Jennifer LeCompte
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Since our first exposure to partswork, I’ve believed in the power of accessing ourselves in this way. I’ve witnessed how it can bring awareness and fundamentally change people. The partswork session I had with Michael during our last intensive was one of those moments of fundamental change. It was a nexus, where everything converged into a singular point before branching out on the other side. For several days after the session, I couldn’t remember what we had worked on. I knew it was something, but it was almost as if it had been snipped out of space and time, like cutting a coupon out of a newspaper. Eventually I remembered, but I had to dig deep into the memory banks to figure out that there was an introject there at one time.
During fishbowls that week, I had such profound and deep grief. I couldn’t find a source of this grief. It was my “mystery grief.” Initially, I thought perhaps it was from the ending of this program, the moving on into the great wide world. That thought didn’t seem to ring true. Daniel had a great insight, perhaps I was feeling a type of postpartum sadness after birthing a new life, of sorts, into the world. I considered his idea for a couple of weeks, but that also didn’t resonate.
Weeks later, I came to understand my grief at the end of that intensive was a literal and representative death. The death was tied to that introject. The representative death plays out in the conscious understanding and process of rearranging and growing past the introject of being “too much.” The literal death was a serrated blade severing the neural pathways around this way of being, condemning what no longer belongs to nothingness.
So this grief, this mystery grief, was a natural outcropping of the literal and abrupt severance of decades of being. And wow, what a grieving. I can’t remember a time where water fell down my face like a waterfall. Nothing could have hindered the flow of that much water, it just was. That may beg the question of why grieve for the absence of an obstruction, but I point to feel, feeling, and feelings as a response. I wrote in another post how grief illuminates what Jill Bolte-Taylor mentions in her book about the three different forms of feel. We experience all those forms in different parts of the brain, which makes grief staggeringly multi-dimensional. Anytime we have significant loss, we aren’t simply dealing with feelings. We are mourning touch, emotion, and intuition as well. The death of an introject is still a death, and it needed grieving.
Michael Singer speaks of death, saying “Death is your friend. Death is your liberator. For God’s sake, do not be afraid of death. Try to learn what it’s saying to you.” (The Untethered Soul, 162) Now his perspective in that chapter leans more toward utilizing our impending deaths as a launching point for living fully and without regret. Yet, his words ring true on a multitude of levels. Death is transformation in dreams, in the tarot, and now a transformation that allows a part to be what it was meant to be. The death of the introject was a necessary part of liberating my inner guide in moving towards the driven purpose of the soul. So necessary, in fact, that a slow death was not acceptable. Only a quick death will do.
In Changing for Good, Prochaska makes the point that there are a number of valid tools and methods for bringing about change. It’s entirely possible that I could have arrived at a similar place through a different approach. There is something raw and fundamental about partswork that lends itself to this level of discovery and transformation. Having been on the client side, I want to understand it even more than I did in the fall. The feeling of being “too much” hasn’t returned at all, not even a hint on the wind. While I acknowledge that it is a possibility, because as a science person I have to concede that it is a possibility, I can tell you that it isn’t probable. Peace out, introject.
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In Changing for Good, Porchaska speaks to the difference between “change” and “action.” He writes, “Professionals who equate change with action design terrific action-oriented programs, and are bitterly disappointed when sign-up rates are minuscule…programs designed to help precontemplators are vastly different than those designed for people in the action stage.” (44) I found this to be an important distinction in my lens as a guide. Often, the outside indicators of action are misconstrued as change, which unintentionally minimizes that entirety of the change process. To Prochaska’s point, we are changing thought processes, levels of awareness, reactions, and other facets of ourselves before we ever arrive at the place where action becomes the main focus of our efforts. Once we have awareness, we can then make choices and act on them accordingly.
Prochaska also mentions the word “recycle” as a preference to “relapse.” In a long-term model where a client might cycle through and end up traveling one of those well-established neural pathways of yore, and notices that thinking, we can celebrate the awareness of knowing that an old pattern has emerged. “Recycle” then has two meanings – the natural process of going through the spiral of change, and “recycling” the awareness of that old pattern into fuel for traveling down the new neural highway.
Last week, my long-term client had a situation at her new job that she found challenging. Her previous experience in the legal field have been combative, with an environment full of suspicion and hyper vigilance. When presented with this challenging situation where she wasn’t sure what to do, she went to a place of hyper vigilance, where her lack of knowledge could lead to reprimand or possibly being at risk for losing her job. She remarked how that line of thinking were her old lenses, as in her old pair of glasses she constantly wore in older positions. The new lenses that we have been working on, are curious lenses, meant to learn and ask for support. They are lenses that aren’t burdened with fear or concern. She was able to articulate that she recognized how she was wearing those old lenses for a minute before she was able to take them off and don her new ones.
