“An example would be a part of me that feels anxious, and another part that is angry at it for being anxious….”

Julie writes:

As Self-in-Presence, do we sometimes listen to a conversation between parts? And then check for our body’s response to what the parts are saying to each other? An example would be a part of me that feels anxious, and another part that is angry at it for being anxious, and the both of them having a conversation while “I” listen.

I seem to recall reading something from you about not having the “parts” of ourselves have their own conversations, because neither have the full picture, so to speak, but rather to have the conversation be between each “something” individually and the Self in Presence.

Dear Julie:

When our parts talk to each other, we are stuck inside what Barbara McGavin and I would call a Tangle. Of course the parts are trying to get us out of it – but they can’t.

The part that is angry at the anxious part can clearly see that being anxious is part of being stuck. But because it’s a part… and not your whole Self… there isn’t anything it can do except get angry, or give up, or argue, or be frustrated… in other words, it reacts. And it reacting doesn’t help.

So when parts talk to each other, despite the fact that they may be earnestly trying to make things better, it doesn’t do any good. It just digs in the stuckness.

What we need is for something new to happen… and that is Self-in-Presence.

You as Self-in-Presence enter this long-stuck situation, not as a passive observer, but as an active listener.

“Hello to both of you. I am here to listen.”

Then they both turn to you, and you sense which one needs to be listened to first… and you listen to each one. Barbara McGavin and I have developed a process called Deep Empathy (part of Treasure Maps to the Soul) that is about listening to each part so that what it really needs to have heard can come forth.

Because often what it is saying is not what it really needs to have heard.

For example, the angry part may be saying, “It’s stupid to be so anxious!” But what it really needs to have heard is something more like, “I’m worried we will not move forward with this anxiety going on.”

Listening from Self-in-Presence is a process that allows something truly new to happen, the body’s own process living forward.