Hope's Journal: 2021 (Part 1)

Started by Hope67, January 06, 2021, 01:23:29 PM

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Hope67

I found the thread about 'coercive control' - I'll try to find the other thread another time, but pleased I found one of them. 

Hope  :)

Tee

 :hug: it's ok I'm sure that know you appreciate them. :hug:

Hope67

Hi Tee, Thank you so much for the hug, and sending one back to you too  :hug:

**********
3rd February 2021

This morning I watched a talk by Richard Schwartz which was part of a summit about Compassion, and his talk is called "Working with Shame and the Inner Critic" - it's 46 minutes long, and this is the link:
https://www.compassionintherapy.com/stream/richard-schwartz/

I've written some notes, and I wanted to keep them here in my journal -

Notes:

All multiple personalities 'parts' - inner personalities.  Born with parts.  They're all valuable.  Trauma takes them into roles they are not equipped for and trapped in trauma time.

They carry 'burdens'.  When traumatised - attachment injury and traumas - beliefs develop.  Burdens and emotions stick to parts.

Frozen in time.  Carrying burdens.  Extreme roles.

Inner children - innocent, loving, creative.

But wounded child - terror and shame and emotional pain.

Left all that.  But locked them up.

Exiles - locked up and inside of us.

Need other parts who will protect.  Stop exiles being triggered.

Manager protectors. Keep people from getting close.  Accolades to protect.  Inner critics: over-promoted parentified inner children.  Yell at you.  Desperate.

Not any good - stay safe.

Many generational roles.  World triggers.

Other parts deal with emergency.  Fire-fighters.

Roles - not the actual parts.

Once fired up - resume naturally valuable states.

Goal: liberate the parts.  Convince the parts to open space.

SELF has space to be - ask parts to step-back:
Compassion; Curiosity; Confidence; Calm; Clarity; Creativity; Courage and feel Connected to it.
Characteristics of SELF.

Self is present in everybody and knows how to heal.

Shame - difficult emotion to work with.

Shame - says you're bad.  Believes you're bad.  Exile - in background.  Fire-fighter - getting away from shame.  Polarisation between fire-fighter and critic.

IFS (Internal Family Systems)
Start with the critic.  Find it in your body.  How do you feel towards it?  "I don't like it"  Ask that part to allow us to get to know it.  Seeing compassion for it

(Whilst I was watching this part, I found that a part of me was very upset indeed)

Hard to be locked up in a dungeon for years.  Help to get it out.

(I felt my throat constrict a lot at this point, felt hugely emotional)

Addictions.
Hard to access shame.  Most therapists collude with the managers.

Ask the critic what would happen if it stopped calling you names?
Can't stand you making mistakes.
If didn't take substances, do you still need to call her names?
Talk to drinking part.
Focus on addicted part.
Negative feelings towards it.
What would happen if didn't do that?

Focuses on exile.
Where stuck in the past.
Compassionate witness.
Go into that scene and act on her behalf.
Take her to a safe place.
Unload burdens.
She will transform and be happy girl.

Bring in other parts to witness that they don't need to do these roles anymore.

Part won't explode if you make a mistake.

Shame - new client.
When do you feel shame, what's it like?
Want to hide.
A part wants to hide.
What else happens?
Feel it in my body.
Want to protect something inside.
Want to shelter myself.

OK - one part hides, one part protects body.
Anything else?
Lose clarity, things get fuzzy.

OK - another part fuzzes your brain.
Another part is angry.

OK, another part defends you.  It says it inside.
Sometimes you let it speak to the person.
Anything else?
Inner landscape - young parts shamed by older sibling (brother)
OK - 5 or 6 parts

I can help you.
Of 5 or so, is there a place you'd like to start?

Young wounded part.
OK, but talk to reluctant parts first.

Fear?  No, the coast is clear.

If parts get scared, we can stop and talk to them

(again, I felt very upset at this point)

So afraid of being judged or afraid of exposing what's negative in there

(I related so much to him saying this)

Check with protectors before accessing exile.
Where do you find it in your body?
Usually easy to locate it.
Focus there.
Keep out of head.
Stops thinking parts getting in the way.

Noticing where in the body.  How they change.

People become more SELF-lead instead of being driven by other parts.
Allowing SELF to run your life.