It wouldn’t be surprising at all to find that my client has more of these instances. The fact that she can be aware and recognize these instances without judgment or shame speaks to the power of long-term support. This isn’t to say that short-term support can’t be the answer to certain needs, but when we are changing beliefs, attitudes, and how we want to be, we also need room beyond simply action to thoughtfully integrate and get to a self-sustaining place, a new homeostasis. The rhetoric with quick-change programs, (change your life in just four weeks!), is really misleading. Part of our role at times may be to inform and offer perspective on that instantaneous way of thinking that has been propagated over the years.
Being with someone for the long-term, knowing that you get to be a witness to more stages of change, is an increasingly special role to have in a person’s life. When speaking to helping relationships, Prochaska writes, “Whether you turn to a professional, friends, member of the family, or the clergy, the helping relationship provides support, caring, understanding, and acceptance.” (32) When I read this, I felt how fortunate it is to be able to support, care, understand, and accept. If people feel truly seen and heard, then it makes the changes feel plausible and attainable. The support takes away the isolation that sometimes come with humaning, and offers compassion for those on the journey.
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In Siegel’s Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology, he writes that “Awareness is also a crucial aspect of how we use the mind to alter the course of our lives, to learn new skills, and even change the structure of the brain itself, and to reflect on what has meaning. Awareness makes choice and change possible.” (1-3). One of the phrases that constantly sticks with me is that awareness creates the possibility of choice. Without awareness, we aren’t aware that there is a path, much less a door that leads outside to that path to being with. To Siegel’s point, we need awareness to bring ourselves to a place of choosing.
With guidance, awareness becomes a golden currency for change. Bruce Lipton stated that “When we struggle or fail to obtain our goals, we are generally led to conclude that we are victims of outside forces preventing us from reaching our destination. However, neuroscience has now established that the conscious mind runs the show, at best, only about 5 percent of the time. It turns out that the programs acquired by the subconscious mind shape 95 percent or more of our life experiences.” (The Biology of Belief, 122). Coming into awareness then, is a huge deal for all of us. As guides, the questions we are asking is with the hope of making the unconscious conscious. Then, with awareness comes the ability to make choices. Once choices are made, new neural pathways are established like the fragile saplings of spring. Then, we tend to them and support them until they become established trees.
One of my clients just started a new position where she is doing work she has never done before. She has the skill set, but the tone and manner of the work is different than previous jobs. Her concern mainly lies with being in an environment where she won’t be denigrated or treated like a machine that is meant to continuously churn work out. I asked her, “Have you ever been in a position where you have experienced a supportive work environment?” “No,” she responded, “never.” “Ah, so you have no framework for what that might look like in your new environment.” She looked stunned, because it never occurred to her that there was no frame of reference for what she was hoping to experience. This happens all the time in relationships, as we craft our expectations with what we know and have experienced. If a child learns that babies are carried to homes by storks and placed on doorsteps, then that will be a child’s frame of reference for where babies come from until someone tells that child different. That seems simplistic and a “duh” kind of idea, but extrapolate it further to unfamiliar experiences for our brain. In my client’s case, she has never had the experience of what support looks like in a working environment. She does know what a combative environment looks like, and has a primed RAS that looks for those signs. Now her brain is taking its knowledge of working environments and continuously scanning the mental database for signs that conflict is coming down the road. And, she isn’t finding it, which is causing internal conflict, because there is no established neural pathways in the database that matches to the more supportive environment she now finds herself in.
We can look at this with the cases of people who have particular patterns in relationships. They may have no clue what their “dream” relationship looks like. While it may seem questionable why someone might end up in a less than stellar relationship, when we consider how the brain is looking for recognizable and predictable patterns, it makes a great deal of sense. It also makes sense how one could sabotage a supportive relationship due to not having any clue how to navigate that kind of new relationship.
Even in an increasingly positive and affirming situation, support matters if there is no neural framework for what is happening. In Why God Won’t Go Away, Newberg writes that researchers found “anxiety was caused by the frustration of the mind’s insatiable need to sort confusion into order and the difficulty in doing so when overwhelmed by information.” (60) Until neural networks are established and clients are well on their way to a place of termination, the support of a guide can be invaluable. Otherwise, it’s easy for the brain to rely on the familiar networks that have provided information, experience, and predictability for so long.
