I explore this Inside/Outside split with people I work with inviting them to explore something with me instead of staying with it alone inside.
I ask them, “Can you tolerate me visiting you in the deepest reaches of your pain?” “Can you tolerate seeing and knowing and feeling how life has shaped you?”
“Can you send a tentacle into that horrid mass and know it as a part of you, an experience you’ve had, without being defined by it.”
“What is it like for you to not just tell me about how bad it is, or not to close your eyes and explore that experience inside yourself, by yourself but rather to stay with me and let me in there with you?”
If it feels comfortable to you, take a moment and sit with the question, “How do you close down or shut yourself off? How do you escape the present moment and retreat into the past or project yourself into the future of how it will be when….. .”
The intimacy of connecting with another in this realm is spectacularly tender.
In one session a client and I met in a profound quiet. Its intimacy may have scared my client. The next two scheduled appointments were “forgotten.” When we met three weeks later we wondered, without knowing, what happened such that the appointments were forgotten.
It is only in this sacred space between people that healing the Inner/Outer Split can occur. As much work as we have done on ourselves we live with others and ultimately have to integrate our inner world with the outer world around us.
To be fully human, to live the life we want to live we will eventually come face to face with these questions:
Can I trust that you will care for me as I say this joyful/scary/tender/humiliating experience?
Can my nervous system return more quickly to calm when disruption occurs?
How can I use my language to share not just my experience but my hope and wish for connection with you?
I wish for you to have the experience of being with someone who willingly enters this space with you.
I want for you to have the experience of calm abiding while in the presence of another.
I wish for you the experience of being seen and known and loved.
The “bind”? For me, as a child, it was creating a bond when I was pretty unwanted. With people who couldn’t hold their experience separate from mine: an help me with it, be curious about, affirming/positive about me. It was being who pleased, affirmed, interested them. I didn’t at all “get to know my self”. It was mostly irrelevant, bad/shameful, a target, frightening. I loved being miles off in the woods where I could be certain to be alone. Only then did I feel what I know now to call “safe”. I could experience my “self”.
50 years later, I’m contacting, “having” my self with just a closed door between me and people. More bits and pieces of me are there even with a few people.
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Your post brings a tear to my eye, Allan. I am grateful for all the work you’ve done on yourself that you could be at a place where “more bits and pieces” of you can be there with a few people. that’s the most important part — feeling safe with others and not trying to make something happen that isn’t there.
Glad you’re here — thanks for writing.
deirdre
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Deirdre you have such a way with words. This post brought tears to my eyes and I had to immediately print it. I read it over and over and ended up sending a copy to my therapist stating “this is it! this is where I am at and what I need to do!” This is absolutely what I need in my life and I struggle so much with trying to be understood. So much sadness comes from me feeling alone in all of this pain because I don’t let anyone in. This is such an amazing post and what I really needed to hear today! Thank you!
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How wonderful to have that connection between us, Sue. I’m glad it resonated and was helpful to you. I’m also really grateful you have a therapist you can bring things like this to. That’s wonderful!
Strangely enough, over the years as I allowed myself to actually experience what was going on i became much more solid inside and felt way more connected to others. I trust it can be the same for you.
Cheers,
Deirdre
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I just had to answer your description of “falling apart” in front of the group and the shame you felt afterwards. I too am a teacher, here in Israel, of body-mind-spirit and exactly the same thing happened to me a few weeks ago.
But my response was different.” Oh I can cry and cry in front of all this group and show them my weakness but it makes me no less loving”. In fact being British my birth with all that constrained upbringing I felt the experience to be a wonderful present ,and when I investigated I found out that my students felt that way too
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I love that you have such resilience. All experiences can be opportunities for love and connection. I’m glad you found your way so easily to it. Thanks for taking the time to write and share your story with us.;
Deirdre
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As a child I learned to hide my pain because when I did show it, it was so triggering for my parents that they disappeared. I felt denied and unseen. I didn’t get the support I needed in those moments and I lost the care I did get at other times they could be present for me. I learned that denying myself by maintaining the inside/outside split was better than the denial of others and total aloneness of showing my pain and struggle. Over and over I chose to protect myself from abandonment by shielding my family and others from my true experience.
