What can you do if you start to feel like you’re making it all up? Read on…
A reader writes:
Just when I feel like I might be getting somewhere with my Focusing process, I’m overcome with the feeling that I’m making this all up, and I get a strong impulse to just quit doing such a “silly thing” as Focusing. I guess this must be a part of me, but I don’t know how to deal with it.
Dear Reader:
The clue is in what was happening right before the urge to give up on Focusing arrives. You were getting close to something… you were getting somewhere with your Focusing process. Old patterns were starting to loosen and shift, new possibilities were opening up. And then—boom! “You’re just making this up!”
My take on that? Something in you got scared.
We don’t know yet what specifically scared it. But I can guess. Your parts have worked hard to set things up a certain way in our life. They can get scared when you start to open up new possibilities and live in new ways, because they’re not sure they can keep you safe in that new world.
What to do? Simple. Be Self-in-Presence and be a listener to the scared part of you. “Listening” doesn’t mean agreeing (or disagreeing). It does mean doing your best to hear how this part sees the world.
Part: “Focusing is silly and you’re just making all this up.”
You: “I get that you are worried about what I was just getting to in my Focusing.”
Now pause… See if you can feel the part’s worry in your body somewhere. Maybe it feels like the dread before stepping off into the unknown… or before a roller coaster starts its swooping ride.
You: “I am sensing that THAT’S how you feel: dread at the unknown. Is that right?”
If you can feel that this part of you is afraid, or worried, or full of dread, then be gentle with it, and sense what kind of company it would like from you. What a world of difference from “Focusing is silly!”
What seemed to be an inner skeptic turns out to be a young, scared part of you needing care. And as Self-in-Presence, you have care in abundance to give it. How beautiful!
