Sometimes the our inner experiences include difficult stuff like fear, doubt, frustration and uncertainty. They tend to show up in reaction to something, and often with the aim of protecting us, but don’t always help us move forward. In fact, when we let them, these inner experiences can push us around and stop us doing what we actually want to do.
Four ways we can respond
When an inner experience, is being difficult we tend to respond in one of a few ways:
- Struggle – we fight it, argue it down, try to make it go away.
- Avoid – we turn away from it, run from it, avoid what stirs it up.
- Freeze – we get paralysed by it and can’t move forward at all.
- Submit – we give in and go along with whatever it says.
(Interestingly, these line up with how we respond to threats in our environment too: fight, flight, freeze, and flop.)
It can help to shift this relationship, away from struggle, avoidance, submission, or freezing, and toward something more useful that allows us to reconnect with what we want to do in life.
A different response
- Acknowledge – notice and name the experience, the emotion or feeling. Recognise the part of you that is scared, frustrated, confused etc.
- Get curious – find out more about it. What is is so concerned about? What does it need?
- Allow it to be there – in the background, without letting it drive your behaviour. Perhaps it will offer something useful at another time.
Videos that explore this
Metaphors often help us to understand a concept and here are a few on this topic:
Passengers on the Bus
Demons on the Boat
This one’s quite old now, but I still love the metaphor, so I keep sharing it.
Monsters on the Boat
A newer, updated version of the same metaphor as the one above.
The Unwanted Party Guest
A very similar idea, told a different way.
The Guest House – Rumi
Another place you’ll find a very similar concept is the Rumi poem, The Guest House. A more poetic version of that last video.
Dr Walton 