Principle: Spiritual growth requires leaving our comfort zones, creating vulnerability and anxiety. Staying present to the emotion helps!
Practice: Let the physical sensations of the feelings be pure e-motion, energy in motion through your body, without attaching any meaning or story to them.
written 6/11/20.
If this is your first post with an inner dialog among my inner parts, please see the “cast of characters” at the end of the post.
N: Here I am, sweeties! What’s up?
LOs: We’re moving toward creating our blog website, and feeling really scattered. It’s so hard to focus, and hard to stay connected with the Mother! And we feel ashamed of ourselves for that, Nance… ashamed that we’re having such a hard time. In this moment, it means that we’re failing, we’re not good enough.
N: Oh… well, that’s a very old story. Is that you, WC, or is it SE, trying to stop us from publishing the blog?
WC: It’s SE, Nance. While I do feel very exposed and anxious about being so bold, I have enough support to stay present. Being partnered with SI is enough, knowing you’re available is enough.
N: So I hear you accepting your human feelings, sweetie, and that’s very good news! I’m proud of you.
WC: Thanks, Nance. And thanks, SI! It’s so good to lean into each other, to love and support each other.
SI: And it’s appropriate for us to experience anxiety when we’re choosing to self-express so boldly. It’s such a breakthrough from our old neural programming, and so of course our nervous system is sending out alarm bells. It’s so new, it’s uncomfortable.
N: Of course it is. And we can simply let the e-motion, the energy-in-motion, move through our body temple. We don’t need to attach a big story about what it means to it. Just focus on the physical sensations without making them mean something about us.
WC: Thanks, Nance – I feel your presence.
N: So SE, you’re freaked out by all this new boldness, huh?
SE: Yes, and ashamed of myself for it. Feeling anxious is so icky and messy – and so human, and I’m not supposed to have human feelings and needs. I’m terrified by exposing ourselves so vulnerably in taking the blog live; that’s never produced anything good before! I’m sure we’re going to be hurt and disappointed, and I don’t want the little ones to be wounded again. And the only way I know to prevent that is to make you doubt yourself so you won’t do such a risky thing! But doubting ourself does more harm to all of us, and I don’t want that either. I feel trapped in a double loop, Nance – damned if I do and damned if I don’t. I hate this internal conflict!
N: So it sounds like you feel powerless, and you’re trying your best to manage the situation. But trying to manage what you can’t control is an exercise in futility, love – you know that, right?
SE: Yes, I do. Help me find another way, please! I feel so stuck!
N: We need to leave other people’s reactions in the Mother’s hands, love. You don’t have to carry the responsibility for this. She will provide what we need to deal with whatever responses come. And it’s highly unlikely they’ll be overwhelmingly negative. They might be really positive!
So what do you need to surrender, love, to give up this idea that only you can keep us safe, only in the old way? What do you need to release that story?
SE: I guess I need to trust you, and especially trust the Mother, to take really good care of all of us. I can remember that we are always safe in Her arms, regardless of how uncomfortable I feel. Feeling uncomfortable is not a cause to revert to old patterns that don’t fit anymore. That’s never made any of us feel better anyway. I’m relaxing my grasp on the story that it’s my responsibility alone.
I think I need to let the feelings be e-motion too and move through. You could remind me that there’s nothing wrong with me when I’m having such intense feelings, Nance. That will help me surrender and trust you and the Mamas.
N: Good work, sweetie. We trust your intent to find another way to be that doesn’t do harm to us.
SE: That helps, too. You can remind me of that intent, and that there is another way. Thanks, Nance. This is enough for today.
N: I love you, SE. I see you, and I love you, and I appreciate your courage in doing this work. It’s not easy.
SE: And it’s so worth it! Blessed be, Nance.
N: Blessed be.
Cast of Characters:
N: Nancy, my adult self
WC: Wounded Child, the part that is still traumatized by childhood wounding
SI: Sweet Innocence, the whole, healthy child who knows she is lovable and worthy
LOs: Little Ones, a composite of WC/SI when they seem to be one, or may also refer to a composite of all parts when I’m not yet clear on who’s speaking
Ego: my ego self or human mind
SE: Super Ego, the internal voice of our parents or other authority figures when they were trying to socialize us into responsible human beings; this voice generally has the role of enforcing our parents’ rules for us growing up, whether or not they serve us now as adults. It can be harshly judgmental and punishing.