Over the weekend I came across a remarkable post on writer’s block, resistance and inner dialogue by the talented LaVonne Ellis. I suggest you go and read it and then come back here, because the story I’m going to tell will make a lot more sense if you do.
Read it? Good.
All right. This is a true story, and I often tell it to my clients. You’ll see why.
photo credit: futureatlas.com
Towards the end of World War II, a Japanese soldier got separated from his unit on one of the Pacific islands – one large enough to have a jungle that he could disappear into. And that’s exactly what he did – for several decades.
Eating what he could find, sleeping in improvised shelter, his uniform becoming rags, his rifle rusting, he kept on faithfully fulfilling his last orders. He was still fighting the war.
Meanwhile, though, back in Japan, there was a new government with a new agenda. Instead of approaching other nations as enemies, this Japanese government approached them as allies and trading partners. It was a new era for Japan, an era of increasing prosperity – and they wanted all their citizens to participate, not only in creating but in enjoying the new way.
But off on his island, here was this man, alone, still following the old orders – because nobody could reach him to tell him that the war was over.
If you’re experiencing a conflict within yourself, what’s likely to be happening is that there’s a part of yourself that’s still fighting an old war, still trying to protect you – faithfully – from a threat that doesn’t really exist in your current situation. What you think of as “yourself” is like the post-war Japanese government, headed in a new direction, connecting to the world in a new way, but there’s another part hidden away somewhere that doesn’t realise that the war is over.
And by bringing that part of yourself into dialogue, finding out what its critical agenda is that it’s pursuing so faithfully, and helping it to discover how to pursue that agenda without sabotaging the agenda of other important parts, you can reincorporate that faithful passion into yourself and align it with your highest goals. At the moment, that part is using its energy to struggle against another part of yourself, which is using its energy to resist – and all that energy is going to waste. Imagine what would happen if they were pulling together towards your main goal.
This is the kind of work I can help you with: re-integrating those parts of yourself that passionately want to protect you, but have an outdated way of showing it. At the moment I have a few spaces open for people to work with me (and yes, we can do it even if you’re elsewhere in the world). Email me for details: mikerm at hypno.co.nz.
What might that part of you be protecting you from?
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