How to Re-Integrate a Splintered Self

You're reading How to Re-Integrate a Splintered Self, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you're enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Have you ever felt more voices inside your head than outside on any given day? You’re not alone. Unfortunately, due to unhappiness, trauma, loss, and other issues that cause negativity to our emotional insides, we can break apart and spend days, months, weeks, and years in the middle of internal arguments. This self-fragmentation adds to our unhappiness, because it reduces us to a place of internal poverty. It robs us of our chance to know emotional wealth, the optimizing of all our internal assets. Good news: if you suffer from such internal disagreement and inner alienation, here are some tips to bring yourself back together and for your psyche and soul to move forward as one. Here's how.

1-Listen

Identify the voices inside you. Last week, I wrote a letter from one clearly defined part of myself to another. These parts had NOT gotten along for some time, but now, I suddenly saw clearly that they could be first partners, then part of a larger, happier whole. Borrowing Gail Sheehy’s wonderful terms from “Passages”, one part of me was “The Seeker”, and the other was “The Merger”. I was concentrating on looking back and somehow making sense of the most difficult part of my life, and I knew that time had fragmented myself. The letter from the “Seeker” to the “Merger” and the response identified the key disputes concerning what happened during that period.

2-Accept the Different Parts of Yourself

One of life’s great lessons is accepting. From my work on the stage, both as actor and playwright, I know that one of the theatre’s greatest gifts is the art of improv. Yes, improv is just what it sounds like, working on something without any preparation and making that lack of preparation a gift. But that’s not the core of improv. The core of improve is acceptance. If you’re on the stage doing improv, if your partner tells you you’re in the desert, then you’re in the desert, even if the theatre happens to be leaking rain at that moment. If you don’t accept, you can’t do improv. If the splintered parts of you can’t accept each other, then you can’t “perform” or participate in the drama of life together. So, each part of you, read that letter, overcome the negativity toward the other part and accept that why he or she did or didn’t do something.

3-Find Your Internal Coach

Your Internal Coach is really simply a fancy or inspirational name for a nourishing internal parent. After my Seeker and Merger accepted each other, they realized they need another internal force who would supervise their integration, bring the best out in both, help them set goals, and most of all, help them find happiness in every moment, in every situation. The biggest thing the internal coach does is outlaw toxic self-criticism inside the newly integrated being.

4-Coaching to the Best Outcome

Each day holds the possibilities of happiness, regardless of circumstances. Each day holds the possibilities of making the most of opportunities, no matter what they might be. Toxic internal criticism creates a re-splintering, and you have just overcome that, so here’s a way to mediate both feelings and events in a way that teaches with compassion. Here’s how.

5-Diary Time: Record the Day’s Events and Feelings.

1-Give thanks for all, no matter what. (Remember your improv training around acceptance!) 2-Perhaps you made a mistake or didn’t do something as well as you might have. The splintered is not inclined to provide a teaching moment in such circumstances. The coach will. The coach will act as your kind adult and say, “What would have been a better approach?” You will tell the coach, and the coach will applaud your maturity. You can then add that to what you’re grateful for. So, you see, each day is a new opportunity to reknit yourself, in case any splintering went on during the day. Everyone wants to live their life with a full deck. Everyone wants to make the most of who they are. Everyone wants to be happy. These elements are all about a life of wealth. An integrated being is the best way to maximize your assets. Be rich!

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Lars Nielsen has decades of experience helping individuals and businesses discover and share their core message. Whatever your message or audience, grab his "Make YOUR Message Matter Cheat Sheet" and put his time-tested techniques to work immediately.

You've read How to Re-Integrate a Splintered Self, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you've enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

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