Be Your Own Hero
By: Christine Horn
Click here to contact Christine and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
“The past is the past. Put it behind you. Get over it already.”
We all have parts of ourselves whose job it is to know how and when to feed us these lines. It is usually after more tender parts of us get triggered and we are feeling hurt or isolated or helpless. These tender parts haunt us with a very different set of lines that they have learned, “You’re not good enough. You’re unlovable. You don’t matter. It’s hopeless.”
These learned beliefs are so painful. Few of us welcome them with open arms. Just the opposite. We lock them away in the basements of our being and put sentries at the door. The “get over it” sentries then run the day-to-day show and keep us consoled, soothed. These sentries protect us from the pain we have locked away in the basement. If life events come close to triggering the pain in the basement, they step in and feed us their lines. Once we are feeling soothed we can once again turn our backs on the basement door. We need these sentries.
But what happens when the tender parts are more triggered than the protective sentries can handle? What happens when they are banging on the basement door, or have gotten out and are running the place? Enter a third kind of part: the Major Distracters. They are the ones that know how to really keep our minds off our pain. They get the job done when the sentries cannot. Major Distracters are the parts in us that use various kinds of addictive strategies like over-drinking, over-spending, over-sexing, over- or under-eating, cutting, raging or any other kind of impulsive behavior. However, when these parts take over we often feel out of control and we cause great suffering. But at least our inner pain was avoided. Mission accomplished.
Sound a bit chaotic? Overwhelming? There is hope. There is a way to help unburden all of these parts from the jobs they have been stuck with for so long. Each part probably already has some idea of what they would really rather be doing anyway – some gift or talent that they had to give up when they got their current job assignment. There is a therapeutic process that mediates a compassionate dialogue with all of these parts and helps you to heal them.
Once the exiled basement residents having been safely healed of their pain, the sentries can be honorably discharged and the Major Distractors can channel their abundant strength and energy toward deeply satisfying endeavors. All of the parts can go about living the life they were born to live – celebrating their unique abilities.
People who have used this therapeutic process report profound shifts in the feelings and beliefs that previously tormented them, noting that as they became more confident and compassionate, they were able to find increased harmony not only within themselves but also with family, community, and the planet.
The past is the past. We cannot change the painful things that we have endured. But we can rescue the parts of us that have been stuck living in the past. We can help them out. We can heal them. Only then can we truly and beautifully get on with it. Whatever “it” is.
©Copyright 2008 by Christine Horn. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry.
Click here to contact Christine and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile