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Continued from trust-disorder symptoms - p. 2
Keep your perspective -
the primary wound-reduction targets here are to...
-
improve your self trust -
i.e. increase the trust of your
subselves in the wisdom and judgment (reliability) of your resident true
Self and your other
-
earn the trust of
important adults and kids, and to...
-
adapt to or regain lost
trust in other people.
Let's look at some
effective ways to achieve these targets.
Options for Balancing Self and External Trusts
To benefit from the options below,
you must first accept the reality of normal personality subselves. If you're
unclear what "subselves" are, view these
slides or read this introduction,
and then study these Q&A items. If
you're (subselves) are still skeptical (distrustful), read this
letter to you, and try this safe,
interesting experience. If your false self
still can't accept this idea, stop reading now, and reread this article
after your next crisis.
|
False-self wounds are
caused by young personality subselves and their Guardian
subselves who don't trust the resident true Self
to make wise (safe) decisions. When they're alarmed, they
disable the Self by
These active subselves (your false self) cause
your perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and actions. |
You can learn to harmonize and
retrain your subselves with a safe process called "parts work" and
This process is outlined in this
series of articles and the related
Project-1
"Who's Really Running Your Life?" (Xlibris.com, 2002). For more
perspective on this useful process, scan the Website of the
Internal Family Systems
Association (IFSA). The rest of this article assumes you've read at
least the first page in the series.
Typical
Guardian subselves
that promote excessive distrust are the
and
They're usually protecting a
and perhaps an
Your diligent
subself may try to help by distorting reality – e.g. "All /
lawyers / politicians / cops / authorities / teens / gypsies / foreigners /
salespeople / politicians / are out to get you - don't trust 'em!"
The
and
(Guardian) subselves can rigidly urge over-trusting to
protect inner kids like those above from conflict, rejection, and
abandonment. If excessive, over-trusting results in being repeatedly
victimized, exploited, and betrayed. Then your
subself may harp "It was your fault. You should have (done _____)!"
This increases your Inner Kids' guilt, shame, anxiety, and self-distrust.
Now - how can you
this excessive dis/trust wound?
Typical Trust-balancing
Goals
In the context of Project-1
"recovery," the main objectives
for reducing excessive dis/trust are to...
-
learn how to
and
effectively with your subselves and other people - i.e. patiently
progress at
Start by learning what you need to
know. Then study and apply the ideas
here. As you do this...
-
identify which young and Guardian subselves
(like those above) (a) distrust your resident Self (capital "S") and (b)
over-trust unreliable (wounded) people; and then...
-
work patiently to
shift the
responsibility for protecting the Inner Kids from these Guardians to
your
(Good Parent),
and other caring subselves - under the wise gui-dance of your
And at your own pace...
-
do similar "parts work" with distrustful
subselves to...
-
reduce excessive fears, shame, and
guilts to normal levels, and to...
-
grow awareness, cooperation, unity, and
harmony among all your
as a team.
As you do these things, also...
-
work to selectively improve key people's
trust in you, and...
-
evolve an effective way to (a) rebuild trust
in selected people, or (b) adapting to distrusting them. And when your
subselves are ready...
-
patiently evolve a stable relationship
(trust) in an attentive, loving
to help you over-come barriers to succeeding at these trust-rebalancing
targets.
|
Pause, breathe, and notice your
now. Are these rebalancing goals clear enough to you? Do they seem
realistic, attainable, and worthwhile? How will your life be
different as you trust yourself more and rebalance your
trusts in other people and your Higher Power? |
More Detail
Building subselves' trust in the competence and wisdom of your
starts
with understanding that your subselves' distrust is a normal result of
childhood inexperience. Your young Self didn't yet know enough about you,
people, and the world to merit the trust of your other evol-ving subselves.
They now need to experience that your Self now has much more
knowledge - and really can use it to guide them safely in all
situations with their support and talents. Does this make sense to you?
Develop a way to
dialog with each distrustful subself in a
safe, comfortable, undistracted inner set-ting. Do this so each subself can
begin to (a) experience that your Self really does respect, value,
and care about him or her despite their distrust, and to (b) clarify what the
subself's "job" is - e.g. "I'm here to keep (one or more inner kids)
safe."
Example
Here's how a dialog with your diligent
(Guardian)
subself might go. Get physically comfor-table and undistracted, and
allot 15-20" for this. Imagine being in your
safe inner meeting place, and
breathe easily from your belly.
When you feel ready, tell all your subselves (i.e. think or say out loud)
that you're
about to talk with your protective Worrier (or whatever you call him/her)
subself. Ask if anyone needs to say anything before you do. If another
subself is nervous or scared about your dialog, focus on calming and
reassuring that part first.
When everyone is OK (quiet), relax, breathe, and ask your Worrier to join
you in this safe place. Be open to anything - an image, thoughts, a memory,
a bodily sensation, or none of these. Whatever you get, focus on it and ask
"it" (your Worrier) if it's the one who is giving you the image / memory /
feeling / sensation / ___, and trust the first response you get. If you get
a "yes" thought or feeling, then have a dialog like this:
S(elf): "Will you
talk with me or a little while?" (Be prepared for "No.")
