Finding Beci #2
More on internal family systems therapy, burnout, somatics, and meeting my inner child
I had been over-drafting my emotional bank account for years, and if it wasn’t the pandemic, it was the forest fires roaring through nearby canyons that pushed me into collections. To my utter disappointment my trusty escape mechanism, overachieving workaholism, was no longer functioning.
Already nearing full burnout, an unresolvable work conflict knocked me flat. I wanted so badly to fix it. I tried everything I had learned: accountability, curiosity, empathy. Yet, before I could see it happening, I found myself drifting an unsafe distance from my fragile sense of home base.
My empathy was overextending to distances even new even to me. As I offered every emotional vein aiming for resolve, I instead revealed how little I believed in my own worth.
One afternoon I collapsed onto the living room floor, too exhausted to even cry. Somewhere beneath the self-abusive chatter in my head, I heard a faint whisper calling from inside:
You matter.
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My boss offered me a ten-session package for executive coaching. I took it. At that point, I would have taken anything to help me survive the pained conflict now consuming my life.
I met with the coach and shared the details, secretly hoping she might simply feel sorry for me. I desperately wanted someone to feel sorry for me. Instead, she wanted me to do “the work.”
She guided me through a somatic exercise meant to locate the source of the crippling response that overtook me during confrontation and the overwhelm and shame that flooded my body and froze me in place.
She calmed me with breathwork and meditation, then asked me to turn the feeling up to a “2.”
I had never succeeded much with therapists asking me to “find feelings” inside myself. But this time, somehow, I could access it.
A piercing sensation pulsed in the left side of my chest. As I turned it up, tightness radiated across my chest and into my throat.
“I feel it,” I said.
“Where do you feel it in your body?”
“In my chest mostly. Tight. Achy.”
“Stop there. Hold it. See if you can soothe it.”
I patted my chest gently, like I was calming a baby over my shoulder.
Then she asked me to close my eyes.
“Do you see anything behind your pain?”
And suddenly, I did.
A little girl crouched down deep in the darkness inside me. Terrified. Waiting.
I told the coach what I saw, and she asked me to bring the girl closer and comfort her.
“Our next session is in a week,” she said. “In the meantime, spend some time getting to know this part of yourself. If you feel her fear show up in a meeting or an unexpected encounter, let her know you’ve got this now. She’s safe.”
I felt an enormous sense of relief after finding the part of me that so easily activates overwhelm and fear.
That week, I talked to my scared young child part - while driving across town, while making coffee in the morning, before falling asleep at night. I thanked her for helping me survive the frightening parts of my childhood. I spoke to her the way I would speak to my own child, with tenderness, patience, and love.
For the first time, I made space for her.
After finding “young me,” I began to move through the world more lightly. I was less defensive. Less vigilant. I stopped scanning every room for danger.
In meetings, in parking lots, in grocery store aisles, I would gently press my palm against my chest and tap-tap like a secret signal.
I’ve got you now, I’d tell that young part.
And I believed it.
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