It is almost six in the morning and I already spent more than an hour in doing my favorite activity to keep my mind in shape: writing about my self, my fears, expectations and even secrets that I am afraid to tell myself once the sun rises.
I had a tea party with all the inner Carmens I know. . . No, I am not afraid that you may think I am crazy or suffer from multi personality disorder, as my dear friend Scott would say.
I invite my selves to this tea party every time I am having some different conversations going on in my head. Has that ever happened to you? This feeling of being in inner conflict or indecisive which could be very uncomfortable.
When I face an inner conflict, the contradiction inside me is holding me back the usual joy and peace I experience. This occurs I face an important decision or feel hurt. Thus, I prepare my favorite tea and organize a meeting where the CEO Carmen asks a question or throws out a topic to be analyzed from different perspectives. The CEO Carmen is ready to listen carefully, free of judgment to the others. This sets the tone for each one of the Carmens to listen to each other in a neutral terrain.
I literally stand up and go from one place to another in the circle. However, today I did not want to quite wake up and go out of my bed so I just grabbed my computer and wrote from the perspective of the intellectual Carmen, the emotional Carmen, the sexual Carmen, or the academic one. . .
No I am not crazy . . . Actually this is a very healthy exercise that prevents me from getting wild and loses perspective. I found those tea parties very helpful, especially when I have time to write the conversation in my journal and read it days, months or years later.
Sometimes the tea party is only for two of the Carmens that have a very specific personality and are in conflict. These are more intense parties and fun to witness.
The more I practice the tea parties the more I find that the needs of all of them are pretty basic. For instance those needs could be, to love and be loved, to listen and be listened. It just happens that different parts of me want to accomplish the same mission in opposite ways. They want to protect me. Once all of them are done and feel understood they are ready to delegate the responsibility of taking a final and more informed decision to the CEO Carmen.
The key here is honesty and bravery to admit the very difficult thoughts that I am afraid to say to myself.
So, I wish you wild and rewarding tea parties for your self. I still have left some nice tea to drink. Until the next post . . .Cheers!
Carmen..
ReplyDeleteI love It! I do something very similar with my "inner characters", you know like my little 13 year old who wants to hide in the corner and not participate or my little 6 year old who wants to run off and play in the middle of an M.A. class, etc.
My first tea parties started with my grandmother when i was very young. More recently my shamanic teacher has taught me to return to this lovely way of having internal conflict resolution conversations/interactions on neutral ground. I get to listen a LOT and ask questions. And we 'all' get to have our voices heard in the big decision making, or when something traumatic is happening to one of the "little girls" an she needs our support.
Guess it's more of a family tea party than a CEO meeting but it is so helpful!
See you next week..
~suu