There has been moments as a client where I have felt that place in my brain and have only found the silence of an unformed connection. It’s actually quite staggering to try and pull something out of the darkness, only to find that nothing is there. Change is absolutely a challenging process, which is why having the intention to change is an imperative part of the guiding process. I’m glad to have experienced those moments when I reach out to find that there seems to be nothing to hold. It is a good reminder of how it feels to embark on a journey when I don’t know what is ahead – a reminder of the power of empathy and support for all those in my practice and beyond.
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I read a passage in Jill Bolte-Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight that has been sitting with me in relation to my learning of grief and the grieving process. She says:
“Because the term “feeling” is broadly used, I’d like to clarify where different experiences occur in our brain. First, when we experience feelings of sadness, joy, anger, frustration, or excitement, these are emotions that are generated by the cells of our limbic system. Second, to feel something in your hands refers to the tactile or kinesthetic experience of feeling through the action of palpitation. This type of feeling occurs via the sensory system of touch and involves the postcentral gyrus of the cerebral cortex. Finally, when someone contrasts what he or she feels intuitively about something (often expressed as a “gut feeling”) to what they think about it, this insightful awareness is a higher cognition that is grounded in the right hemisphere of the cerebral cortex.” (18-19)
Wow. When I step back and begin to unpack this statement, the implications for us and our grieving are significant. When we speak of grieving as a society, we tend to focus on how long a person has been grieving. The overriding introject seems to be that there is a timeline for grief, that somehow extended grieving is outside the parameters of what is societally agreed on as an acceptable length of time. The pendulum is beginning to swing the other way, where the acknowledgement of fully feeling and regaining emotional fidelity is championed and spoken to. Even I write a lot in this sphere. Still, when you dig into what Taylor is saying, grief takes on a whole new level for our clients, and for us.
We are certainly familiar with the feelings part of this statement, because that is where we tend to spend most of our efforts in understanding. There is sadness, anger, frustration, relief, uncertainty, apathy, and a whole host of emotions that can be bundled up with grief. The complication of blended emotions, (“I’m sad that she is gone and relieved that she isn’t suffering), can in and of itself be unacknowledged. When I’ve mentioned to a client that both feelings can exist in the same space, it is almost as if they have received a golden ticket, permission to fully feel all emotions that step up the table. How we got to the idea that there “should” be one overriding emotion is beyond me, but the consequences of that idea is definitely present in my clients and in myself.
Then there is to feel, as in, “I feel the softness of the blanket around me.” Feel, as in feeling the arms and pressure of someone’s embrace. Or, the feeling of the wind as you both rode bikes together as a child. It’s the feel as you kissed each other good morning, or the feel of a mother’s touch as she dressed your wounds. Here, in the upper middle part of the brain, grief is also happening.
Finally, the right brains “gut feeling.” Maybe this is when you knew you were falling in love with this person and that you had a notion there was a future together. Perhaps it’s the aspect of how you intuitively felt when this friend was having a bad day, and you picked up the phone to call. This could even be the intuitive understanding of what your child or partner would feel about your feelings. All this is happening in the right side of the cerebral cortex.
Is it any wonder then, that grief is so complicated? Multiple areas of the brain developed connections, pathways, networks all around the relationship to what has been lost. Siegel writes “we can define both the mind and healthy minds as emerging from integrated relationships ad integrated nervous systems.” (Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology, 16-6). Both Taylor and Siegel are pointing to the same reality, that we are intricately connected and intertwined with the object of our grief.
When we look through this lens, it adds a dimensionality to grief that has been missing in the bigger conversation. Feelings matter, as does feel, as does intuitive feeling. All the aspects within us that send out tendrils to connect with others are hit with the shock of death, loss, and trauma. I say all this to firmly entrench this understanding within myself, as a means of holding clients in greater care. Also, to hold myself in greater care.
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I love all the resourcing work we did with Katie during this intensive. Ever since then, I feel like I have been handing out resourcing exercises like breath mints. And, not just to my clients, rather I hand them out to anyone who seems like they are in the midst of stress or overall weariness.
The biggest incidence of trauma that I have seen in my clients and people around me has been the collective trauma of the pandemic. I have clients who are working through their own individual concerns and trauma, but there is a haze of weariness on most people I see these days about the pandemic. For those of us living in Texas, the snowstorm we had a few weeks ago pushed a lot of us over the edge. Already so close to the breaking point of living adversely to our usual, suddenly yanking electricity and water away was more than a lot of people could handle. Add the scarcity of empty shelves at the store and the inability to get access to medical care for a few days, all of it adds up pretty quickly.
