Understanding Yourself

Are you the same person when you go to the office as when you pick up your child from school? 

Or when you greet your spouse after you haven’t seen then for a while, as when you go clothes shopping, or meet up with a friend?

Are you really the same person?

I invite you to consider that perhaps, actually, you’re not! Instead, perhaps, each of these situations bring forth a different part of you. Each part is unique and with a personality all its own.

Models Around Inner Harmony

The view taken by Hal and Sidra Stone who created the Voice Dialogues model of the psyche in the early 1970’s aligns to the above. It’s also the view of Richard Shwartz and the Internal Family Systems approach he created. There are several other frameworks, such as focusing (in which I am also trained)  that use this approach as well.

Models such as these have been used by coaches and therapists over the last 50 years to help people make better decisions, and to have better relationships both professional and personal. It can bring new insights into your dreams as well as deepening self-knowledge, and help to bring your life back on track if things have gone awry.

I discovered these processes some time ago and completed a Voice Dialogues Facilitator training with Tim Kelley.  Often when we start out, the parts unfortunately don’t always get along or agree with each other.

As you beginning to get acquainted with your ‘parts’, and ‘talk’ to them, you can bring them into better alignment. It puts you back in the driver’s seat of your own life, rather than being pulled this way and that by the needs and interests of all the parts that live inside you. Voice Dialogues is a structured process for talking with parts, in which you are facilitated by a Voice Dialogue Facilitator.

Recently, I have been using this approach with one of my clients to help her understand why she has burned herself out. She discovered that she has a high need to please other people. She realised that this all started because of something that happened when she was about 5 years old and her mother crying with worry about her. Part of her decided that she needed to always be a ‘good girl’ and always try and please her mother. Later on, this habit went unconscious. Before she knew it, she found herself needing to please everyone else as well.

Another client has been using the process to understand both the attraction and the difficulties she has with her partner.

The 1-2-1 coaching itself has helped me dive deeply into the life and world of my own parts.

It’s been an interesting journey of self-discovery, and now that I know my parts, we can talk to each other whenever we want. It is bringing me a lot.

A Personal Story

I ‘d like to share a personal story by illustration. I had promised myself a day out in nature (more precisely, a young part of me had told me she wanted to go out).

My responsible, manager like part had gotten me organised. I had booked a car to rent as I don’t own my own car. The young part was thrilled, it’s still new for me to keep the promises I make to myself.

In the morning when I woke up there was a Voice inside my head, and I recognised this Voice, (my Voices can get very animated, they really get into their parts – but its not like that for everyone). This Voices calls itself ‘The Wise One’, I realised later that’ Worrier’ is probably more accurate, but I decided to listen to it anyway. It was worried about my travelling there, that there would be danger on the road, and it was also worried that I would get back late and then spoil the following day, which was full of plans.

In the past when I would become aware of such concerns, I would either ignore them completely, and then not take proper care of myself, or I would do exactly what they said and cancel my plans to have fun.

Listening To My Inner Harmony

This time I did something different. I listened to the Voice. Revolutionary! I decided that I would go ahead with my trip and take extra special care whilst driving. I would also make sure not to come home late. I would take careful note of any danger on the road and see how it compared with the concerns raised for my future reference.

I was taking the Voice seriously for once, and I wanted to check it’s reliability.

I got myself ready and went to pick up my car.  The system works well most of the time, the car is there and off you go. Every once in while there’s some kind of hitch, there is some kind of problem that takes bit of sorting out. This time I got to the station and no car! It turned out that the car had been parked on another street about 5 minutes away. No big hassle, but I had to go and find it.

Aha, is that what that Voice was trying to tell me this morning?! I did make sure to thank it for its concern, as it didn’t want me the inconvenience of having to go get the car.

I was curious to see what else might happen on my trip. Nothing did. I had an easy straightforward drive and a wonderful day in the hills. The young part that had asked to go was thrilled that I had made it happen and that I had kept this promise to her.

Everything was fine and dandy, until it was time to coming home. I had eaten out at the restaurant where I had parked. The sun was beginning to set, and I love sunsets…. My Young part wanted me to stay one bit longer. So, I started walking to the view point, but it was taking much longer than I remembered.

Normally I would just keep going regardless, but this time I did something different. I stopped, I turned around, and I got into the car, and I drove home.