Have you ever wanted to get rid of a part of yourself?
How often do you hear people say things like, ‘I just want this behavior to go away’ Or ‘I wish my inner critic would just shut the hell up.’
The natural tendency from the right/wrong perspective is to get mad at, kick or punish the part of our self that is acting out of alignment. We yell at that part, want to kill that part or try to get rid of that part, having judged it as ‘bad’ and blamed it for all of our problems. In order to transform, we must come to see that hating a part of ourselves is perpetuating the cycle of abuse and violence. If we want peace for our children, we must first come to reside in peace within our own consciousness. Coming into peace is an inside job.
If you no longer want your outer-level reality to mirror war and conflict, you must first stop the war that is going on within your own consciousness. The only way to do this is by applying Love and compassion to the parts of yourself with which you’ve been at war – the parts of you that have been stuck in suffering.
Think about it this way; the parts of your consciousness that you’ve disowned for whatever reason are like little children who have been locked in a cold and dark place. Imagine you were to come upon child who’d been trapped in a cage in the dark for many years. The child would likely be feral. The child might react to you by crying in rage, throwing a tremendous tantrum, hissing and spitting. Would you, if you discovered such a child, respond by kicking the child while he was down, causing him to fear you and run back into the cage again? No way! You wouldn’t abuse that child; you are much too caring and compassionate. Right?
And yet, that is indeed what most of us do. What we have been programmed to do and what has been modeled to us is to berate, scold, reprimand and punish that already-abused child in our own harsh self-talk. We kick ourselves, call ourselves mean names and criticize ourselves to no end whenever one of our aspects appears in our awareness.
To identify the aspects in charge of your unsupportive self-talk, it becomes necessary to engage the support of your neutral observer. Once you are comfortable actively observing your own thoughts, you may begin to notice a constant stream of chatter going on underneath whatever may currently be holding your conscious attention. What is that chatter?
For me, it was an on-going stream of worry-thoughts, criticism, lack-thoughts and self-doubt thoughts being constantly presented to me. My disowned aspects had so many personal insecurities that they just couldn’t keep quiet. All of my various aspects were clamoring for my attention, all at the same time, which created a chaotic barrage of fear-based thinking.
In any given moment of my earlier life, my main personality – my inner People-Pleaser/Know-it-all/Perfectionist was criticizing my every action. My Sexy-Cyn was worried about her appearance. My Avoider was bogged down with feeling incapable and unworthy. My Helper was busy telling me the zillion things I needed to do for everybody else to prove I was good enough. My Yeller was constantly feeding me guilt, because no matter what I did I’d always be bad, shameful, undeserving and basically guilty for being born. These are just several of the aspects and their personal trips that were occurring simultaneously. Living inside of my head was a waking nightmare.
My old, fear-based thought-pattern went something like this: ‘Ugh. You look terrible today. I do, don’t I? That’s what you get for staying up until 2 am. You idiot. You deserve to look like crap. You need to exercise more. What a slug. Go to the gym. Do some yoga. I can’t. I’m too tired. What difference would it make anyway. I have already lost my muscle tone. You’re so stupid. You can’t do anything right. You should never have stopped dancing. I sucked. Yeah, but at least you were fit. Look at you now. You look like shit. You are a loser. Who’s going to want to even talk to you? You’re pathetic. I need to go to the grocery store. Crap. I don’t have enough money. I never have enough. Don’t think about money. The kids need new shoes, new clothes. I can’t take care of them like they deserve. You are a terrible mother. I know; I am a bad, awful mother who cannot even support my own kids. You need a man in your life to support you. Men never support me. What man would want to? I am an unlovable, unworthy, stupid piece of crap. You should cook a casserole for so-and-so who just had a baby. I don’t have time to cook for anyone. You need to be a good friend. It’s expected. Everyone else’s needs come first. I’m not important.’ And so it went.
This would be a small sample of the kind of thoughts that would stream through my mind unchecked. Notice that there were parts speaking to me in the second-person, addressing me as ‘you’, and then there were parts speaking in the first-person, making ‘I’-statements. The parts that speak/think in terms of ‘you’ are usually sub-personalities that are as-yet unclaimed, and the parts that speak/think in terms of ‘I’ are usually parts of the self that have been consciously identified or belong to the main personality. These parts will have an internal dialog that can include many differing opinions and voices.
What does your mind-chatter sound like? How do you relate to yourself in your own thoughts when you feel challenged, when you judge that you’ve ‘blown it’, when you fall back into an addictive behavior or when you behave in a way that you don’t feel good about? Do you kick the part of you that you don’t like? Are you in any way perpetuating a cycle of abuse and somehow justifying that it is Ok to treat yourself this way?
Understand that there is no way to ‘lose’ or get rid of a part of yourself that you do not like; however, you can change your unhealthy behaviors by liking and accepting yourself fully, bringing all of your parts into the light and creating a stronger whole. Know that inner peace is possible. I now have a calm, quiet mind, with very infrequent mind-chatter and long blissful periods of utter silence between constructive thoughts. If I can do it, you can do it. Say, “The cycle of abuse ends with me. I am now relating to all parts of myself with Loving kindness.”
Many Blessings of Joy and Vibrant Freedom
Action Step ~ End the internal war, coming into peace inside of yourself by learning to like and accept every part of your personality.
Declaration: “Cultivating peace is an inside job. I now drop all againstness towards myself and begin to view every part of myself with Love and kindness.”