Monthly Archives: June 2012

Giving in the Inner World

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So, I ran into a giving, nurturing part of me today, and the part of me who wants to understand things asked the guy to explain how giving works on an inner level. I thought I’d share what I learned for anyone who wants to explore their own inner world.

As I understand it, it works like this:
Any “item” that’s visualized can be imbued with certain feelings – love, courage, even stuff like negativity. The item, imbued with these feelings, can be given to other parts of you. Once received, the given part of yourself can “use” the item, and in doing so, gain access to the feeling it was imbued with.

I’ll give a couple of examples. Say that you imagine that a nurturing part of yourself makes a dish of food for another part of yourself, and this was done with a feeling of love. That other part of you receives that feeling from the food.

Or, the item could be a sword. A sword can represent confidence in something. So if something in you has a close connection to the feeling of justice, they can probably “make” a sword of justice, which can be used by inner warriors to fight for just causes.

It works in the same fashion as a metaphor. In fact, you could say items ARE metaphors. The food is a metaphor for the love a part of yourself wants to share. The sword is a metaphor for a sense of confidence that you utilize when fighting for something. Any imagined item can be imbued with meaning.

And remember that inside of you, metaphors are dynamic. They can change as your feelings change. And as your inner world changes.

The same is true for any aspect of the inner world. A landscape can represent an emotional state. A character can represent a certain part of yourself, perspective, or way of approaching the world. And substances, like water, or items, like swords, can represent a certain feeling.

We experience this day-to-day as well. It’s sort of like how you can see a word, like “love”, and it can evoke a little bit of the feeling of love in you, just reading the word. Or see a painting and get a feeling from it. Or see a present and think of the person who gave it to you.

The idea is that what you visualize as your inner world becomes more clear when you let the things you see represent the feelings that are there inside of you NOW. Knowing a little bit about how this works will let you better navigate that inner world, and test how those dynamics work. I find that as one develops one’s own system that makes sense to them, it begins to seem more and more familiar to the system of meaning we already use, constantly.

Anyway, to those who use this info to explore themselves, enjoy the adventure!

Balanced Apologies

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Today, someone got upset after I touched some stuff of theirs. At the time, I had no idea that this person would get so upset, and to me what I was doing was no big deal. But to them, it was, and when they found out they got angry, calling what I did as “wrong”. I started to say things like “only according to you” and acted as if I had done nothing wrong or anything I need to apologize for. But at the same time I felt an inner conflict brewing over the issue.

So I separated myself from the situation and went to go utilize the techniques I have to work through the issue. The technique I used here was to just listen to the thoughts with my eyes closed, and get a general sense of the different parts of myself who were in on this debate. The issue, whether or not I should apologize, brought up several responses:

  1. A stubborn, fiery, demanding guy. He said things like, “why should I apologize? That other person over-reacted! I did nothing wrong! And I felt nothing was wrong at the time. Don’t try to force an apology out of me!”
  2. A thoughtful, calm, concerned guy. This guy thought things like, “But… it would be the courageous thing to apologize, the right thing. I mean, there are a lot of people who act the way you do and just act like a brat… Well, what is the right thing to do here?”
  3. A nasty guy who just wanted to gobble up praise from others: “hehe if we apologize then we’ll be thought of as a brave, courageous person. Oh boy!”
  4. A calm peaceful force, which, when asked, admitted that it didn’t care about the issue at all.

The first guy didn’t want to look weak, or put on a show of being pathetic. It knew I had thought it was the right thing to do at the time, I wasn’t “doing wrong”. However, that’s always the case, and I knew that apologizing is important on some occasions, or, if not apologizing, at least something to make it right. The way I resolved the issue was by the second guy saying, “Ok, it’s true we weren’t wrong at the time, but that was because we didn’t know how the person would react. If we had known, we would’ve chosen differently. So, we can at least tell them that.” Then the third guy popped up, getting excited about apologizing because it would make me look good. I decided I did not want to be it about that at all, and would say so as well.