W(orrier): "Why?"
S: "I'd liked to
get to know you better. Is that OK?"
W: "I guess so."
S: "Is there a name
you'd like to be known by?"
W: "I'm Chaz."
S: "Thank you.
Chaz, may I ask how old you are?"
Ch: Uh, I'm 24."
S: "And can you
tell me what your job is now?"
Ch: "I have to keep
you safe."
S: "Mm. That's
really important. "Can you tell me who you're protecting?"
Ch: "You know, the
others."
S: "OK. And can you
help me know what you're protecting us from?"
Ch: From getting
HURT. That's pretty obvious, isn't it?"
Self: "And what
kind of hurtful things to are you looking out for?"
Ch: "A big one is
getting other people upset with us. I don't want that."
S: "How do you
protect us?"
Ch: "I watch all
the time, and if something bad might happen, I get you to think hard
about that."
S: I see. And Chaz,
how do you like this job?"
Ch: "Well, I get
pretty tired. You know, I can't let up - even when you're sleeping.:
S: "Have you ever
thought about asking for help with this job?"
Ch "Ask who? There
isn't anyone except that jerk who keeps screaming 'Omigod! We're doomed!'
He always overdoes it. (referring to the
subself) .
S: "So he's no
help. Do you know who I am and what I do?"
Ch: "Yeah. Aren't
you supposed to keep everyone under control?"
S: "Uh huh, that's
one part of my job. I'm responsible for making decisions that'll keep us all
safe and healthy."
Ch: "Well how come
we keep getting into all these jams then?"
S: "Partly because
we (subselves) aren't acting like a team yet. Have you ever been part
of a team that worked really well?"
Ch:
"No. I'm used to working alone."
Typical dialogs can go in several directions from here. After making sure
the subself (a) understands s/he is part of a multi-talented team, and (b)
your Self is the team leader, you eventually want to ask...
S: "So Chaz,
how would you feel about letting me work with you to keep us all safe?
Let me take responsibility for keeping us safe enough, and you advise me
if you think I'm miss-ing something, OK?"
When subselves hear this question, they often get scared they're going to
"lose their job" (impor-tance and purpose). In this dialog or another one,
explain that will never happen, and ask them to try out being an
advisor for a trial period of time.
("Will you try trusting me to keep us safe?") Expect "resistan-ce,"
and patiently keep asking until you get "Yes."
Patiently have dialogs like this with each distrustful Guardian and young
subself, and find ways to introduce them to each other to grow a sense of
teamwork and group pride over time. Option - dialog with several
subselves at once. Ultimately, you (your Self) can hold
council meetings with all
your subselves to motivate, guide, problem-solve, and appreciate them.
As more and more subselves discover your Self and higher Power really DO
keep you all safe, their trust grows, and resistance shrinks. As that
evolves, your ability to trust your own perceptions and judg-ment (self
confidence) grows. So does your ability to discern trustworthy people and
situations from harmful ones. Does this sound believable to you? Try it!
Dialog
Guidelines
Ask
respectfully if the subself would accept help in doing her or his job.
Answers typically range between "I don't need any help." and "Yes."
Ask if the
subself would be willing to confer with the Self or another Regular like
the
or
before activating (disabling the Self) for a trial period to "see what
that feels like."
If the answer is "No," respectfully probe to learn what the perceived
risk of conferring is, and seek a compromise. ("Would you be willing to
confer just once, and see whether it's safe, and makes your job
easier?")
Assess whether
the distrustful subself - specially an Inner Child - is living in the
past. If so, arrange a safe "visit" to the present, and invite the
subself to come live there
with all your other subselves.
Help each
subself appreciate s/he is part of a team of specialists with a common
goal (the ongoing security, health, and growth of all subselves and the
host person), and learning to put these common goals ahead of his or her
own individual goals.
Reassure the
subself s/he will always have an important role on the team, and
cannot be banished, ignored, "killed," or "fired."
If and when appropriate, explore the
pros and cons of the subself
accepting a new role in
your team which is more satisfying and less
stressful.
|
Key - Patiently seek
agreement from each doubtful subself to try following the Self's leadership
for a trial period to see what happens - i.e. to experience that
trusting the Self's leadership is safe and productive. And if
relevant... |
Consider the parts-work technique of internally
re-doing old traumatic real-life events that generated major distrust in
one or more subselves A series of well-crafted re-doings can raise the mutual
awareness and trust level among all your subselves.
Evaluate how past betrayals have affected your subselves
(commonly, their
, and
rise), and
use that awareness to motivate you to improve your ability to trust wisely.
Intentionally become aware of whom you trust
and distrust, why, and how you react to such people.
As you develop self-trust, confidence, and pride, a related
trust-rebalancing goal is to...