One of my clients mentioned that she took a trip to the store once the roads had cleared. She managed to get her hands on some clementines, which was practically gold that week, and brought them home to her husband. Her husband is wheelchair bound, with a lot of physical struggles. He loves navel oranges. She was so excited to bring him fruit, showing him what she found. When he joked about them not being navel oranges, she said that she lost it. As she is telling me this story, she is laughing, but in that moment, she had reached a breaking point. It was hard enough that she had to melt snow to fill the toilet so that her husband could use the bathroom. She said the challenges of his health are manageable with utilities, but without it was killing her.
I feel like we are seeing traumas piled on to traumas. What is normally a struggle without the constant fear of getting sick is now exponentially harder with the lasting effects of a global trauma. As a coach, I have to fight the tendency to “make it right.” There is a “heal the world” part of me that wants to give everything I possibly have to make the ride smoother for others. However, I can’t life anyone’s trauma for them, and it would do them a disservice to do so. Ultimately, I can only offer compassion and a safe space to walk with others while they work through their challenges. It gives us strength and resilience to work through our struggles, and I like being a support for those in that place.
As a coach, I’ve found that working with trauma isn’t as daunting as I imagined it to be. Listening at the soul level and continuing to ask the focused questions still gets my clients to a place of meeting their goals and building awareness. As we prepare to move into the Grief and Loss intensive, I find myself really excited, and also really nervous. This is an area where I really want to be of service, and I hope I can be for others. Since loss can often be tied to trauma, I’m glad to have the resourcing and a better understanding. I continue to read about epigenetics and how it plays a role in our resilience and responses to challenges and trauma. I also continue to look at my own trauma and come to an understanding within myself of what I can do to integrate thoughtfully, without judgment, and move forward with more compassion and clarity.
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Ally, I’m assuming you guys did this all over zoom, correct? I think I remember reading somewhere that al your clients are zoom clients right now. Either way, I’m tickled to read how you guys worked together and created a nature connected experience this way. I admittedly struggle with the nature part with zoom in the mix, especially after working with a client in person. What other ways do you help bring nature into a session that isn’t in person? Do you feel like you have enough resources to have nature connected experiences in sessions? I know that we are nature and that we are connecting with nature in each other. I know that I’m still working on finding ways to incorporate more nature elements into my practice as a remote practitioner. 🙂
Your thoughts and advice is greatly appreciated!
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Sul, that’s an excellent question, if certain parts are in different stages! My tentative answer is yes. I can reflect on my creative ventures and feel like one part is ready to go, always churning and burning. Another part wants the creative project to happen but isn’t as far ahead as my creator part. I think this is why the partswork matters on the level that it does. If all the parts aren’t in agreement, then goals don’t get met. Maybe one way to frame partswork is getting everyone to the same stage of change?
I can say that my client worked with a coach before and felt really burned by that coach. She said she spent a lot of money for quite some time but didn’t see the results she hoped for. I have resisted calling myself a coach for similar reasons. I use Guide and Coach interchangeably on my site depending on which sounds better in the contextual writing. I am not sure if the overall public has a read on what a life coach really is and what that means for them. This means that we have to educate sometimes.
I have seen different parts of my client in different stage of change, namely one part is trying to be in action while another is in precontemplation. A lot of work has been done to bring those two parts in sync in order to move forward.
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Right off the bat, can I say I love this question of “When you woke up this morning, what was it like to be you?” Man, what a cool question! This inspires me to think of my own opening question for sessions. I also love your plant idea, having something to cultivate. I have thought of sending out a small plant for my clients before, but haven’t acted on it just yet. How have your clients responded to that?
I also echo your experience with having a long term client. I find that it has grown me as a coach while my client has grown as well. I personally was a bit intimidated by the idea of having someone long term at first, but have found it to be really cool to see all the growth and awareness in myself and my client. I’m curious if you and your long term client set a time goal. Did you agree to be long term, did it naturally happen, is there an ending date in mind for you work together?
Sounds like you are doing amazing work. 🙂
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You love metaphors too? I love metaphors! I agree with you that you have a strength in linking key metaphors and bringing them back to reflect on goals. I really enjoyed the times where you were my coach, and I felt seen because you could see the story behind the story. I like to think that as coaches, we get permission to access this core of our clients in a way that gives us visibility of the raw and vulnerable spaces our clients don’t share with others all the time. IT feels sacred.
The RAS thing blows my mind too. I resonate with the over on-location fo ritual. I also wonder if the word intention can sometimes have a heavy mantle, making it feel a bit loaded or like a box you have to check. I have found relief in redefining what tribunal looks like for me, and it sounds like you have done the same. Have you found your understanding of ritual in your life helpful to guide your clients in understanding how ritual can help them in their lives?
