How do you resolve an inner argument when both sides are strong? Read on…
Julie writes:
It is difficult for me to be aware of people’s suffering (especially health) without wanting to help. I worked during 30 years in the health field.
One part says: “I just can’t help it, I cannot listen to people’s suffering without wanting to help. I have a lot of knowledge and they could benefit from it. I feel guilty if I take care of myself without taking care of other people.”
Another part of me says: “I am tired of you focusing on other people’s problems and suffering. It seems to be an addiction! You try, you put a lot of energy into wanting to help them and then you realize that they are not ready for that and may be they will never be. It is a loss of energy. If people need help they will ask.”
Dear Julie:
I appreciate you for being aware of these two strong, passionate parts of you, and making a good start at listening to them.
But when strong, insistent parts are at odds with each other, we need something more than listening. We need what Barbara McGavin and I call “Deep Empathy.” Let me tell you how that works.
When we first encounter a part, it is typically insistent on its point of view, and advocating for its strategy. Listening to each part at this level is important, sure, but there’s also a feeling of “Now what?”
Deep Empathy is a way of listening beyond the superficial so each part is enabled to get in touch with what it is really concerned about, and what it really wants for you. This can open the door for true transformation.
To show you what I mean, let’s take the part that says, “I’m tired of you focusing on other people’s problems and suffering.” You let it know you heard it.
Now sense into what it is not wanting to happen to you from focusing on other people’s problems and suffering. What it is worried will happen if you do that.
I can’t predict the next step, but I guess it would be something like: “I don’t want you feeling so stressed, putting so much energy into other people.”
Then you would let it know you hear that… and pause to let it sink in.
There is more to the Deep Empathy process, but perhaps you can feel that even this much is a step, moving from what it doesn’t want you to do, to what it doesn’t want you to feel.
Another step will be to sense what it wants for you to be able to feel… like relief, relaxation, a sense of living your own life. That brings another step.
(A good place to get the whole Deep Empathy process is in our book, Untangling, Chapter 13.)
The wonderful thing about Focusing is that when you listen in the body, there is always more! Eugene Gendlin wrote: “Nothing that feels bad is ever the last step.”