Reduce Excessive Trust in
Unreliable People
Perspective - Typical
(GWCs) are at risk of trusting too easily and being hurt (betrayed) -
repeatedly - because...
they don't know that a false self
rules them and their Self is often
and distrusted;
they're (usually)
and their
tries valiantly to protect their Inner Kids from rejection, abandonment,
and scorn by being "super nice" (e.g. trusting) even to strangers;
they learned early that saying "No"
caused significant pain; and typical GWCs...
were never taught to identify,
validate, and assert their Rights
as worthy individuals; and
wounded people are drawn to each
other, so their risk of unrealistic expectations, betray-als and
disappointments is high.
If you've felt betrayed too often by other people - starting with key
childhood caregivers - typical extra wound-recovery goals include...
-
learn to gauge the
woundedness of other people, and
develop guilt-free caution in trusting significantly-wounded adults and
kids;
-
intentionally reduce
denying ("No, I wasn't betrayed"),
minimizing, ("It's not a
big deal"), and rationalizing
("I was betrayed because...") by retraining your
(reality-distorting) subself to trust your Self's intuition and
judgment;
-
retrain your
to not
yourself for major betrayals ("It's my fault! I should never have trusted _____
to _____"); And...
-
work to heal your
and
Inner Kids: connect them to the loving supervision of your talented
Nurturer subself, and bring them to live in the present, if needed; as
you do...
-
help your Pleaser, Critic, and Perfectionist
to moderate their extreme needs to please (trust) potentially harmful
and indifferent people, and...
-
train yourself to identify your key
expectations of other adults and kids, compare them to objectively to
their behaviors, and learn to confront (and praise) respectfully where
needed.
-
watch for chances to affirm your own
judgment about whom to trust with what.
-
Evolve a respectful way of telling people
you distrust "I don't trust you (about ____ because _____"). Do this to
inform, not to punish, guilt-trip, or demean.
-
be open to selecting a veteran coach you
trust to help you achieve and maintain these things.
Ideally, s/he will be practiced
at doing
Reality Check: Think of an adult or child
who has "let me down," lied too often, or not kept important promises to you
and/or other people you care about. Now review the rebalancing options above
with this person in mind and see what you're aware of.
Growing Appropriate
Trust in Reliable People
Typical Grown Wounded Children (a) have trouble determining whom to trust
with what - and (b) (their ever-alert Guardian subselves) can be
over-suspicious of trustworthy people. Both of these stress-ors will
diminish automatically as you intentionally grow your self-awareness and
self-trust (above).
Balancing Trust ("Faith") in a Caring
Higher Power
As a veteran ex-atheist in recovery from false-self wounds for over 20
years, I now believe typical Grown Wounded Children (GWCs) have too little
or too much faith (trust) in a benign, responsive, reliable Higher Power.
"Ultra-conservative," "overzealous," and "fundamentalist" GWCs can be said
to be
on their view of God and related religious beliefs and
practices. They also tend to be very defen-sive about this, righteous,
rigid, and c/overtly judgmental of others not like them ("unbelievers /
infidels / heretics / sinners.")
My personal and professional experience over five adult decades has
been that people often guided by their true Selves usually have spontaneous
(vs. dutiful or fearful) balanced faith in, and regular com-munion with, a reliable,
caring, responsive Higher Power.
My related experience is that very few survivors of childhood trauma (GWCs) can
reduce their resid-ual wounds without a firm, balanced faith in a benign
Higher Power. Does that describe you now? Would others who know you agree?
If you identify as a GWC and have too much or too little faith (trust) in a
supportive Higher Power, you have several broad options each day:
-
give steady high priority to improving your
Self-trust (above), and be open to gradual or sudden shifts in your
spiritual (vs. religious) beliefs (trusts) - specially if/when you hit
-
stay clear on the important difference
between religion and
spirituality. Both offer personal and family benefits - and can
become compulsive.
-
respectfully explore which of your subselves
insist on rejecting (under-trusting) or over-trusting a Higher Power. Learn what they're trying to protect your other subselves from, and
patiently improve their trust in your Self and other Regular subselves.
-
Be open to - or actively seek - new
relationships and experiences that include wholistically-healthy
(balanced) spirituality (vs. "salvation")
-
choose regular periods of undisturbed quiet
reflection - in Nature, if possible. Option - explore the process
and effects of personal
-
associate with people with - or seeking -
balanced spiritual faith (by your definition). Their are many "liberal"
religious communities of such people - e.g.
Baha'i,
Unitarian,
Unity,
Quakers (Society of Friends),
Buddhists, and many others. Know
that all varieties of 12-step "recovery"
programs except
AAA encourage seeking and relying on your own Higher
Power.
-
explore
the existence and impact of a resident
who may act as a quiet mentor and liaison to your Higher Power and other
entities like Guardian Angels, your Higher Self, and/or Spirit Guides.
Continue
by reviewing options toward (re)gaining an adult's or
child's trust in you. If this doesn't interest you, go
here. Do you need a stretch break first?
