by Katherine Zimmerman, PhD, CHT
Renee's session starts in a huge, white sanctuary. She's feeling relaxed. I mention the anger, frustration and depression that we discussed prior to trance. I invite the part with these feelings to step forward so that we can let her know that she's done an extremely effective job– especially this last eighteen months– of keeping Renee angry and frustrated, without even knowing why... and depressed.
The Part appears and indicates that her name is "Hurt." Hurt – who tells me that she's 12 – benefits Renee by helping her to be heard. Hurt tells us that when Renee's angry, she gets more forceful, more vocal, louder. Hurt believes that it's the only way to be heard and that Renee gets very hurt, emotionally, when she's not heard. She doesn't feel like people care – that she matters.
Renee really appreciates what Hurt is trying to do and that she needs to find a new way to be heard because she's hurting other people because of this. Hurt has limited life experience and truly doesn't know any other way. She feels Renee's emotion and frustration when she can't get her point across but is lacking coping mechanisms.
Grown up Renee educates this younger part about ways that she sees other people deal with life. She sees that other people are able to just discuss when they have a difference of opinion. And that others don't take it as personally when people don't seem to understand or acknowledge their opinion.
It sounds hard to twelve year old Hurt. And while it might be hard at 12, I suggest that it might be easier if grown-up Renee was right there to be a team with her. In a tearful voice, Hurt says that she wants to be grown-up, too. Hurt and Renee hold hands and spin as I count from 12 up to Renee's age. Although Hurt has grown up she is outside of Renee. Both she and Renee agree to integrate by holding each other and hugging until it all becomes one. Renee feels "more complete" with the part back home.
With the integration complete we do an ecological check to ensure that we've been thorough. I ask Renee to think about a situation that, in the past, led her to feeling frustrated and angry, because she wasn't being heard. This time she understands that it's not her fault and that she can explain more and it's not that anybody thinks less of her, it's just that people think differently than she does. Although sometimes it's challenging to go through that extra explanation she can draw on her creativity to find different ways to explain things. Renee agrees that it gives her an opportunity to be creative more often.
I suggest that Renee imagine herself in another setting, where, in the past, she would have been angry and felt hurt. She reports that's she's at work. This time she understands that she doesn't have to be angry about it the situation. She can stand by what she believes in and move forward. She feels okay about agreeing to disagree.
After two weeks with this new behavior this new outlook is becoming more integrated. Renee says that she's getting used to it but knows that it won't happen quickly. We check in again a month into the future. After a whole month of practicing this new way of being she sees herself being very straight-forward. Having people understand that it's something that she truly believes in and she's willing to stand behind and willing to put passion and determination behind it, without the anger and the hurt.
Sometimes there is still some of the old hurt when someone disagrees with her, or doesn't understand what she's saying because she's still trying to understand how she's different and what she's doing differently that people can't understand. She's beginning to see it as a process.
Following a mental scan there remains a bit of anger stored in Renee's body, represented by a deep magenta red. Renee gathers it all up like clay and makes it in a ball and tosses it away. We fill the space with purple, the color of Renee's essence.
Renee scans her body next for a color representing depression and discovers a bit of icky yellow-green in her chest. She washes it away with a hose and fills that space with purple.
Frustration is represented by the color teal and Renee finds some in her forehead. She imagines standing under a waterfall and washing away the remaining frustration. As she fills her head with purple I suggest that she now has new ways of coping. She's going to find it very easy to reach for those new tools. To explain, and be okay, when people don't completely understand her. And I add a bit from my own life, "When I was just a kid growing up, I always thought it was so awful to be different. I just wanted to be like everyone else. But now, that I am a grown-up, I've learned that it's fun to be different. So I want you to also remember to delight in your difference."
Renee feels very peaceful now. She imagines that peace throughout her mind, letting it flood her thoughts, bringing it down through her body. Peace at knowing who she is, and the more she knows who she is and recognizes and appreciates her essence, the less it matters if anyone "gets her."
After re-alerting Renee, I ask her how she feels. "Like it's all going to be okay. It's like tomorrow I know I can go in [to work] and I know I can have my discussion and I'm not worried anymore about, well I'm just going to break down, I'm just going to lose it in front of my boss. No. I'm going to say: this is what the problem is. And I may have an opinion, I may not. And if I don't then I can talk through: Well, here's my thoughts. Rather than having to state my opinion is such and such. And getting hung up of I have to word it a certain way, or thinking that I have to give so much detail."
Here are Renee's final comments: "As I have integrated parts, I feel stronger and in more control. I have realized that I can make changes in my life without it being a fight. I understand that certain parts have been working really hard in ways that they thought would help. This process has allowed me to take those parts to work on areas that I choose. I have been able to continue my progress towards my goals. The best part is that this time it is different. I haven't given up because I have been able to see real changes and it isn't burdensome to keep the changes in place."
Read Katherine's original article, "Parts Therapy in Action," here.
Citation: Summarized from Hypnosis in Action Katherine Zimmerman, CCHT, PhD www.trancetime.com copyright 2010.
Posted: 05/13/2010
