Almost at every given moment there is something we wish would happen, and it’s taking its time to arrive:
I want to heal my broken heart and move on, but it still hurts.
I want to fulfill my purpose, but I feel stuck.
I want to find love, but I’m almost giving up.
I want to get pregnant, to quit smoking, to write a book, to help people, to stop yelling at my kids.
I want the pain to go away, but it still hurts.
Stuckness as a Conflict
"You can’t go faster than the slowest process", says the well-known phrase of Focusing, by Ann Weiser Cornell, and it’s so true. Time and again we realize that the parts in us determining the pace of our processes are those that need more time, and we can’t rush or speed them up.
Wanting is a faster process: It's sharp and clear and it's moving towards its goal. It's so strong that it often doesn’t feel like a part at all, it feels like the whole “I” – “I want this!”. Its energy pulls onward, it wants “this” now!
But “this” isn’t happening, because of those other parts within us that are slower, hesitant, afraid.
Sometimes we tell ourselves to “let it go" or "just do it!", but it usually doesn't work: the slowing-down parts are holding on so strongly; try to let it go and it will drive another claw into your heart.
We often refer in Focusing to 'stuckness', and we are searching for the Felt-Sense of the part that is stuck. But what is actually stuck is the whole process, due to this conflict between parts that want different things.
Here is something I've discovered in the years I've practiced HomeFocusing: when there is pain – there is a conflict. What we experience as painful stuckness is a titanic clash in which one part in us pushes forward and another pulls back, both with all their strength.
After all, if there was only one, if there was only the force pushing forward, or the force standing still, it wouldn’t hurt…
Usually, we believe that to resolve a conflict we need to get rid of one side, to cancel it out: “If you want it – go for it!” or – “No use in wanting, I just can’t do it.” Even when I acknowledge the two parts in me, I usually say: "I want X BUT I'm afraid…". This little "but" indicates that a choice was made, I've given up on this wanting.
When there is pain – there is a conflict.
What we experience as painful stuckness is a titanic clash in which one part in us pushes forward and another pulls back
Identification as an Obstacle
Let's look closely at the complexity of this conflict:
On one hand – the fast wanting part. It's so powerful and full of life forward energy, and it's so frustrated, because this other part, the fearful part, determines the pace of the process, and up until now – the outcome.
On the other hand – the slow fearful part. Unlike the clear and determined wanting, the slow part is often experienced simply as a foot on the brake. Unlike the precise words of desire, fear often sounds vague, even primitive – like a long, desperate “Nooooooo”.
There is a lot of criticism and anger toward this slow part; it is blamed of holding us back, even ruining our lives.
And we swing from side to side: identifying with the wanting part, angry at ourselves for not being able to move forward, or identifying with the fear, abandoning our wanting, or just collapsing into despair and just unable to move.
Being with this conflict, as Focusing suggests, is not easy.
When there is an identification with one part of the conflict, not only do we see the opposite part from a tainted point of view, we also miss the part we identify with altogether. Picture this part as a distorted eye wear you put on, through which you look at the other part – you see neither as it is.
This is true in general where there is a conflict, but when wanting is involved, it's even harder.
All this time, sometimes years, we’ve been saying to ourselves “I want”; We let the wanting part pull forward, only to be pulled backward again and again by the slow fearful part, that just growls there, but is also much stronger. The wanting part wants to reach somewhere, to achieve, to change, but despite its great power, it is helpless.
We might think that since the slow fearful part is the one holding us back, we should be with it, listen to its fears. But within our inner system it's often the other way around: you can’t move faster than your slowest process, and the frustrated fastest process that loses the race – your wanting – needs a lot of attention.
We swing from side to side: identifying with the wanting part, angry at ourselves for not being able to move forward, or identifying with the fear, abandoning our wanting
How to Be with It?
We start with expanding our presence so we can be with the conflict as a whole, with the pain it causes. Then we want to recognize and acknowledge both parts, even by saying: there's a part of me that wants me to find love, or find my calling, and there's another part, that doesn't want that, or fears it, even if we don't know why, yet. We can sense how each of them is experienced in our body.
Only then we can be with one part and then the other, listening deeply while holding the other close to us.
We can give some space for the wanting part to express its anger and helplessness, to describe how it would feel, if we get what it wants for us. We can let the fearful part unfold and tell us its own wanting for us: not to lose our freedom, not to be subject to criticism.
In Focusing we make a gentle, attentive movement between the slow part, the silent one, that holds tightly to the current situation, and the fast wanting part, the tortured one, screaming out of frustration.
This movement allows them – and us – to breathe, to shift from within, and the eternal stuckness to be loosened and released.
And what happens in a relationship, when one of us wants (to get married, to have another child, to move to another country…) and the other is afraid? What do we do? That is for another post…
