I saved a note I sent to a friend a while back, someone wrestling with a confusing big decision who had asked me for advice. While I couldn’t address her specific decision, I shared the process I’ve developed for navigating these challenges in my own life. This is an encapsulation of how therapy has worked for me.
"Your dilemma is something I have no experience with, so I lack specific words of wisdom about your situation. All I can say is how I see my own life, how I'm still working on reconciling the fact that different parts of me have often had conflicting agendas, and how I've developed a process to resolve things.
People who grow up with significant trauma often have a powerful sense of a fragmented self. If we assess and monitor our internal dynamics, most of us come to realize that we are made up of many parts with conflicting needs and desires.
I identify with this personally. It’s the foundation of the "inner child" movement we used to hear so much about in popular psychology books, gestalt therapy, transactional analysis, internal family systems, etc., The jargon changes with each new book, but the idea remains the same. Most of us struggle with a fragmented sense of self.
It’s developmentally normal. Different parts of us help us survive life in disparate settings, and these different parts often have competing needs.
Looking back now, I can see that there were parts of me absolutely emotionally desperate at times, and those parts made decisions that ultimately made my life harder. I was blind to potential pitfalls and likely problems. My emotions can lead me to make bad decisions despite sometimes glaring red flags, and those decisions can make my life more challenging than it needs to be.
These things play out in my head a lot, and by making a list of them, the dots start to connect. Ultimately it always goes back to the beginning. Perhaps it would have been easier if I'd been born in a different family to different parents — but then there would have just been different problems. Every family has their baggage, though it’s not the same baggage.
This trauma is so multi-generational. The tragedy of humanity. I think most of us are doing our best with what has been handed down to us.
One of my favorite concepts now is that of a "wise mind." This refers to the part of us that can be aware of all the other parts (inner child, perfectionist, angry part, whatever we call them) and then, like a nurturing parent, try to figure out how to give them what they want/need but in a way that is not going to cause further harm to the whole. The wise mind can recognize the drives, urges, needs, etc., and integrate the thoughtful part of the mind to chart the wisest course.
This can also be explained by interpersonal neurobiology and how we help the parts of our brain integrate for optimal functioning. Neuroscience supports this.
My wise mind has developed rather late in life. I can say that this has become more tangible in the past five years or so. All the writing I've been doing in the past decade has helped greatly with that. I see things more clearly than I did when I was younger. This clarity likely also comes with age and experience. Curiosity helps too. Stay curious. Observe. Monitor. Integrate wants, needs, feelings with wisdom.
I don't know if the story of my journey and struggles are of any use to you, but perhaps there is a similar process where you can tune into your inner wisdom and see that all parts of you can get your needs met in ways that will ultimately bring only good to you.
It's tricky. It's always tricky. But I have confidence that you will do it.”