Notes on My Approach
Our Internal World is not a Battlefield
Published: 2/5/2021
by Nick Oredson
​​Personal growth and healing work is not easy. It often requires tolerating significant amounts of fear and discomfort, revisiting aspects of our childhood that we would just as soon forget, and the willingness to accept aspects of ourselves are seldom flattering. The work can be alternately startling, painful, exhilarating, confusing, infuriating, frustrating, bewildering and potentially a source of enormous peace and relief. The effort is worth the trouble, however, because when we succeed with the work, it often involves solving a lifelong mystery, freeing ourselves from a negative pattern that we considered to be our fate, or reconnecting with positive aspects of ourselves that had been suffering or lost for decades.
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I don’t encourage strategies that would place someone in a contentious relationship with self. I am careful not to use words or phrases such as "overcome", "get passed", "defeat", "get rid of", "fight", "do away with", "purge" or any other words that imply violence to the self. Contentious language like the above examples implies that our internal landscape is a battlefield where there are good parts of us that need to be encouraged and there are bad parts of us that need to be vanquished. Even in situations where there is a behavior that appears negative I am very careful to look for the underlying causes rather than suggest the brute-force application of willpower to change the behavior. Compassionate healing and growth work means welcoming and honoring all elements of self back into the wholeness of our being - not the process of battling with our darker impulses and hoping someday to win somehow. Trying to "win" in this process is like trying to beat yourself at chess – it is simply impossible. All of our supposedly darker impulses have access to exactly the same resources as our light side - so if we place ourselves in opposition to our dark side the absolute best we can hope for is a draw. It's exhausting. As an alternative, the strategies that I encourage are first and foremost acts of self-compassion - working towards wholeness rather than endlessly battling for goodness - and I strive to use language that reflects this.
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If we experienced trauma during our upbringing, it is very easy for that trauma to still be active in our lives as adults. It often takes a very conscious process of updating our perception of the world to realize that we are indeed fully grown adults, with adult resources, perspectives and wisdom. Doing this work often facilitates a transition away from living at effect – powerless in the face of consequences beyond our control – and towards living at cause - fully engaging in the world as resourceful and imaginative adults. It takes conscious effort to remove the veil of trauma, reconnect with our essential self, and fully engage with our adult resources, perspectives, and wisdom to create the world that we desire rather than struggle to survive in the world that was thrust upon us as children.
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Comments? Questions? I would love to hear from you!
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