We all have many subpersonalitites or parts, and these are often operating from a need, want, and sense of lack.
When we identify with them, we feel that we have those needs, wants, and lack, which is not wrong since these are parts of us.
We often try to fulfill the needs and wants through something in the wider world – love and acceptance from others, success and status, and so on. This is also not wrong, ahough it’s precarious and doesn’t really give these parts of what what they need and want. And it doesn’t resolve the sense of lack.
We are the only one in the position to really give these parts of us what they need and want, and help them find a deeper resolution for the sense of lack.
ONE WAY TO EXPLORE THIS
How do we find these parts of us, identify what they need, and give it to them? And how do we help them resolve the sense of lack?
Finding the contraction
I notice a sense of unease, a contraction, or a need, want, or sense or lack. I can also bring this up by reminding myself of a situation that triggered it in the past, or through words resonating with something less than peaceful in us – for instance, “I am alone”, “I won’t have what I need”, and so on.
This is how I find the contraction.
Noticing the physical sensations
Where do I feel it in my body? What are the physical sensations? How do I experience it? (How is it to find some curiosity about it?)
In this way, I anchor my attention in the bodily sensations, while still being aware of the mental images and words connected with it.
Allowing and welcoming
I can say: You are welcome here. Stay as long as you want. Get as big as you want.
I can also notice it’s already allowe – by life, mind, space. It’s already here. All I am doing is more consciously joining with that allowing.
This helps shift out of any habitual pattern of wanting to push it away.
Finding the need and want
I can ask: What do you want? What do you need? What would make you content?
I can also explore some of the triggering situations to find what it wants and needs.
And I can go through some of the universals – love, safety, acceptance, and so on – and see which one resonates and helps it relax.
Giving it what it needs and wants
I then give it what it wants and needs.
How is it to…. Give it love? Be a safe harbor for it? Welcome and allow it? Accept it as it is? Or whatever else it may want and need?
How is it to give it to it, as I would like to receive it? As I would give it to a frightened animal? A scared child?
Finding the lack
What’s behing the need and want? What’s the sense of lack?
What’s the story in that sense of lack? What’s the painful story?
What’s my first memory of feeling that? Of having that story?
Is it true? (We can also take this to a more thorough inquiry.)
Seeing it’s here to protect me
At some point in this process, perhaps here, I notice it’s here to protect me. It’s innocent. It’s often from a child’s view on the world. It was created to protect me.
This helps me welcome it more genuinely, and it also helps me find more genuine love for it, wish to be a safe harbor for it, and so on.
Finding its nature
I notice the nature of what I am. I find myself as capacity for the world as it appears to me. I find myself as what my sense fields – including this human self, the contraction, and the wider world – happens within and as. I notice it’s seamless. I notice the inherent stillness and silence in it, and how that stillness and silence takes all these forms.
What’s the nature of the contraction? How is it to notice it? Rest in that noticing?
I can also ask the contraction: Do you know your nature?
I can allow the contraction notice it’s nature and unravel and rest in and as that noticing.
This part of the process can be supported by headless experiments (Headless Way, Douglas Harding) or a quick dip into the Big Mind process.
A NEW ORIENTATION
This process helps us find healing for our different human wounds, and it can also help us heal out of separation consciousness.
And the magic happens in doing it and exploring it. These are just pointers and medicines for specific conditions. What works for me may not be what works for you. And what works will change a bit with each process, and we’ll discover more as we keep exploring it.
It’s something we do here and now, whenever these suffering parts of us come up. (Or as soon as we have the opportunity.)
And over time, it becomes a new orientation and a new habit. It becomes a new way of being with ourselves and these facets of life. It becomes second nature, although it will always require some attention – especially when more ingrained suffering comes up.
DRAFT FRAGMENTS
I notice my own nature. I notice this field of experiences – which includes this human self, the contraction, and the wider world. I notice it’s a seamless whole. I notice it’s happening within and as what I am. I find myself as what a thought may label consciousness, and that all experiences happens within and as that. I notice the stillness and silence inherent in all of it. I find myself as capacity for all of it, for my world as it is and as a whole.
….
This has to be done for it to have an effect. Knowing about it and not doing it is, from the point of view of these suffering parts of us, is the same as not knowing about it.
And it’s not something we do once and then it’s over. It’s something we do here and now, whenever these suffering parts of us come up. (Or as soon as we have the opportunity.)
Over time, it becomes a new orientation and a new habit. It becomes second nature, although it will always require some attention – especially when more ingrained suffering comes up.