‘A child desperate for help’

A Focuser says, I was listening to your Focusing CD and following the guided practices as closely as I could. I found your words and phrases and the way you put them across very helpful in bringing a number of issues into awareness and effective in leading me to find meaningful descriptive words and sometimes images which seemed to capture the essence of the troubling felt senses which arose during the sessions. The practice in Track 6 brought forward a strong felt sense which evolved into that of a child desperate for help, to have questions answered and above all to be heard. I tried to soothe the child but it grasped my hand and seemed to be pulling at me, becoming increasingly demanding. The questions brought no clear answers and it had to be left to return to another time. However I did end with a slight sense of ease, presumably a result of what felt like moments of clarity, albeit painful ones.

A. You are doing very well in difficult circumstances, which is without a Focusing partner. A partner can be of great help when you are working with difficult inner processes like you are. It is very natural that we should identify with parts of us, and not at all easy to make that step of dis-identification into self-in-presence. Simply the presence of someone else with you can make all the difference.

Perhaps what could help is to not spend too long with each part of you in the session. As you stay with something, you are keeping it company with interested curiosity and noticing how it feels in the body, describing as you go. This is what you are doing very well. Maybe stop as soon as you begin to feel identified. Come back to it another time. The body’s process can be very well supported in this way, by attending to it little and often, coming back to it over and over, during a period of time. Keep checking in with it in the next week. How is it feeling now? See if you can be attentive to its needs, just touching into it lightly from time to time, maybe by putting a gentle hand on that part of your body where you feel it the most. In this way, you are building an inner relationship between you and it. This strengthens your experience of your self-in-presence, and also gives some space to those parts of you that so desperately need your attention. Slowly but surely you can build up your trust in the process and yourself.

I want to come back to what you said about a child part that needed attention. It seemed to be desperate for help. It wanted answers and above all it wanted to be heard. The energy held in this part was almost overwhelming. It showed itself as grasping your hand and pulling on you, becoming increasingly demanding. This gives me a clue that you were not giving it the attention it wanted. When parts are not being heard, what happens? They shout louder. They try to get the attention they need by whatever means they can, including producing uncomfortable body symptoms. We may try to get away from uncomfortable feelings but they only get stronger.

The irony is that if you pay attention to what it is trying to say, the energy that is locked up in that part begins to open and release. The more we battle with it, the stronger it gets. If we listen to it in a kind, non-judgemental way, it will relax and ease a bit.

You may not be able to give answers to it in a way that satisfies it, but hearing what it is saying is more important. A child may ask why. Why is it like this, or, why did it happen like that? And there may be no rational explanation about painful past events. It just doesn’t make sense. What is really important here when you are Focusing with it, is to just sit beside the child part of you, empathising with it and letting it know you hear how very frustrating and how very painful it is; to be aware of past wounding and trauma and not be able to back and make it right.

Focusing teaches us that the body knows how it should have been, even at a non-verbal level. The body knows, even more that we do, what was blocked in early trauma, and what is needed now, to release the stuckness. That is where healing can come from, by listening directly into the body. This in itself can enable stuck process to begin to shift and be carried forward. You can’t make it happen, but you can provide the right conditions by sensing into the body in a gentle, non-judgemental way.