Self-compassion.
Relate differently (more compassionately) to self and others.
More open-hearted.
More flexible.

Goals of IFS:
1. Liberation of parts
2. Restoring the trust of the parts in SELF as a leader.
3. Bring harmony to parts.
4. Lead life from SELF.

If notice lack of compassion as a therapist for a client - then ask that protective part to step-back to enable compassion to be felt.
Radical and liberating for therapists.

Connect client with SELF.

Training ley people is easier.

Sit with an open heart.
Be mindfully present.
Powerful.
Clients feel 'held'

Noticing parts
Loving vibrating energy

Mark Epstein said ideally "therapy is a two-person meditation"

Futility to battle their critics.  Not internalisations.  They are MORE.  Personhood of the critics.  Over-promoted inner children. They'd love to have a rest.  Exhausted. Vacation needed.

Big Vision:
Radical difference of this paradigm.
If widely accepted, could transform daily interactions.

Mission - to communicate it in public discourse. 
Optimistic model.

Psychotherapy training takes you away from natural understanding.

MDMA - relaxes protectors and enter open-hearted state of belief.

Spontaneously do IFS.
Locked up this rage.
Going to let him out.

If access enough self, we naturally have wisdom to heal externally and internally.

End of my notes. 
**********

I really enjoyed the above talk, it was really good.  I feel more optimistic having seen it. 

Hope  :)

Bach

Hope, you teach me so much.  Thank you  :hug:

woodsgnome

#34
Hope, thank you so much for this summary. Although I resisted the IFS approach at first, due to the word 'family' in any connotation. This tension is receding a little, partly due to reading the various descriptions I've found here on OOTS.

For a long while, I've felt better attuned to Self ('higher') than self ('lower') when it comes to regarding who the real 'me' is. So I sense accessing it better as a wise route to follow, while also being careful to avoid bypassing all the messy work of shining a safer light on the self-dominated parts.

Thanks again for  shining your light on the path via the valuable notes you've so generously shared.  :hug:

dollyvee

Quote from: Hope67 on February 03, 2021, 02:47:49 PM
Want to protect something inside.
Want to shelter myself.

OK - one part hides, one part protects body.
Anything else?
Lose clarity, things get fuzzy.


So afraid of being judged or afraid of exposing what's negative in there

These are interesting thoughts about the inner critic and how it influences our feelings, especially around shame. Thanks for sharing Hope.

Hope67

Hi Bach,  I learn so much from being in this forum, and reading what you and others say - so thank you too, and thanks for saying that.  I just wrote the notes of what Richard Schwartz had said, it helped me a lot.   :hug:

Hi Woodsgnome, I'm glad you found the summary helpful.  IFS is an interesting approach.  I am dabbling in it.  (For some reason a vision of a pond comes to mind near a babbling brook - which is interesting, but the temperature of the water is quite good).  I really like your analogy of 'shining a safer light on the self-domintated parts'.     :hug:

Hi Dollyvee, I found it helpful to write out the notes, and keep them somewhere safe, and I'm glad you found them interesting to read  :hug:

************
11th February 2021
I have quite a few things I'd like to write, so I hope to pop back later, when I might have a bit more time, and do so. 

Hope  :)


Hope67

11th February 2021

I've been wanting to reply to Oceanstar who kindly asked me how I'm getting on with 'Befriending my Parts' - I can't find where Oceanstar asked me that, but I will put my update here in my journal, which is a good place to put it, I think.

It's a work in progress, as many of my parts have been neglected for a signifcant amount of time.  I think I was going along on auto-pilot, and living my life without realising the things I was carrying, and the things that I had missed through being in often constant states of dissociation and therefore much of my experience had a strange blinkered feel to it.  Also, I was naive in  many ways, in that I thought that my FOO were looking after me, and looking out for me, and considering my needs and wants, but I realise I had a mask or filter infront of my eyes, which meant I couldn't see the reality of situations I was in.

I desperately wanted to be living a life that was one of a child who was wanted and loved.  So I very much picked situations that mirrored that, and ignored things that didn't. 

I've come to realise that my FOO lied to me constantly – and lived a 'lie' that they fought hard to protect – to propogate it, and so it grew.  But things and indeed people who ever spoke against it, they literally threw away, and in the end I realised that to break free, I would need to break the tie as well.