As an adult I’ve made progress in taking off the filter and sharing my painful experiences with others. It feels wonderful and freeing to be seen and acknowledged by others. Even more important for me is to stop the self-denial, which itself is so painful. Right now, my challenge is can I be authentic regardless of the response I get from others? Will the fear of losing the connection that I do have, limited as it may be, keep the inside/outside split in place? What if I’m not seen? If I am once again met with paralysis and blank stares will I be able to stay present and avoid my own triggers and fear of abandonment?
I have been working through these questions for a few months as I look forward to a family reunion in a few weeks. Will I have the courage to show my complete self?
A question for your consideration, as long as there is an inside/outside split can the inside/inside split be fully healed, and vice versa? I think they are parts of the same, feeding each other.
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Your words are so honest and true, Anne. That is the painful lesson people learn. I am glad you’ve had the wonderful opportunity of knowing and feeling how good it is to be seen and acknowledged. I’m in your sub-group: to be authentic regardless of the response you/I/we get from others. Learning how to stay present even with those blank stares — whew. it’s a process — and a huge sense of relief and thrill ot know we can withstand that experience without going down the road of being triggered or feeling lost in abandonment.
With regards to your question, can that split be fully healed? It seems to me that what happens is we become more aware of those splits and we make more life enhancing choices around them. Perhaps that is what healing is? It’s a great inquiry. Thanks for raising it.
deirdre
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You said in your blog entry, “It is only in this sacred space between people that healing the Inner/Outer Split can occur.” I don’t have anyone. When I wake up in in the middle of the night with a panic attack like I did last night, there’s no one for me to connect with. I just take a xanax and then walk around and around my house until it kicks in. Even when I wake up in the morning, there’s no one to call and no one to talk to. I’m a childless widow and I live by myself in the country. Yeah, I have friends, but they’re not interested in my problems- why should they be? They have their own children and now grandchildren. Anyway, I can’t call them as it happens too often. I emailed my therapist and she’s going to call me, and I appreciate that. But I need to know how to cope when I’m alone! I’m alone mos of the time. If I have to have someone there to get me through this, I’m up a creek.
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Really good point, Eve. When we’re in the middle of a crisis we are in a much harder place. I’m sorry you woke up in the middle of the night with a panic attack. That’s never easy. It’s hard whether there’s someone there or not.
I so appreciate your words — “I need to know how to cope when I’m alone!” The basic skills of learning how to separate the past from the present and lower physiological arousal are really important. I’m hoping to have the basic skills from the Becoming Safely Embodied skills course put together into a home study course by the end of the summer. Many people have found that practicing those skills can make a big difference. Hopefully it will help you too.
Deirdre
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Reading the Ezine and the blog afterward inspired a most powerful sense of softness, tenderness, ease and calm because I do have what you wish for all of us: a few people in my life with whom I can enter the intimate spaces….experience a calm abiding…am seen and known and loved. Even just a few…probably just two…makes my world an entirely different place.
What I struggle with most though is healing the inner/outer split. How to reconcile this when the choices I’m making in my life, keep people at a distance? I want to be authentic…to have courageious conversations…to integrate my inner world with the outer world around me. But my choices pull me further away. It’s like I live a double life. Maybe all in time? As I continue to heal the inner split, the outer will heal effortlessly as you say? Or maybe with some work but heal nonetheless? I long for, ache to live a life of integrity and authenticity where ‘what you see is what you get’. Not that I have to disclose every little detail, but the past still intrudes on my present experience such that living in accordance to these values alludes me.
As always, thanks for this most thought provoking post!
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That split can, and does, heal. As the inner split heals we come into more alignment and then the outer world shifts, or offers us opportunities to create alignment there. It’s quite remarkable to see how quickly, silently, and frequently the past intrudes into our present. Watching that process can bring a lot of awareness.
You’re on the path, though, Awakening. That is obviousl
Deirdre
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I find all this so important. How closely my own experience resonates with most of those who have responded to this most helpful topic. Through therapy, it feels to me as if having become more able to set boundaries and distance myself to an extent from anxieties about fulfilling other’s expectations, I’m going through a process of confronting more of my inability to ever fully trust people and a belief in the absolute necessity to hold to and nurture what I have relied on most to sustain me – the natural world of trees, seashore, river banks … and all the non human creatures that belong there..a world I truly prefer to belong to…a world that does not do anything deliberately to harm me.
