole of me?
Dear Jeff:
As you read this, you are sitting (or standing or walking or lying down). You inhabit your body. Your heart is beating, your lungs are breathing, and a myriad other processes are going on. All of that is included in “you.” You are the living being who is present, aware, feeling yourself here and now.
We don’t need to name this an “essence” or a “true self.” It is simply you.
Gene Gendlin was once asked to define “a person.” He said, “A person is who looks back at you from the eyes.”
Notice how these definitions are not abstract. They are situated, here-and-now, in living and interacting.
You are alive, you are real, you are here.
Parts… are not real. “Part” is a convenient way to speak of an aspect of self that has been able to act or react separately from other aspects of self.
There isn’t anything untrue about saying “I can’t get myself to sit down and write.” We aren’t lying if we say that both are true at once, in one being: “I’m not writing” and “I can’t get myself to write.”
But if we use Parts-language, the situation becomes more available for inner relationship.
“Something in me is not writing and something in me is frustrated about that” is a way of speaking that makes inner relationship easier.
Now I (the whole me) can sit down with either of both of these parts and get to know them better. I can listen to them. I can get the felt sense of them in my body.
So talking about Parts is a choice — one that I recommend because it increases both inner compassion and the possibility for real change. But it’s still you making that choice. You, the living being.
Additional Resources to Help With Parts
Does it work best to speak TO the various inner parts of you, or ABOUT them?
Focusing Tip #648 – “I’m practicing saying Hello to what I feel but it doesn’t work”
Focusing Tip #612 – “I don’t feel big enough to take care of a child part of me”
