Reflections upon the eclipsed moon in Scorpio under the rays of Algol.
The other night, I dreamt I was in a game, and every time I was on the verge of progressing to a new level, I needed to remember everything that happened before. This happened multiple times, and in the dream I felt a sense of “Of course this is how it must be.” The review of what has been must occur moving to what is next.
After waking, it made me think about reports of near-death experiences and the now-pervasive trope of seeing one’s entire life in the moments before death. Then, surprisingly, it made me think of the role of witnessing in Internal Family Systems therapy.
In IFS our “parts” may be so developed and discrete that they have their own story, their own memories, their own experience of our life. One part of us, concerned with protecting ourselves against financial setbacks, carries formative moments of scarcity or fear, all the threats that could have or did take us down. Another part of us, carrying an essential terror of being abandoned, carries every moment that we were hurt or terrified and reached out for support but no one reached back.
Every time we felt alone in suffering, or learned to survive hardship, waits for us to be capable of returning to witness that pain. Our suffering deeply longs to be felt and understood fully; that’s why it seizes upon us in our weak moments when we don’t have the strength to push it away. Or it lashes out at loved ones, hoping they have the strength and capacity to hold it for us. But when we are too vulnerable to give it the caring attention it seeks, we only feel mired more deeply in it, and caught in the battle of those parts of us desperately trying to keep it hidden.
There’s no shame in any of this and no urgency—to witness suffering before we’re ready is not useful. Nor can we expect others to recognize this suffering for what it is when it arises, for it often reaches out in the guise of an accusation, an attack, an explosive reaction that seems far bigger than merited by the situation.
Sitting with the dream, and this work, I imagine there is a psychic law: a thing must be fully witnessed for it to become ready to surrender to transformation.
What is therapeutic is when we can separate out these wounded parts from a place of calm, supportive, wise listening, and then attend to them as they show us all the memories and feelings they’ve been carrying alone. When we can stay with it, the Self’s calm caring and understanding helps that part of us to finally feel understood, to feel deeply felt. Once it has been felt all the way through, it will let us know it’s ready to release that pain and move to the next level.