So, when I went to apologize, I did so without getting all depressed or guilt-ridden. I simply said “let’s talk” to the person, then, in order to keep in balance between all sides of myself, mentioned three things:

  1. That at the time I thought what I did was right
  2. That if I had known how the person would react I would have chosen differently. And so, I was sorry for that.
  3. Then (after they said “well it takes a big man to say that”), I told them I did not want to be considered courageous or strong or a big man for saying what I just did. And I explained why. They understood and I got 0 praise after that, thankfully.

And things were made right, the barrier of bitterness was broken down and I could talk openly with this person again. Granted, that barrier wasn’t up long, but it’s easy to imagine that it can stay up for a long time between people. Moreover, after doing this exercise, I now realize how easily I could’ve just gone along with the first voice, and stayed self-righteous. A lot of people go about life this way, always blaming others and never taking responsibility for things themselves. But there’s always holes in the blamer’s argument.

I also realized that an opposite approach can be taken as well. You can punish yourself, and force yourself to feel guilty and wrong because of something that felt right to you at the time. Instead of taking the time to consider the voice that says “I am NOT at fault here”, you can impose an edict on yourself that you ARE at fault and you must apologize. This is also unfair to yourself, and it might be done to just not lose favor with other people.

That third voice, that likes praise, seems like another pitfall, because just wanting to be praised and esteemed by others is not a good reason for doing things, and I feel like it points to hidden insecurity. Remember to address this if you ever do something that others would consider praise-worthy. I guess I would call this ego, and that continuing down that path of collecting praise is one that will just continue to inflate one’s own ego.

In any case, when apologizing, I’d just say that just make sure that you settle all your conflicts about it first before you go ahead with it. Both the knee-jerk defensive reaction and the caring, thoughtful parts of yourself have things to learn from each other. I feel like if you favor one or the other your decision just won’t sit right.

The Judgmental Self

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Both judged and judging

It seems that the part of yourself who judges others does so because they themselves have been judged, and gather resentment towards those who would do such a thing. Where this all starts is the next mystery to be solved.

In terms of interacting with a judgmental person or part of yourself, it seems that they only let down their barriers when you are willing to admit your mistakes and really be humble in front of them. Rather than get pissed at the judgments they throw at you. If you do, a larger and larger fight will brew, and explode, instead. Heck, maybe SOME of the things they say ARE true. To avoid becoming judgmental you must develop, I feel like, the ability to TAKE IT. To take the judgment or criticism, however harsh or mean-spirited. Even if it is designed with the specific intent to crush your spirit.

Meeting Paranoia

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Paranoia, one of the Malcontents

Had a talk with another one of my malcontents today, who I call “paranoia”. Found out several things about this guy:

  1. His whole job, as he defines it, is to avoid death.
  2. Since there is no room for error in this job, he can get pretty stressed out.
  3. Also because of no room for error, he often extrapolates suspicions about what might possibly lead to death, and tries to make sure those paths are avoided. This can get pretty extreme, for example something like, “we’ve got to make sure we keep up good appearances to others so that we don’t get stigmatized and thus are more likely to fall into poverty and thus die early.”
  4. Ultimately, his purpose for starting this in the first place was to preserve life. By doing his job right, he can preserve the lives of those who enjoy life.
  5. By consequence, he is afraid of letting down those who enjoy life, for if they are ever endangered, he’s often the one to get the blame.

I finally got him to calm down a bit when I told him that if any of those he’s trying to protect ever did blame him, or ever did die – whatever might have happened is part of life – and he can rest in knowing that he did everything he knew to do possible. Anyone who still has a problem with this is being unfair to him. Maybe it’s a small change, but at least I got through to him. He was extremely paranoid, after all. And even if it’s a small voice within one’s self, that paranoia can make life pretty chaotic.

