Parts Therapy: Making Peace with the Many Parts of You

If you’re stymied in reaching a goal for a reason you can’t figure out, parts therapy may be able to help.

Do you ever feel like you’re driving a car with a bunch of control freaks in the back seat telling you different directions to get there?

Believe it or not, all of us experience that, whether we notice it or not.

The effects can be baffling:

• You want to lose weight, but you keep eating ice cream every evening.
• You want a better job, but everything goes wrong on the morning of your interview and you get there late.
• You want to write a book, but you never seem to find the time.

If it seems like someone is sabotaging you, it’s probably true: parts of yourself.

You are not one-dimensional, but rather multi-dimensional, with many different personalities wanting to be heard. If we tried to be guided by all the various parts, speaking all at once, we would go out of our mind. Still, our various parts give us advice and instruction, speaking over and undermining the part of us trying to guide our life toward change.

You probably blame yourself for lacking the willpower and inner strength to be up to the challenge.

In reality, it’s just that the different parts of yourself need to be heard. “Attention must be paid,” says Willie Loman’s wife in Death of a Salesman, and we must pay attention to the parts of us with their different plans.

How Parts Therapy Can Help

Parts therapy helps you do that.

The inner conflict is that parts of you want change, and parts of you do not. You have committees inside you running the show. We may say, “I want to do this or that,” but there is also a part inside that says, “Nah, I want to do this instead.” All this inner dialogue (sometimes described as the devil and angel on our shoulder) can be darned confusing.

Jungian analyst May-Anne Johnston describes it this way:

When we experience an internal conflict, it is easy to identify the opposing parts. For example, one part of me (that loves to learn) may want to take a university course, while another part of me (a Banker part) takes an opposing position, arguing strongly and rationally that I can’t afford it, while yet another part (the Critic) may point out that I’m not smart enough and will probably fail. In this internal free-for-all, I will inevitably feel torn and indecisive.

In my practice as a hypnotherapist, I help my clients talk to the part that wants to succeed at something and then to the part that is sabotaging the effort. These deep conversations can get to the core of solving a lifelong inner battle. In parts therapy, the parts talk to each other, come up with a working agreement, and then move to the round table where they can seal the new plan. I learned this work through both my training with Cal Banyan 5-Path hypnosis and through Roy Hunter’s book on Parts Therapy.

Parts Therapy: Making Peace with the Parts of Yourself

You can’t win the battle against parts of yourself by hiding from them, denying they exist, or beating yourself up over their existence.

We need to love and gain the cooperation of the battling parts of ourselves. If we dislike or abandon or refuse to listen to an inner part, our plans will fail. Each of the various parts of us wants to be heard, respected, loved, and acknowledged. What part of you is speaking to you that you aren’t listening to?

In parts therapy, we meet those different personalities, find out their (often reasonable) needs and fears, and make use of their insights and perspectives to make our lives fuller and move toward our goals.

February is the month of love — but for many of us, the biggest, hardest things we want to do require us to love that stubborn and difficult person — ourselves. We need to tune in to their voices and make their perspective part of our life plans.

My MP3 for this month is a script written by another Hypnotherapist, Kelley T. Woods from Washington State. She put together a fun Archetype Alignment Script, which introduces you to some of the deep archetypal parts of you. Sign up for my mailing list in the form below to receive it and similar resources for free.

 

My New Logo

I went through a switch that I hadn’t planned. I wanted to make a slight change in my logo — and the man who altered it also came up with a whole new logo. It was a surprise, as I loved my former logo — but now I really love this new one. What to do? Change can be difficult. I would love to hear what you think about my new logo.

Are You Stressed?

Life is change, and change brings stress. You can’t eliminate stress, but you can learn how to manage it and live your life more fully.

I’m offering a Stress Buster Workshop, Saturday, March 24, from 10 a.m. to noon.

This will be a great way to learn about how to nip stress in the bud and start living your life. (Click the image below to register for the workshop.)