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Hey Sul. I would say that awareness and presence can be pretty interchangeable. I do know that technology really becomes and issue for my kids, and even myself. What I tell clients, and often my own family and friends, is that we haven’t had a brain hardware update in 30,000 years. Our brain is better accommodated for a more rugged way of living than we actually live now. So, the constant persistence of technology in our faces, as well as the expectation of being super productive flies in the face of where our brains are at their best. This isn’t to say we can’t or shouldn’t learn, but that we need to be careful with the expectations and demands for our brains. When I think of sitting outside with that 360 awareness, the slowing down to take in the fullness of what is around me gives me more visibility into what is around me. Our awareness is better when we are slower. This is directly contradictory to how we move as a society, where most things are expected to have quick turn arounds. I often wonder at the link between anxiety and our culture. It seems much more prevalent based on what I’ve seen as a high school teacher and a parent. What do you think? Have clients spoken to you about the prevalence of technology in their lives at all? Is it just assumed that we are all supposed to be ok with the pervasiveness of tech in our lives?
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I find that rather amazing that
A) you tried something that was new and unfamiliar
And
B) That your trainer spoke of neural networks.
That’s delightful! Kudos for doing the uncomfortable and unfamiliar. And yes, you will absolutely build those networks and be a pro at all sorts of maneuvers pretty damn quick. 😊
On a smaller scale, I’ve been learning Scottish Gaelic. All the different vowel sounds and breath sounds have been like mouth yoga. I didn’t think I would be able to replicate some of them, but I have been able to with some brain retraining. It’s hella fun, yet intimidating when get a new batch of words. 😳
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Sul,
I’m particularly drawn to your reflection of “I too have an artist story…”. Someone once told me that when we are working with others in this space, whether coaching, intuitive work, etc, that 80% of what we do is meant for them and 20% is meant for us. I find a lot of truth in that observation, as there are always things that I am learning from my interactions with clients, but also in what I am asking my client to do in terms of reflection and awareness. Do you find yourself reflecting on what clients are saying as a driver in your self-severance process?
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Well, this is some fascinating stuff. I’ve read through it a couple of times and the stages are really fascinating. I can see elements of myself in them, elements of others. I will have to think on it more. Thank you for such a thorough introduction. 🙂
What you said about trauma is interesting, in that jumping to alchemist through the consequences of trauma makes a lot of sense. It’s a different kind of painful transformation, right? In one way, you could say that the redefining is painful and comes with its own violence, but then trauma is an entire different type of violence to the system that isn’t necessarily self-imposed like redefining is. Kind of the “leaders aren’t born, they are made” type of transformation.
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This is a really interesting question right now. Here we are, two months later, and the answer is completely different than it was then. The simple answer is I’m starting to tend to my own traumas, because I can recognize that they are there. I’ve recognized how down I’ve been the early part of the year. (Austin is really grey in January and February). I’ve recognized that as much as I need alone time to recharge, I desperately need face to face connection with others. I’ve seen how the over-productive nature of this country has turned into an internalized shame by not meeting arbitrary quotas and “shoulds.” Being able to see how life has changed and the transition I made from teaching to coaching has revealed all this to me.
What am I doing? Now I’m actually going back to my yoga roots, three times a day for small periods. I’m eating foods that speak to me and cutting down on mindless eating. I’m not apologizing for reading a book or taking a day to play a video game. (Although that last bit is still challenging). I’m slowly reprogramming my brain to have the balance I speak of with others.
One of the things a teacher told me is that the advice we give others is in part advice for ourselves. So I’m listening more closely now. What am I telling others about giving themselves permission to fully feel their emotions, about rest, about joy, about connection? I’m trying to see through that lens of supporting others, but me being just as valuable as those who I support. It’s a challenge, but a necessary one.
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I appreciate your incredibly candid and raw response. The idea of others “trying to find an escape” in the midst of needing that container to unpack and feel resonated with me. Our container determines our capacity to support others. Is it microwaveable? Can it be washed in the dishwasher, or is it a one-time use container? We don’t always know whether the people hearing us have a compatible container, and we still may find that it is overflowing without anyway to properly get the lid on it when its time to store the container on the shelf.
I see you as much as one who can’t touch the same experience as you. I also recognize the importance of self care, but also the challenges of this. For years I’ve thought of it as indulgent, selfish, and to keep going until my body breaks. Then I had to care for many others and realized I can’t go on without claiming and owning that need. I’m glad that you recognize that in yourself and act on it.
As an aside, I can’t fully wrap my arms around what it is like in the world of Sophie the Nurse, but I can attest that Sophie the Life Coach is a damn fine coach indeed. 🙂