So, once free of the physical link of seeing and interacting with them, I found I still had the guilt, the shame, and many other negative feelings associated with living the life I had been part of. 

Beginning to listen to my body, listen to the inner thoughts and finding out that there were various communications from inner parts – it was scary at first, but gradually I've been able to sit with some of those and hear them, and indeed, sometimes I tentatively interact with them.

I feel like I've been going at a snail's pace, but that's ok, because if I rush it or try to do too much, then I find that I suffer for that.  It has needed to be at a pace I can handle, and I think I'm doing ok at the moment. 

Whereas previously I would be ruminating almost constantly about my FOO, now I find I think of them less often.  They still enter my thoughts at least once a day though.  I'd rather they didn't.  But it's the uncertainty of everything that makes it hard to put a lid on anything. 

I've been reading a book by Lisa M. Najavits which is called 'Finding your Best Self: Recovery from Addiction, Trauma, or Both' and it has been really helpful to me.  I'm half-way through that book, and I've been reading a chapter or two per day.  I find it is really helpful. 

I've been having more dreams which have quite active themes in them – one of them I was in my parent's home, and I was considering an 'escape' - and wondering if I could actually get away safely or not.  My partner was in the dream, and he was encouraging me to leave with him, so he was helping me to escape.  I think that is literally what he did in real life, as I probably wouldn't have managed to make the escape from contact with them, if he hadn't been in my life. 

It's good to have written this today.

Hope  :)

Hope67

14th February 2021
Yesterday my day started brighter, partly because I had been celebrating Valentine's Day a day early with my partner, so we'd given each other cards in the morning, and it was nice to do that.

But also I had felt very happy when I'd read in Notalone's journal that her Hope had accepted a hug from my Hope, and I had shared that with my LIttle Hope, and she had been very happy about that.  So the day was a nice one.

I wanted to say this in Notalone's journal, but somehow I found it hard to do that, so I'm saying it here, in mine.  I might go over and say something in her diary - if I can do so.  I want to, but I feel a bit embarrassed about it.  Not sure why.

Anyway, having celebrated Valentine's day a day early, somehow today feels like it isn't Valentine's day - just a normal day.  That's ok too.  It's very cold weather.  Feel like hibernating.  But I read something in Bach's journal which made me smile, and I think I'll try to extend the Valentine's feeling through today by doing something nice for my partner at some point in the day. 

I've been watching the episodes of a docu-series on Trauma that are currently free to watch for 24 hours, but it's meaning I need to watch them regularly.  I've watched 2 so far.  The second episode really upset me when I listened to a woman who had had eating disorders as a result of her childhood trauma - it was when they were talking about the messages we hear as children, and how powerful they are - it really got through to a part of me, that felt distraught about that.  But I was glad I watched through the entire episode, and I hope to watch the third one today.

Wanted to write a bit more, but don't feel like I can at the moment, so I'll stop for now.

Hope  :)


dollyvee

Hi Hope,

Just wanted to say how clear your previous journal entry was. I relate a lot to how important it is to be seen and heard as kids, and how confusing it is for us to hear we are loved and then have their actions be the opposite of that where we are not seen (and loved for who we are). Such a big aha moment  :grouphug:


Hope67


Not Alone

Quote from: Hope67 on February 14, 2021, 08:53:54 AM
But also I had felt very happy when I'd read in Notalone's journal that her Hope had accepted a hug from my Hope, and I had shared that with my LIttle Hope, and she had been very happy about that.  So the day was a nice one.

I wanted to say this in Notalone's journal, but somehow I found it hard to do that, so I'm saying it here, in mine.  I might go over and say something in her diary - if I can do so.  I want to, but I feel a bit embarrassed about it.  Not sure why.

This made my heart smile.  :grouphug:

Hope67

 :hug: to you Notalone. 

*******
18th February 2021
I'm having a more difficult time at the moment, and I hope to write about it sometime soon, but just wanted to put that today. 
Hope  :)

Blueberry


Snowdrop

Thank you for writing notes on the Richard Schwartz talk, Hope. I'm currently working with some parts who have been carrying shame, and I found your notes really helpful.

I'm sorry you're having a more difficult time. Would a supportive hug help? :hug: