In August’s blog post, we discussed the need to make room for what we are not yet ready to release. How difficult it feels to co-exist with something that feels unlike ourselves or can make us feel far from ourselves. I can understand why this may not feel like a natural ask; but, actually tolerating experiences that are uncomfortable or resemble the past is part of what allows us to recognize ourselves more even if what we’re recognizing may not feel familiar or complete at first. There is something profoundly uncomfortable about recognizing that we may not be able to heal something simply because we are ready to be done hurting from it. We can understand why something exists, develop language for it, learn the tools, practice regulation, and desperately want to move forward—and still find ourselves meeting the same wound in different forms. But what do we do when wounds aren’t ready to heal?
Stop trying to heal them. Give them room. Keep them safe. That’s how they scab.
And so this is exactly what we’re going to do. We are going to create room and a room inside of ourselves that is big enough and safe enough to house both yourself and how you experience your wounds. The intention here is not to push you toward continued suffering, but, rather to nudge you toward loosening your grip on the expectation that everything inside of you must be moving toward resolution. Toleration asks something different of us. Instead of asking, how do I make this go away? we begin asking, how do I remain with myself while this is still here? In this blog post, I will guide you through an exercise that can offer some room for more of you to unfold outside of the discomfort while also continuing to locate yourself even through the discomfort in times of change, uncertainty, and metamorphosis. This exercise is intended to help you to stay with and, potentially, begin to share the experience of dysregulation/emotionality with the part(s) beginning to arise within you.
In this exercise, you can choose to leave your eyes open or close them. We are going to make contact with the body here and your internal space; so you may find that leaving your eyes open can help to continue to locate yourself in your space. If you choose to leave your eyes open, I invite you to find a comfortable seated spot, one where you can hopefully lean back into something (e.g., a pillow, the back of your couch, or a folded blanket even). As you sit back, find an object not too far in the distance to set your gaze on. I like to locate one of the flowers in the bouquet on my coffee table or sometimes the wick of the slender candle next to that bouquet. Find whatever it is in the near distance, straight ahead of you that allows you to comfortably locate yourself in the space that you’re in. The idea becomes to continue locating yourself while you reach for anything that may feel uncomfortable or unresolved within. So the idea therein, becomes, there is an “I” gazing at the soft pink and rippled petals or that “I” am looking at the slender white wick in front of me. That “I” is your home base. That “I” remains still in the process, and continuous.
From here on out, please ignore the suggestions that I give you that don’t feel right as we move through this exercise together. What I will guide you toward creating here is a room inside of yourself where you will practice being able to house yourself and that, which feels unresolved (e.g., a part’s experience, what they carry, discomfort, dysregulation, etc). Below, are the steps we will follow.
Settle In: Leaning into your comfy posture, and sending your gaze into a desirable object, texture, or color in front of you, I invite you to turn your attention slightly inward here. If you can comfortably stay inside of your body, maybe you notice your eyes getting heavier and heavier as you notice everything there is to notice about the desirable object in front of you, so heavy that your eyelids begin to feel heavy, noticing that you may begin to feel a paste or a cream that each eyelid touches as you blink…that maybe so much so that your eyelids begin to close. Letting them know that they can open at any time.
Go Deeper: Turning your attention even more inward here. Beginning to enter your body with each breath you take. Each inhale invites you in while each exhale keeps you there. Turning your attention twice as much inward here and so much so that you may just begin to notice an internal space forming inside of you. Allowing the thinking mind to become a little less interested in figuring out where you’re going. Because your conscious mind doesn’t have to know where you are going…
Create a Room Inside: Begin to invite the discomfort, dysregulation, any which way that a wound inside of you is showing up, without knowing who or what it is yet, just asking them where they would like to meet you? In your chest? In your diaphragm? In the space between your diaphragm and your stomach? In the passageway of your breath? Notice what feels like a natural home inside of your body and imagine them guiding you toward this place. Remembering this is your space too, you are only inviting them in with you. You may feel led to another place in your body than what they suggest. Exploring different locations in the body until you both find yourself having comfortably landed in one place. Noticing as you land there what this room can become on the inside for each of you. Keep turning your attention inward. So much so that you might drift and drift into a room inside of yourself. Drifting and drifting. The spot in the body where you have both landed becomes a room. Every inhale…notice the room. Every exhale…drift into it.
Inhale…notice colors inside the room.
Exhale.
Inhale…notice the shape of the room.
Exhale.
Inhale…notice your own energy in the room, and invite it to stay.
Exhale.
Inhale…notice how this space in your body will begin to feel more and more like a spacious room, one that continues to expand with each breath that you take. Allowing your breath to create four walls to the room or more space in the room, whichever feels better to house both of you.
Exhale.
Find The Part: Noticing if there is anything uncomfortable that can meet you. Turning your attention further inside and noticing, is this part we are wanting to make room for, are they outside the room or inside the room you’ve created. This part may feel raw, disinhibited, anxious, loud, intrusive, or even timid, scared, and profoundly dissociated. Turning your attention even further inward and noticing who has entered the room with you. And remembering that you do not have to go looking for them.
You might simply invite them to become known in whatever way they are willing to be known. How do you know they are there?
Maybe you see them.
Maybe you feel them.
Maybe you hear them.
Maybe you notice an age, an expression, a posture, a sensation, a color, an energy, or simply the knowing that someone is here too. And if nothing becomes clear, notice whether you can make room for the not knowing, too. You don’t have to identify this part correctly. You don’t have to understand why they are here. And you don’t have to ask them to tell you their story.
Just notice.
Where are you in relation to me? Are they across the room? Curled into a corner? Standing at the doorway? Sitting very close to you? Hiding somewhere you cannot quite see? And perhaps you can allow them to choose their own distance. There is no need to bring them closer. There is no need to send them farther away.
Just begin by letting their position be their position. And noticing what happens inside of you when you realize they are here. And when they realize that you are here with them.
Rest Together: And now, perhaps for the first time in this exercise, there is nowhere else that you need to go. You found the room. You found yourself inside of it. And something that has been hurting, protecting, hiding, bracing, remembering, or waiting has found its own place here, too. So for these next few moments, see what happens if you do absolutely nothing to it. No questions. No processing. No asking it to release. No asking it what it needs in order to heal.
No asking whether it feels better yet. Perhaps even noticing the part of you that wants to do something—and letting that part rest here, too.
And you may silently offer:
You don’t have to change because I found you.
You don’t have to tell me anything.
You don’t have to become less uncomfortable for me to stay.
For right now, you can simply be here.
And perhaps notice your breath again.
Inhale... there is room for me.
Exhale... there is room for you.
Inhale... I can remain.
Exhale... you can remain.
And maybe the room begins to teach you something that words cannot quite teach: Two things can exist without one having to cancel out the other. Your discomfort can be here, and so can your breath. The wound can be here, and so can the room. This part can be here and so can you.
Move Toward and Back: And now, without needing to disturb anything, begin to notice the space between you and this part. Perhaps there is a distance that feels just right. And I wonder what happens if, only in your awareness, you move a little closer. You can do this through breath (inhale for move toward, exhale for move back), watching yourself walk toward them and walk back, sitting up and leaning in to move closer and settling back into your seat to move back. Notice what happens in your body as you move toward. And before you need to get away...move back. Returning to your own body. Your breath. Your place in the room. And notice, you can come toward me. You can stay at a distance that feels just right for you. I can come toward you without disappearing into you. When it feels right, perhaps move toward them again.
A little closer to their feeling. Their posture. Their experience. Their presence.
And then back toward yourself. Taking as long as you need here, and then back at your next exhale when it feels right. Toward them again. Noticing how you know they are there and if they are reaching for you or perhaps even turning away or staying still. Not abandoning. Not becoming consumed. Not forcing closeness. Just discovering that distance can move. Where can you go in your body, somewhere outside of the room to return to yourself for brief moments? Perhaps each time you return to yourself, you notice that the room has not disappeared. And perhaps each time you move toward the part, you discover that you do not have to disappear either. And somewhere in this movement of your attention, perhaps your body can begin learning: I can touch what hurts without having to live entirely inside of it. I can return to myself without abandoning what hurts. Stay here for as many movements as feel right. There is no correct distance just as there is no magic number of repetitions. You can take as long as you need to build a safe container for the both of you.
