“How can gentle listening make a dent in the ways of the monsters?”
Graham writes: “A concern I’m sitting with at the moment: is there something ‘unmanly’ or ‘feminine’ about focusing, especially Inner Relationship Focusing? Odd question perhaps — but it arose. I know it’s a part of me, my inner voices that speak about me to myself — that berate me for being sometimes emotional/vulnerable instead of tough, brave, maybe even willing to hurt others unflinchingly to get what I want.
“Part of me is so wanting me NOT to be gentle with myself, because then I’ll just be wet/weak/ – oh no, got to ‘toughen up’. Beyond the inner voices are all those news items from around the world — brutal men are doing horrors and controlling multitudes — and I feel like I need an answer to them, for myself, and for the world — how can ‘gentle listening’ make a dent in the ways of the monsters who hold sway over so much of this world?”
Dear Graham:
There is a type of part — a deeply frightened type of “controller” part — that sees all vulnerability and gentleness as something dangerous to you. This springs from traumatic experiences in the past where vulnerable emotions were associated with being profoundly hurt. As a way of protecting you from being hurt again, this type of part seeks out what it calls “weakness” and tries to crush and may even try to destroy those sides of you.
Words like “unmanly” are used like “weak” or “defective” by this kind of part, to try to influence other parts of you and exile emotions it thinks will cause disaster.
Parents who are identified with this type of part in themselves may also treat their children this way — with tragic results. Patterns perpetuate through generations but they can also stop here.
If you have a part of you that berates you for being emotionally vulnerable instead of tough, brave, willing to hurt others, here is my suggestion: Be Self-in-Presence (grounded in your largest Self) and turn toward that berating part with compassion for how scared it must be feeling. It feels desperate that you need to “toughen up” because (and now listen to it) … something like: it’s afraid of what will happen to you if you are not tough.
Treating yourself with compassion is not a pattern for how you will treat tyranny and injustice in the world
There are no enemies inside you, no bad guys. No monsters. Only frightened children who need the interested company and safe space provided by YOU, Self-in-Presence.
In the outer world, there may well be enemies, if you want to use that word. There are people behaving in hurtful ways who need good, brave people to find ways to stop them.
Being gentle inside ourselves does NOT make us less able to stand up to injustice in the outer world… on the contrary. Making the inner world a safe place for our vulnerable parts is something that we do from a place of inner strength. That is the same strength that we carry into situations that need us to stand up for what is right and protect the innocent.
Living our lives as Self-in-Presence, we find ourselves reacting appropriately to the various situations we meet. Some require strong assertion, others require backing away and waiting for a better time to act. Having done Focusing a lot, we are in a better position to sense what response each situation requires. There is no rule that fits all situations.
The inner world, your own inner world, needs your compassionate company. The outer world needs various responses. As Self-in-Presence, you can discern and act in flow.
