How we relate to what we wish to heal, or “see through”, in ourselves, makes a big difference.
We know that from daily life. How someone relates to me makes a big difference in how I feel about the connection, and respond to it.
If someone relates to me with respect, kindness, and well wishing, I tend to relax and enjoy the connection. If someone relates to me with an intention to fix me or change me, I am likely to resist and oppose it with an equal and opposite force.
That’s how it is with what’s unloved, unhealed and unquestioned in us. Those parts of us wish to be treated with kindness and respect, just as we do. And if we relate to them with the intention to fix or change them, they are likely to resist.
Three things seems to help me reorient in how I relate to these parts of myself.
One is to remember how I would like to be treated by others, and then do that. I wish to be treated with kindness, respect, and well wishing, and ideally with presence and some wisdom.
Another is to ask the part of me how it would like to be treated. How does P. (me) usually relate to you? How would you like him to relate to you? What advice do you have for him? What would satisfy you forever?
Yet another is to have the intention for it to find release, freedom, peace, and liberation from suffering. (If that’s what it wants, which is not unlikely.)
When I befriend a part of me, it becomes more friendly. And it’s all the mind meeting the mind. It’s the mind healing itself from what it has done to itself. It’s the mind untangling the knots it itself has created.
It also helps to see that the wounds and knots are from innocence, from a wish to protect, from deep caring, from love (worried and confused love). The wounds and knots are from (worried) love, and the healing is from (a more clear) love.
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Initial notes……
– in healing work, inquiry
– helpful to ask, how would i like to be treated (initial indication)
– ask the part of me, how would you like to be treated?
– treat with respect, kindness
– with the intention for it to find release, freedom, peace, liberation from suffering
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– what doesn’t work so well: Wanting it to change, doing something with the intention of it changing, manipulation, an attitude of unkindness and disrespect etc.
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Initial notes…..
In any healing work and practices such as inquiry, we relate to parts of ourselves and our experience.
And there are some orientations and ways of relating to these parts that are more helpful.
To get an initial idea of what may be helpful, I can ask: How do I like to be treated?
With respect. Kindness. Allowing.
And to get a better and more finely tuned idea, I can ask that part of me and my experience how it would like to be treated.
It’s also often helpful to do these practices and explorations with the intention for this part of me to find release and liberation from suffering. That too helps me find a more helpful orientation towards it.