Voices in My Head
Welcome to the entrance of my mind, colorful, full of ideas and very crowded. I’d like to introduce you to a few of the parts that live in my head: Inner Critic, Inner Child, Inner Protector and Me.
Inner Critic: Good morning, what will you ruin today?
Me: I’m not ruining anything.
Inner Critic: The day is young.
Inner Child: Good Morning, how are you? What are we creating today?
Me: Good Morning Love. We are painting today, in watercolor.
Inner Child: OK, sounds like fun, I will be there with you.
Me: Thank you.
Inner Protector: Hold on we are vulnerable in the world. I’ll cloud your judgment in case you feel scared.
Me: Dear Inner Protector, we are OK. Whatever happens I’ll take care of it and not run away.
Inner Protector: But what if you can’t handle it. I won’t let you or the Inner Child be taken advantage of. That is my job.
Me: Yes, Inner Protector, I get that and I love you for the great job you do protecting us.
At this point I start to paint without any direction and just put paint on paper to see where it goes. The voices continue.
Inner Critic: Ugh, that’s horrible, no one will like that. You’ll be made fun of.
Me: I hear you Inner Critic
Inner Child: (She directs me) Put pain here and there.
Me: Wow, this is beautiful, thanks for your guidance.
Inner Child: Welcome.
Inner Protector: I’m scanning our circumstances, we are safe, we are OK, we are not being threatened.
Me: We are safe, we are OK and we are not threatened.
Painting is finished.
Me: I absolutely love how these colors blend together in this new painting. Glad I did not give up.
I feel internally so satisfied of this accomplishment that was almost thwarted by inner voices of the Inner Critic and Inner Protector.
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I hope you found this little dialogue interesting, I know
the subject of voices in your head is scary and fraught with stereotypes of crazy people talking to themselves. In reality we are all multiplies. We have many parts in our personalities (aka voices). There is no “one mind”. We are a collection of different parts (voices that speak to us) that work together sometimes and at other times are blocked off from our system because of trauma or triggering event.
What I have written is a simple example of some of the voices in my head, I have many. I have many parts that are children, and teenagers and adults and spirits and guides. If my mind gets overwhelmed by a situation it is up to me to identify what part has been triggered and treat it as if it is a real person. It needs to be witnessed in some way with compassion and curiosity. This exchange frees up stuck energy and gives a shift in perspective.
You and everyone else is a multiple personality and that is actually a good thing to know. As we recognize the parts in us we can see the parts of others.
I learned this method by reading “Internal Family System, an evidence based therapeutic model that de-pathologies the multi- part personality.” Dr. Richard Schwartz is the creator of this system. This method gives a new way of processing trauma, addiction, neurosis, and all those parts inside of we want to wish away.
Internal Family System gives us the tools to be self-led rather than dysfunctional parts led.
Bessel van der Kolk MD writes “Opens up a path to self-acceptance and self-leadership. IFS is one of the cornerstones of effective and lasting trauma therapy.”
With this method we learn to unblend from parts and instead witness and love and care for our parts that can be so frightened by events of the past.
Change is not easy, becoming whole is not easy.
By listening to those voices in our head we are listening to ourselves. There are parts of us with messages about the next step, the hurts, and the insights we need to know.
Keep listening to those voices…………………..
Georgia
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