CONSULTING YOUR INNER WISDOM: PART 2

 Last October I wrote a post on listening to your inner wisdom (Oct. 1, 2010

http://postsfromtheunconscious.blogspot.com/2010/10/consult-your-inner-wisdom-it-has-all.html)

The post was based on experiences from my practice with a visualization technique that seemed helpful to people and furthered the ends of the psychotherapy treatment.  It often helped us cut through confusion, obfuscation, denial, and conditioned thinking and got us quickly to the heart of whatever matter we were wrestling with.

This work was especially helpful with and for individuals who relied heavily on “dissociation”  a coping mechanism we all resort to at times, but is particularly important for individuals who have experienced childhood trauma.  I have experimented with the inner wisdom technique with others whose “traumas” were less obvious or less extreme or even non-existent and found it useful in a lot of situations.  Inner wisdom is wise and I think universal.

I’m revisiting this issue, after reading an article by Martha Beck in this month’s Oprah Magazine,  (yes, Oprah) on a very similar topic which reminded me of some other issues related to implementing this practice which might be useful to comment on.

The existence of “inner wisdom” is based on the assumption that there is something in all of us that, unimpeded, will right us when we wobble.  Maybe “inner gyroscope” is more accurate.  A gyroscope will always get us back in balance if we just let it.

I think of inner wisdom as right-brained, body-based, nor necessarily verbal.  It’s that still small “voice” within which may not be a “voice” at all, but arrive in the form of images, kinesthetic sensation, or even sound. 

I sat with a client once on the same morning I had received some awful news about a dear friend.  I tried to set this aside and set to work with this client.  I thought I had. Very quickly, I got drawn into a confusing, chaotic, tumultuous session.  It wasn’t until she reported “hearing”  a loud bang that we began to get some clarity.  The bang, it turned out, was the dreadful memory of the sound of a car hitting and killing her best friend, an event that she had witnessed decades past.   Her “inner wisdom” was telling her something very similar was happening to me.  And it was.

We live in an extremely left-brained culture.  By this I mean we value words, logic, socially conditioned values.  We more often make choices based on “shoulds,” “oughts,” the evaluations of others, negative judgments.   We don’t let the gyroscope do its work.

We also live in a culture brimful of distraction. 

To “hear” your inner voice you have to get quiet, you have to learn to cultivate and tolerate silence.  The blackberry, iphone, NPR, gmail, twitter, facebook all have to go away for a little while everyday.  Processing experience comes more naturally when you are walking in the woods, taking rhythmic breaths in the pool, doing yoga without the radio on (my personal downfall).

Taking note of our dreams, by keeping a log of them,  sitting with them for at least a few minutes every day, increases clarity. There very well may be meaningful cues that are coming through our dreams that can be guiding us.  A patient reports that as she was sifting through old journals she found notes of a dream that almost exactly predicted the location and manner of detection of a malignancy in her breast, a malignancy that would be discovered many years later.

Meditating on a regular basis also increases the accessibility to cues, often within the body, that are signaling us as to which moves are prudent, and which imprudent.

Sometimes I have the experience of feeling upset without really know why.  I know my nervous system is buzzing, my body is sending signals of distress, but I haven’t a clue as to what this is about.  I have to get quiet to have any chance of getting a handle on what is really going on.  More than likely,  sitting quietly, patiently (for it may take awhile) with the question of what is it that is upsetting me,  what is calling for my attention, will yield some clarity.   The upset doesn’t disappear, but its power does diminish and I am less likely to be reactive to it, reactive in a way that will neither benefit me nor those around me.

Cultivating this inner voice yields great benefits.  I think we all instinctively know this.  I wonder what keeps us from actively listening.

Consult Your Inner Wisdom: It Has All the Answers

This past year, or two, in my clinical work, I experimented with a therapeutic technique that I cribbed from clinician/writer Sarah Krakauer. I found it useful both for my clients and for myself. I share it with you.

The assumption behind this idea is simple: at bottom, no matter how fractured our identity, or sense of self, there is within us a wholeness and a wisdom that we can consult as a sort of inner gyroscope. The theory goes that there is a unity within, and if we can gain access we can find a treasure trove of wise guidance.

I have worked with individuals who were highly “fractured” due to  severe trauma histories, as well as more intact individuals. The technique worked well with all kinds of people but I found that individuals with these fractures had an easier time accessing the “inner wisdom.”

The technique involves a simple visualization. One woman with whom I was working is diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder. This means, simply, that her identity is complex and multiple: she has very distinct and separate identities within a seemingly stable “self.”

Each “part” of this individual has a discrete and often contradictory point of view on any matter you could imagine: what to buy in the supermarket, for instance, junk food or organic kale . Or on any particular day if I am perceived as benign or as a threat. So checking across parts as to what the inner wisdom might suggest on any given topic is relevant to our enterprise.

What surprised me was that when we went through the inner wisdom I got the same answer to the question of the day: no contradictions, no evasions.

With this particular client I was often uncertain as to how to go forward in any given session, which part to address, how much to push for the traumatic memories that were just outside of her awareness. They could either liberate her from painful symptoms and/or de-stabilize her. Actually I was almost always struggling with these choices.

The inner wisdom always directed me to the traumatic material: go for it, it seemed to say. Don’t pay so much attention to the complaining about the pain that this causes. And the inner wisdom was right. After a period of turmoil, which was always difficult to weather, my patient was more solidly grounded, more mature, and eventually more integrated.

Now this is not magic, if the client was in retreat, warding me off, defending herself from incursions, I might get nothing. But this was relatively rare.

I describe the technique belo. Do try this at home.  Its perfectly safe.  Its probably more effective to have someone read this to you,   or record it yourself so you can hear the suggestions, not just imagine them.
Sit in a quiet place, close your eyes and visualize a corridor. This is a safe place. Off the corridor are doors. The door on the left is labeled “Hall of Inner Wisdom.” Open the door into a room that resembles a small movie theatre. The seats are comfortable. Sit down and see that at your finger tips is a keyboard. Type in the question that we are working on today: why does my hip hurt so much today, or what should I do about a troublesome relationship, should I change doctors, etc. Look up at the screen in front of you and there will be an answer.

Here you may see pictures or writing. You may just get thoughts popping up. If nothing comes, just sit quietly for awhile and see what happens.

I have tried this myself, going through the same steps of visualization. It feels a little like meditation, but with a very specific goal. Sometimes I get an answer. Not as frequently as my patient, alas. Often the answer surprises me. That’s what makes me think that this really is coming from a source quite different than my logical, linear, and deliberative mind.

What I think is going on here is that with the right tools and probably a bit of practice, one can have access to a part of the mind that is less rigid, less defensive, more intuitive, and more astute than the reasoning mind. I find it exciting and re-assuring that there is a guidance within with which I can make contact.