Return, Carry, and Continue: And when you begin to sense that it’s time to return, noticing that you do not have to finish anything before you leave this room. The part does not have to be healed. The wound does not have to close. In fact, this one inside of you cannot heal until you leave and come back, time and time again. And things do not have to meet resolution and certainty for healing to happen. True healing happens in the process of how we hold uncertainty and how we teach the most fragile, frightened, terrorized, dissociated, numb, raw parts within us that feeling these things is not the same as living those things again. We teach them by holding it with them. The more we can hold it with them and witness them in their holding, the less traumatic it will feel. The less it will feel like re-living by returning to threat and the more it may begin to feel like re-experiencing while remaining safe. We teach them by coming back to be with them. We teach them by allowing them near us. Giving themselves and ourselves choices for how to build connection. The feeling does not have to resolve. You are not leaving because the work is complete. You are practicing something different. You are practicing continuing while something remains unfinished. Perhaps look around the room one final time. Notice where this part has chosen to be. And ask not what they need in order to heal, but: Is there anything you need in order to remain here while I return to my grown up body? And perhaps asking them in the way that feels right (maybe through gazing gently at them, maybe through posture, maybe through language, if it would be alright if you came back into this room to be with them? Perhaps they want the door left open. Perhaps they want to be able to signal you or have access to a part of the body that can signal you on their behalf. Perhaps they want a blanket. Maybe a snack. A toy. Maybe a viewing room…a projection screen in your body that allows them to see into the present day world and through your grown up body. Perhaps allowing them to have a remote so that they can turn the screen on when they are curious and need to be reminded that when you are safe, they are safe, and off when they want. Perhaps they want distance. Perhaps they want to know that you will return. Perhaps nothing comes at all. Whatever happens, let it be enough. And before you leave, perhaps offer:
You can still be here. I can still be here; and even when I am not in this room with you, you can be inside of this room with me, and I can come back if that feels okay. They don’t have to know if it feels okay now. You can come back to check on them.
Beginning now to notice the edges of your physical body again. Turning your attention outward as you let your inhales flow into the edges of your body and noticing how each exhale can flow out of the edges of your body. Locating yourself by sensing into the outer space you will return to. The surface underneath you. The temperature of the air. The sounds outside of you. Turning your attention even more outward. Noticing the inside while coming to be with the outside. And allowing the room to become farther away without needing to disappear. Because you don’t have to shut the door behind you. You don’t have to carry the wound in your hands all day in order to remember that it exists. You can carry the relationship instead. If your eyes are closed, letting them come back to focus on the thing in front of you that found your attention at the beginning. I am noticing flowers, petals, a bouquet of different flowers that look like they all belong together. I am letting myself turn my attention outward toward the entire bouquet. Perhaps you are widening your gaze as you locate yourself, your size, your shape, your posture within the space that you are in. If you chose to leave your eyes open, also widening your gaze so far outward that perhaps you start to shift your gaze slowly from left (pause) to right (pause), then turning your gaze upward toward the space above you (pause), and turning your gaze downward toward the surface that is holding you up. Asking yourself to notice now time. Now time through your senses.
There is nothing more to reach for here. Any of the exercises we have moved through can be used at any time. The question becomes, why are we reaching for one over another and thinking about what makes sense for you at any one given time. Not all of my suggestions may land for you, and that’s okay. The most important thing is to be curious about what feels right for you. I am offering examples of templates that may allow something inside of you to feel reached while continuing to locate yourself, your felt and known version of Self in their presence. The one that feels genuine to you and may feel disrupted throughout healing. Sometimes Self is not there. Especially for those that dissociate in more complex ways, like those that have Otherwise Specified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD) or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Outside of these configurations, our sense of Self can be conceptualized in different ways. The concept can mean something different for everyone because Self is born out of a feeling that we can come back to. I will take a pause from continuing on in introducing the next Spiral in my next blog and will first discuss my interpretation of Self, how I came to this interpretation based on the people that I work with and the knowings and literature, theoretical approaches that I pull from. If at any point throughout my writings, the concept of differentiating from dysregulation and identifying with Self is unattainable, locating yourself can mean finding a feeling of safe enough internally. Sometimes when it is terribly unfamiliar, we need it reflected to us by someone who is safe. When we haven’t had a safe human to reflect it back to us, it is not lost on me that finding this feeling within ourselves can feel unmanageable and unattainable. This exercise is still for you. You are allowed to identify with the part that enters the room. If you are severed from this part, you are allowed to show up to the room as an advocate for this part. If Self is not accessible, reach for the feeling of safety first as the starting point for these exercises. If safety is not accessible, show up as the you that you identify with, exactly as you are, and visualize a safe figure that you may hope to come into contact with—who would this safe person be if they lived inside of you too?
In October’s blog, I will discuss how to enhance this feeling of safety and will dive into the concept of Self in a way that can be relatable for those that feel severed from a continuous Self or don’t identify with this concept. There is a space for everyone here.
Food for thought :)
Kindly,
—Sarah