What I’m confronting though, is an awareness of possibly having been unable to properly value the goodness in others that I have witnessed and has been shown to me at times. I have lost or moved away from people so often because of a certainty that I will be rejected or because something triggered a feeling of not being good enough within the relationship. I feel a heavy burden of grief because of the people I mention but also someone very close to me who is no longer here.
I’ll keep reading and hoping while I take this risk of being the thirteenth…..
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What a powerful contribution you’re making to the conversation, Dreaming. I can relate to the remorse of not having valued others. It’s incredible to watch ourselves turn away from others out of anticipation of rejection — even before real rejection happens! Talk about playout out an old scenario.
Yet, there is no doubt that we can shift that pattern. It takes guts! It takes being willing to address our fears and explore the relationship to our past without getting lost in it. It takes orienting toward where we want to go even as we feel the turbulence of the moment urging us back to the old familiar path.
Definitely keep the hope alive! Definitely keep trusting. Each little baby step we take to find a new way will culminate in changes we’re looking for. Trust in the tortoise! Slow and steady takes the race. — deirdre
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Okay…you say keep hope alive..i believe often it is only good people and love touching someone that sometimes pulls people along in hopes to find their hope or life….maybe i have become obssessed with this site… in my search of healing….letting go of things, letting go of memories of the kind of people i wanted in my life, griefing the fact that i didnt have them and moving or trying to move forward into new areas n widen my life network. .. as well as free up my being to release the heavy burdens n even guide myself out oof what was, who i was and where i want to go. everyone says take it slow… how do you take it slow when you know where you’ve been, that you got here…and you still want to get there.. . even nic… when he was crossing niagra falls the other day… ran the last few steps… thats what i want to do..i try not to i try not to ….it is so hard when youve searched for a lifetime…. knowing there has to be a better way of feeling and thinking. when the triggers go off..and there you are standing ..thinkin.. what not agian n wondering why…we can trust a higher power as some call it… i prefer God… and thatis a big part of it… i believe though it is also each indivivduals responiblity to find their own way to get to where they are getting to…when you have lived in fear thru all your developing years from infantcy thru adolance then into adulthood… it makes it incrediately difficult to know how to navagate your way on this journey.to more peaceful, more loving and calm places…. getting it right for lack of a better word..setting the best example for those that rely on you…okay… if im addicted to this site or idea of the realism in it.. i …dont think its a bad thing.. if it helps me or others find tools and ways to use them to bring wholeness or peace or bring even one more moment of peace, enjoyment, feeling of safeness to ones life… i say go for it…. the world has all kinds of things that can be taken or looked at as negative and ….so very few…. things that actually support one anthers differences and value to the world( well, the world i lived in)… so i say when you find something that does…. go for it… read it… do it… and pass it on….when i first got into therapy i realized there are GOOOD People in the world..(shocking to me at the time) alli ever really knew in the developmental stages was people that pretended to be goood people..
Deirda.. you noted on one of my replies that it seems i am laying a stable foundation..yes…i believe i am… however… in doing so i have also made some difficult decisions… and am feeling rather shaking… falling down and getting back up like anyone trying or learning to walk per say… its just my network is very very small…i am forced into letting go of some of my safety nets finiacially nesscary to reach my next goal. so i hope you do not mind my writing n making comments…i feel as though it may help others as well as myslef… even though my comments do seem a tad elementary at times..in search of my own wholeness and contentment…hopefully helping and supporting others along the way…. yeah.. thats my goal..
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When I am integrated and well I can see the way Sacred power works though other people and I have been humbled when I am aware I am the conduit. It is powerful stuff and not to be taken lightly.
Right now my look is as inward as can be for all the necessary reasons in the world. Sometimes I am reminded, like now, how I am not disconnected but rather am being given the opportunity to heal the inner spirit so once again I will have the wonderful experience so seeing the real connections to all of us.
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Lovely opening, Leslie. When we start “knowing” that trauma, or really any life difficulty, is only a doorway to healing we stumble into a whole new realm. So good to hear you are on your way.
deirdre
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