{"id":8333,"date":"2024-02-18T08:44:33","date_gmt":"2024-02-18T13:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=8333"},"modified":"2024-02-18T08:44:33","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T13:44:33","slug":"talk-with-youngest-part","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=8333","title":{"rendered":"Talk with Youngest Part"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least I think\/feel it’s the youngest. She can’t talk so I have to sense her feelings. I was reading James Hollis’s book What Matters Most<\/a>, and got to the part where he talks about doing what your soul wants to do, not what your family\/culture have taught you to do. So I asked:\u00a0What does my soul want to do at Kendal?\u00a0 <\/span>At the moment the work with parts looks like the only thing.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ve lost dance, I can\u2019t see myself doing astronomy, that leaves therapy and the blog. I decided to work with the one I feel is the youngest. So young, she’s non-verbal, so I have to sense her replies.<\/p>\n

From my journal for Saturday, February 17<\/p>\n

Thinking about working with younger parts.\u00a0I feel an ache in my heart. \u00a0\u00a0No, I want to learn and grow, explore something bigger. \u00a0\u00a0You\u2019ve tried that and they were too big, concepts beyond your experience or ability to understand.\u00a0What\u2019s wrong with working with parts?\u00a0It\u2019s been interesting, and brought the good feeling of connecting.<\/p>\n

Then I think of the baby, the really young one.\u00a0I think I need to try to be with that one.<\/p>\n

I have the rock that signifies the youngest one.\u00a0I\u2019m holding it to my heart.\u00a0I feel that she\u2019s scared.\u201cYes, but I am here and I\u2019ve got you.\u00a0It\u2019s OK to be scared, but what happened happened long ago, and someone came and fed you and you didn\u2019t die.\u00a0I\u2019m here now, and what I want to do is help you to feel safe enough that you can stop being afraid and pay attention to where you are now.\u00a0We are in a retirement community where we are well taken care of on the physical level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenny: I want to tell you about my life.\u00a0It\u2019s been hard.\u00a0I lived with severe depression for most of it.\u00a0I did manage to accomplish some worthwhile things, but it has been hard to see their worth.\u00a0I still have to remind myself, and mostly I don\u2019t feel<\/span> it, though I can see it intellectually.\u00a0Yes, I still have a long way to go.
\nHow are you doing?<\/p>\n

Baby: starting to feel warm.<\/p>\n

Me: good. \u00a0My dog left, scared of ice falling off the roof, so I feel a little bereft, but I\u2019m glad you\u2019re here.
\nCan I tell you a story?<\/p>\n

Baby: assents<\/p>\n

Me: I went to a women\u2019s retreat<\/a>, and at some point I shared with some enthusiasm about writing a journal and how much I learned.\u00a0Toward the end of the retreat, I started feeling uncomfortable and raised my hand to indicate I wanted to work with the facilitator.\u00a0She had me lie down and relax.\u00a0Asked what I wanted to work on.\u00a0I said \u201cMaybe it\u2019s not that important…\u201d She said \u201cI don\u2019t want to listen to your head.\u201d\u00a0So I relaxed again and the word \u201cwoman\u201d came swimming up.\u00a0\u201cMaybe it\u2019s about being a woman since that\u2019s why I\u2019m here.\u201d\u00a0I was quiet for a bit and started feeling uncomfortable.\u00a0So I said \u201cI\u2019m uncomfortable.\u201d\u00a0More quiet.\u00a0Then I realized it was because the day before I had talked about my journal.\u00a0\u201cMaybe that wasn\u2019t OK.\u201d\u00a0The facilitator said \u201cWhy don\u2019t you ask them?\u201d\u00a0So I sat up and looked at the other women and asked \u00a0\u201cWas it OK that I talked about my journal?\u201d They said \u201cYes!\u201d \u00a0\u201cIt was very interesting.\u201d \u201cIt was inspiring.\u201d\u00a0I started to cry.\u00a0I asked \u201cYou mean it wasn\u2019t bragging?\u201d\u00a0They said no.\u00a0When I wrote about this incident in my journal I called my reaction \u201cchildish,\u201d I think still trying to apologize for myself.\u00a0It was only much later, after a lot of work in therapy, I realized that Mother had told me over and over \u201cDon\u2019t think you\u2019re so great.\u201d\u00a0It was her worst criticism for someone.\u00a0I was afraid I was conceited.<\/p>\n

But years later, I was talking to a therapist, with some enthusiasm, about astronomy and the universe.\u00a0I saw an imaginary plane fly by on my right side, pulling a banner with the words \u201c…THINK YOU\u2019RE SO GREAT.\u201d\u00a0I said to Mother \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m<\/span> great, I think the Universe<\/span> is great.\u201d The therapist said she\u2019d never heard me speak from such a strongly embodied place.\u00a0I realized that Mother had always felt threatened and jealous and that\u2019s why she said that.\u00a0It helped a lot to see that. If Mother was threatened and jealous, then maybe what I was saying had some value after all.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a story about how I realized that Mother was wrong. And she was wrong when she left you alone. She didn\u2019t know that it would hurt you, she just felt the burden of being a mom was too much. It wasn\u2019t about you at all.<\/p>\n

I feel the baby\u2019s surprise.<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cNo, it really wasn\u2019t about you, didn\u2019t mean you were bad.\u201d\u00a0I feel the baby relax.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was surprised to find myself saying “It wasn’t about you at all” and that it was a relief to the baby. Painful to see how early that belief about not pleasing Mom set in. On the other hand, after I finished this talk with the part, I felt really good, grounded, connected in some important way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least I think\/feel it’s the youngest. She can’t talk so I have to sense her feelings. I was reading James Hollis’s book What Matters Most, and got to the part where he talks about doing what your soul wants … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,11,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healing","category-journal","category-present-day","category-work-with-parts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}