Daily Voice Dialogue - Issue 19

----- DAILY VOICE DIALOGUE -----

a free newsletter about using Voice Dialogue in your daily life

written by Astra Niedra, edited by Mark Belfanti

Dear Subscriber,

WELCOME to the nineteenth edition of Daily Voice Dialogue. If you have been a subscriber to this newsletter for some time, thank you for waiting so long for this issue. Time is certainly going by more quickly with two young children to look after as well as work commitments, and there never seems to be enough of it. So, I'll write when I can, which means I can't really say how regular this newsletter will be from now on - but you will definitely see an issue in your
inbox every so often.

Best wishes,
Astra Niedra

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TOPIC OF THE MOMENT

KEEPING VOICE DIALOGUE SAFE

"He was a great facilitator! In no time he had me curled up in foetal position on the floor, sobbing and unable to speak." Over the years I have heard comments similar to this from people who have attended some introductory Voice Dialogue seminars with guest facilitators helping out.

Such a scene might be dramatic and entertain observers, and it might showcase a facilitator's ability to induct the vulnerable child, however I would not recommend uncovering your vulnerable child at an introductory seminar, nor before you have identified, separated from, and gained permission from your primary selves first. (See Issue 15 for more on the Vulnerable Child.)

Dealing with primary selves might not appear as exciting, however it is necessary to keep the voice dialogue process safe.

Would you go to a medical doctor who, without examining you, gave you some medicines to take, just because he or she had them available and simply because they would have a dramatic effect on you? Or would you prefer it if your doctor examined your condition, gave you a medicine/treatment which would treat your specific condition WITHOUT causing you to, literally, 'fall apart', so that you could get on with your life and committments while you were healing?

If you rush to express your deepest hurts directly from your Vulnerable Child you face the danger of staying too identified with that Child afterwards. The consequences of this are that you could be too vulnerable to deal with the outside world - which, let's face it, is not a place which cares for vulnerability too well. And if you're not used to expressing vulnerability, your primary self will feel so uncomfortable about this sudden outburst that it would be reluctant to let you go there again.

The very reason that we develop selves which cover our vulnerability as we grow up, is to protect that vulnerability from the external world. And these selves, our primary selves, do that job very well. They do so in a way which worked for us in our childhood. That way may not be ideal now, but if you haven't started to take the responsibility yourself - started to develop an Aware Ego - then you need to respect the job your primary selves have been doing. And to bypass them quickly, without proper understanding of how they have been protecting you, without discovering the source(s) of their anxiety, is like grabbing an infant from it's mother's arms without asking the mother for permission first. To continue with this analogy, if you don't get the mother's agreement and trust to hold her child, if you don't find out if there are any special needs which the
mother percieves her child has, then you not only endanger the child by taking it prematurely, but your disrespect for the mother's wishes will anger and upset her, and you will probably find that she will be reluctant for anyone else to hold her child again.

Because voice dialogue and the concept of real selves constituting our psyche is new and revolutionary for many people, there is a tendency for some people to get carried away with the enthusiasm that springs from this discovery and want to delve into unchartered territory straight away.

I urge you to maintain your enthusiasm and interest in the work, but also to step back and consider what you want to get out of it in the long term. The aware ego is what will enable you to take care of your vulnerability. Simply jumping to a vulnerable state and exposing it, with no measures in place to protect it, will not help you at all. In fact, when you 'jump' back to your primary self, it will probably keep an even tighter reign on you - and rightly so, as it will now have 'evidence' that you can't be trusted to take care of your vulnerablity.

And having a brief conversation with a "keen to do voice dialogue" primary self (which many people go the workshops with) at an introductory voice dialogue seminar who immediately gives permission to go to the vulnerable child is not good reason to go there. It would be like going on a snow skiing trip for the first time and agreeing to ski down a very steep slope just because you wanted to be able to do it, and because someone had offered to take you there. If you have no idea what skiing actually involves, and how difficult it is to ski down a very steep hill if you haven't developed the skills yet to do this, then agreeing might seem like a reasonable thing to do. But once you were on that hill, with no skills to get you down, I can pretty much assure you that you
would be terrified and probably wouldn't try it again - at least not until you had practised on the gentle beginners slopes first.

