Imagine you’re driving to a family holiday gathering.
Notice …
- What’s the conversation going on in your head?
- What are your feelings?
- How are these feelings showing up in your body?
As you arrive at the gathering place & are parking the car, does the conversation
continue, shift or intensify?
As you approach the front door what are you telling yourself?
You might not notice anything – this self-talk may be unconscious – because your inner conversation is as natural as breathing.
That’s all well & good when this conversation is positive, encouraging, uplifting, exciting.
But when it’s not – when it’s conflicted, negative, critical or nasty – what do you do then?
How do you tend to and befriend yourself?
You are not alone as you recognize this dynamic within yourself. We all have conflicting PARTS
of ourselves to deal with.
There may come a time when you’ve had it, when you say, “Enough is enough.” That’s a significant turning point.
= = = = = = =
For me it came when I realized that I kept doing things because I thought I was supposed to.
I hadn’t allowed myself to see my options. Eventually, this pattern got to be really frustrating.
A time finally came when I took a stand for myself. I refused to continue going to a large family holiday dinner! As is often the case, the liquor was flowing freely and the situation was no longer tolerable for me.
As you might imagine, the first time around, I didn’t handle the situation gracefully.
Actually, I acted quite like a 2-year-old with my arms crossed in front of my chest, my heels dug into the floor and adamantly saying, “NO! Don’t count me in. I’m not going!”
Sometime later, I was introduced to “PARTS work” (for lack of a better term) and I learned calmer ways of speaking up for myself! I also found a life-giving alternative to that unpleasant family holiday dinner.
Often our PARTS are in conflict with each other when there’s a decision to be made.
Looking back, I realize that …
- One PART of me didn’t want to go to the family holiday dinner.
- Another PART of me felt like I had no choice.
- A third PART of me stepped up and became my spokesperson!
Think of a time when you were caught in this kind of dilemma. How did you resolve it?
Did you ever wonder where these PARTS of yourself came from? I dare to say that they’ve been around for a very long while.