What No One Tells You About The Deeper “SELF”

…how to talk to yourSELF and heal

“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose.”

• Marcus Aurelius

“I’ll not listen to reason…reason always means what someone else has got to say.”

• Elizabeth Gaskell

“Self trust is the essence of heroism.”

• Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fear and mistrust led me on a journey of self-discovery. Fear of the outside world and all of its insidious individuals and events. Mistrust of these individuals and their intentions towards me and the ones that I loved. Fear of my inside world and the mistrust of my own inner wisdom.

“Love and light” didn’t lead me here, but instead fear and mistrust. While I continue to question the reality of pain, suffering, of trauma, I am continually led back into myself. I am continually pulled, pushed, prodded, in the most subtle of ways to dig into compassion. To meet myself with honor, with dignity, with an openness to the parts of myself that want nothing more than to be freed from the traumatic experiences in which they work tirelessly as protectors of the Self, being engulfed and consumed with the definitions of what it means for them to exist.

Bipolar, manic depressive, mad, crazy, angry, depressed, grief stricken, sad, hopeless…

I am here today to meet myself with compassion. I am here today to accept the parts of me as they are and give them space to exist as they are in order to heal. Rather than fight the internal war of going against myself, swimming against the current, I’ll lay down my sword and pick up compassion. I lived my entire childhood with my sword in hand, and for good reason. Fighting against the loss of my innocence, fighting against the attacks against my physical body, fighting against the loss in hope of ever being nurtured and unconditionally loved.

I did my very best with what I had in order to survive. Creating a model of reactions and behaviors to the external stimuli triggered by the internal stimuli — the predispositions or energy that I entered into this world with, ready to take on what was to come. I had no external guidance on how to maneuver through life and relied heavily upon instinct, but with building resentment towards what was expected from those society deemed fit and worthy of being protectors of the innocent. Why wouldn’t they help me? Was I not worthy of being loved and cared for…just because I was me? Not one time did anyone ever stand up for me, come to my rescue, retrieve me from the hands of evil. And so, I became my own protector, my own rescuer, my own impenetrable fortress. And in this place I discovered the Self.

“Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life. Redeem your mind from the hockshops of authority. Accept the fact that you are not omniscient, but playing a zombie will not give you omniscience — that your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallible — that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error.”

• Ayn Rand

The journey to the Self will not be satisfied within the confines of this written piece. It has to be experienced, by the Self. It can only be discovered and unearthed through compassion.

Latin: compati — suffer with

In the Western world we tend to associate the act of compassion as commiseration — sympathy for the misfortunes of others. What if we offered this same commiseration towards those parts of ourselves that have been bold and courageous enough to pick up their swords and stand fearlessly in the wake of our traumas? What if we met these parts of ourselves with the sincerity of graciousness, and with open arms, through the gesture of gentle embrace, gave them permission to release the clutch of the sword digging deeply into the palms of their hands and just held them, thanking them for their valor, for their service. Freeing them to rest, to romp and play, to laugh, to love, to be loved? Freeing Self to rest, to romp and play, to laugh, to love, to be loved?

I am here to tell you that this is absolutely possible. I have given parts of myself permission to lay down their sword and rest. I will quickly share a short personal story, but leave out some detail as this story involves other people of whom I do not have permission to share their intimacies.

I have a very close friend. This friend is a gentle Soul inviting all that is harmonious and free flowing. My friend had come under attack by another that sensed a deep vulnerability in my friends tendencies towards harmony. This person sought to destroy this in my friend, more than likely projecting their own parts that mistrusted harmony. I, being the warrior that I am, picked up my sword and went to battle with my friend against this person. The battle was long, the battle was arduous, the battle consistently raged on — day after day after day. Lawyers and judges became staples, like bread and water. Strategy and mental games became the story of the day. Eventually I heard myself say to my friend, “I hate it when people try to take advantage of you!” At the time I did not understand what was actually taking place within me. How I had opened the door to dialogue with parts of myself that felt the same way about me.

At the age of twelve I was a sitter for a little four year old boy. A family member of the little boy came and picked him up with intention of taking him to their home. This family member was a child molester. They had not only molested other neighborhood children, but me as well. I did my best to step inside of the world of this little boy and walk through this part of his journey for him by offering myself in his stead to the family member. They refused and went to take the hand of the child. I lunged for the boy to wrestle him from the grips of this insidious circumstance that he was about to find himself in and was met with a powerful push that sent me flying off the porch and landing on my back on the ground. The family member took off with the little boy to “take advantage of him” as I laid there in pain, crying and defeated.

I flashed on that event as I heard myself say to my friend, “I hate it when people try to take advantage of you!” The deeper Self of I, with wise compassion connected in dialogue with this part of myself and thanked it with gracious compassion, commiseration, for its part in the courageous abandonment of fear and its ability to stand up for me when no one else could or would. (That is me literally talking to myself.) The deeper Self said, “Look at us! Not only am I able to stand up for myself now and assert my will, in my adult body, but now I am able to continually stand up for others when the need arises. You can take an even deeper rest now. I would like to ask you for advice from time to time on how to best assist the further evolution of my existence as well as those around me. You have superb survival and evolutionary instincts.”

The deeper Self has wise commiseration towards the parts of itself. The deeper Self understands that all of its parts have done the absolute best that they know how. The deeper Self understands that had it not been for these parts of itself, it’s conscious survival may have hung in the balance and ceased to exist, robbing it of the opportunity to heal.

“We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.”

• Jane Austen

I have recently discovered the works of Richard Swartz. He is a therapist that works with severe cases of trauma. To my surprise, he employs Self directed healing, and from what he says, with great success. I had come to this on my own, and in my own way and timing, however, sometimes we need guidance and we need to employ trust in another for our Souls evolutionary process. Here’s a short video of an overview of his work. From my heart to yours, with the most sincere, gracious commiseration imaginable — here’s to the Self and the wisdom to heal from within!