It would be far more valuable in the dialogue with the "keen to do voice dialogue" self to stay with it and find out how it operated. After talking with this voice for some time and gaining an understanding of it and feeling for it, you have an opportunity to gain some separation from it and start an aware ego processs in relation to it. You might discover, for example, that it tries to
stop you feeling vulnerable by making you participate in new things. It might feel that enthusiastic participation makes others accept you, seeing you as being positive and willing to take part. Maybe it reasons that by getting to the core of an issue immediately, you will quickly dissipate vulnerability, thereby relieving anxiety. Whatever worldview and corresponding rules you discover by examining this primary self first, and then energetically feeling it as a particular self/energy within you and separate from you, will give you insights into your vulnerability which will help your now more aware ego deal with your vulnerability.

I'm not advising that you don't have your vulnerable child facilitated - but that when you do have it facilitated you have already met your primary selves and have some separation from them.

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EXERCISE

HONOUR YOUR PRIMARY SELVES

I feel that primary selves are generally an over-worked, unappreciated crowd. They take on a huge responsibility - making sure we get through the day alive - with no gratitude from us. Some primary selves take us (or drag us) along to workshops hoping we will discover them and what they do for us. But then we respond by wanting to get them out of the way as quickly as possible to gain
access to other energies, yet expecting them to pick up the pieces once the workshop is over.

I would suggest building a shrine to your primary selves and worshipping it at least once a day. Work out who your primary selves are (see issues 5 and 6) and then find a way to honour them as you would a god. Make offerings they would appreciate, thank them for their help, and be kind in your thoughts about them.

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BABY DIALOGUE

Examples from my experiences with my 3 year old and 1 year old daughters to illustrate how I try(!) to use Voice Dialogue in my life.

COMPETITION

One of the things which amaze Mark and I about the dynamics of having two children is how competitive they are with each other from such an early age. The way they compete for our affection would put any professional athlete to shame. (And I am surprised, having observed that, at how few people claim to be competitive or to have that quality available to them as adults.)

So what do I do when Athena is sitting next to me asking for help with dressing her teddy bear, and Tinkerbell is climbing up my legs, crying out (very loudly) every time I break eye contact with her to help Athena out?

I try to keep an energetic connection with both girls, but also set boundaries with them. It is easy to be drawn into a game where I try to please both at once or switch from one to the other, but this is draining and exhausting to keep up. I have found it is better for me to affirm a connection with Athena, encouraging her to help herself with her chore with my limited assistance. I would then look at Tinkerbell while picking her up, establish a connection, and then adjust it so that it isn't as intense as it would be in a one-to-one situation. I can then carry her around on my hip for a while, put her down with a toy and then turn up the connection with Athena, maybe helping her out some more. It's a bit of a dance, or at times a juggle, but if I try to do it calmly, it's definitely easier on my energy levels than trying to meet both of their needs 100%. And they don't appear to be suffering as a result.

You yourself probably naturally adjust how much you connect or link with people you are in group situations with, such as family, friends or work colleagues. Next time you are with two or more people, take note of how you energetically link with them. Do you connect with one totally, leaving the other completely cut off or do you maintain a connection with both? (More on energetics/connection/linkage in the next issue.)

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COMING UP IN FUTURE ISSUES

Connecting with others
The business selves

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IMPORTANT NOTE

This newsletter is not to be taken as psychological or medical advice. If you require such advice you should seek it from an appropriate health care professional. This newsletter is also not intended for you to use in making life-altering decisions without communication between you and the appropriate health care professional.

Copyright 2000-2002 - Astra Niedra. ISSN 1444-6022. PO Box 1266, Rozelle NSW 2039, Australia. No part of Daily Voice Dialogue may be reproduced, in any form, without the written permission of the author, Astra Niedra, except for forwarding an issue, in its entirety and complete with copyright information, to a friend.