When someone suffers a traumatic event, very often there is a limiting perspective or belief that is locked in at the time. It is possible to clear out the emotional content of a trauma. However, unless these limiting beliefs and perspectives are also resolved, the trauma will not be fully healed. Parts Therapy can be a great way of making sure that this perspective is healed.
How Simple Parts Therapy Works For Healing Trauma
Simple Parts Therapy is about accessing the part of you that carries the unresolved emotions and beliefs and then having a conversation with that part to reassure and console them. For example, a four year old might be scolded by their mother for causing an accident and making a mess. An adult would think that it was just an accident and that the parent scolded the child partly out of frustration that they would have to clear up the mess. As a four year old however, they might think that somehow they are a bad person or their mother doesn’t love them unless they are perfect all the time etc. This false, limiting belief can be carried with them until adulthood, colouring their perspective on the world. To heal this trauma, as well as releasing the trapped emotions from this event, these limiting beliefs also need to be undone.
Having a Conversation
To use Parts Therapy to heal trauma you need to have a two way conversation between the inner child from this age, and your adult self. This is not as difficult as it sounds. Once you are in touch with the emotions of the event then simply ask yourself “how does my inner child feel and what do they think about this event”. Then flip perspective to the child’s and wait to see what they say. While this might sound difficult, it’s amazing how easily it happens. Then flip back to being an adult and speak to them. Give them the adult context and assurance that they are looking for. If you are on target with your advice then you should feel the emotions fade from the event as you do this. Let me illustrate this using the example above
Parts Therapy Example
Inner Child: “I feel hurt my mummy doesn’t love me because I made a mess.”
Adult: “I know you feel hurt. However, your mummy loves you very much. It’s just that she was busy and now she has to clear up the mess. She’s just feeling frustrated”
Now flip back to the inner child and see how they feel after this. It might now go like this:
Inner Child: “I feel better about that but I feel scared that I have to be perfect or I will upset my mummy and she will be cross with me”
Adult: “I know that you feel scared. However, you don’t have to be perfect. She loves you just the way you are. She was just feel exasperated with having to clear up the mess”
Inner Child: “I feel sad that my mummy got cross”
Adult: “It’s OK to feel sad. Accidents do happen to everyone”
Inner Child: “I feel guilty for making a mess”
Adult: “There’s no need to feel guilty. You are just a little boy. You were trying to help but dropped the jar and spilt everything”
….and so on.
Acknowledging the Feelings
You can see that the event evolves to different emotions as we go along. Always make sure that the first thing the adult says is to acknowledge whatever the child is feeling. When I do this process for myself, I always imagine stroking my inner childs head or giving him a hug as I say these things. This back and forth can go on for some while until you feel that the event is fully resolved.
It’s amazing how just this simple approach can clear all sorts of difficult trapped emotions simply by acknowledging the emotions and then applying some perspective. Parts Therapy is one of my “go to” tools for resolving past issues that I have.
If you are not familiar with working with your inner child then you might also like this article on an Inner Child Meditation