Stubborn Pride

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One of the malcontents within myself, who I call “stubborn pride”, is, as you might expect, hard to change in a fundamental way, although he deeply considers everything that you might say when you reason with him. A few things are clear with this guy:

  1. His job is based on the fear of tragedies, so he does his best to create an
    Stubborn Pride, one of the Malcontents

    atmosphere of joy within

  2. He himself is not joyful, mostly because he doesn’t like his job. Who would like a job that’s totally based on fear?
  3. He’s unwilling to abandon his post, because he has seen the effect of tragedy first hand and wants to do what he can to prevent it.
  4. He doesn’t really enjoy that job because it’s hard to see the results, and any news (a potential or active danger) is bad news. In such a position, it’s easy to get grumpy.
  5. While he’s willing to consider new things (such as letting go of inhibitions, or emotional healing), if they don’t have a clear, practical benefit after being tested, he’ll shut it down.
  6. If you can help this part of yourself to see their reason for living as they are in the first place (the purpose behind their actions), then they will become much less grumpy, if not downright glad. For me, it was because this guy had seen tragedy, and seen how upset those who went through things could get – so he wanted to make the world better so he could help those he cared about to not experience that stuff as much.

However, it’s clear that this part of myself can be dangerous. If he is ever too short-sighted to see the effect of different actions, or if he misjudges certain situations, he could apply a backwards solution to the problem without really taking the time to investigate it. Fear does that – it incites quick reactions that may not be well-thought out, or even based in cowardice. If the fearless, emotionally vital parts of yourself, who bear the brunt of this kind of misjudgment, keep watch, it could reduce the number of damaging mistakes this malcontent can make. That’s what I decided to do – I will see if it works.

The Malcontents

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Tonight was the second time I’ve come across a group within my consciousness that I can only describe as “the malcontents”. These parts of you are involved in high-level decision making processes and try to make sure the world stays in balance, even if their methods aren’t always fair. Some of this group I identified: stubborn pride, worry and doubt, suspicion, depression, paranoia, and annoyance. All of these guys constantly look for things that might cause bad things to happen within your consciousness, and direct an effort to keep things on the right track, according to them.

Trouble is, as much as they might want a happy, joyful, fulfilled inner world, they are not happy joyful or fulfilled themselves. In fact, they’d rather be doing something else! But nothing else within the consciousness seems to have the patience to constantly watch for threats (like egotism, hatred, “evil”, etc.), so they do it out of a sense of obligation. They simply do not know of anything else that would want to do this task, and who could do it well. Not to mention their suspiciousness stops others from trying to take over their job also.
However, it’s important to know that this setup can piss some other things in you off – these malcontents don’t always take the fair and just approach. After all, they’re doing this whole thing out of fear, basically – love is much too random, non-practical, and unknown – as much as they’d LIKE to use it.

Somehow I feel this powerful position needs to be given to someone who WANTS it, and whose primary motivation isn’t fear, but love instead. But, we shall see.

The Rage of Emotion Restricted by Fear

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Restricting emotions and denying your feelings fills a very powerful spirit in you with rage. Ignored, this spirit will start creating nasty thoughts in your head to get your attention – look for the source of those thoughts to find this guy. If, when talking to him, you judge or condemn him because he’s so full of rage, then it will close up to you and stay hostile. If you are fair and look for WHY he’s acting like he is, you’ll see it’s because of injustice within yourself, and that this injustice has been going unchallenged and unrecognized – this probably has to do with why he was repressed and denied in the first place – it’s basically unjust imprisonment.

For me, mine was mad at some of the decision-makers, or rule-makers within my consciousness – they had chosen to imprison him out of fear that his power was not good for the kind of world these cowardly leaders wanted (within myself). He also noted that he relates best, in terms of fictional characters I’ve seen, to the Nine Tailed Fox in Naruto, although he wasn’t that either and didn’t like being described away like that – his spirit was too big and wild for that.

copyright Masashi Kishimoto

The Nine-tailed Fox, from Naruto

But anyway, as a precaution, I made sure to decide that I would not let any rageful thoughts of his direct my actions, but I would investigate what injustice and fearful restriction resided in me, so hopefully I could make my inner world a much more free, joyful place.