Advanced Treasure Maps to the Soul - Focusing Resources

Advanced Treasure Maps to the Soul ANN WEISER CORNELL & BARBARA MCGAVIN

AEGINA, GREECE

MAY 4-10, 2017

It’s Impossible!

As you know, every Treasure Maps session is about a Tangle. A Tangle is a highly complex problem that cannot be solved by straightforward means. Trying to solve this kind of problem can be frustrating because it seems to resist change. In a Tangle, we are so completely enmeshed in the problem situation, that every way we try to get out of it actually makes the problem worse.

In a Tangle: o You are in a complex, stuck situationo You can’t think your way out of it. Every way you can think

about the Tangle is still part of the Tangle.o Every action you can imagine has negative consequences… or

simply doesn’t work.o Other people are involved somehow - either you are entangled

with them, in outright conflict with them, or you feel alone and unable to connect with them

o Two or more parts in you are at odds, locked in an inner struggle.

o There are painful emotions involved: fear, sadness, anger, shame, anxiety, frustration, despair, longing…

And we also know: o Even if it is apparently about just one area in your life, a Tangle

actually reduces your ability to live freely and fully in all areas of your life. (The upside of this is that as any Tangle starts to untangle, all areas of your life become more freed up.)

o A Tangle involves your integrity, your autonomy, your sense of worth, whether your needs matter and can be met, and ultimately your identity.

o At the heart of a Tangle, some kind of ability to engage in life freely is impossible.

Why is it impossible to ‘figure out’ or ‘solve’ or use willpower to unstick a Tangle?

A living body is an interaffecting system… the parts are not separable or simply interchangeable. We live in an interaffecting world. And our Tangles exist within this intricate mesh of interaffecting and implied carrying forward that is not amenable to being taken apart and fixed like a car or light switch.

Advanced Treasure Maps © Barbara McGavin and Ann Weiser Cornell 2015

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Tangles are a stoppage in process - not a problem in understanding. We may know (or think we know) a huge amount about what happened and when and what we felt then and how we feel now and much more. This is still within the realm of cut-up-separate-bits-that-we-can-reassemble.

The moment when we really acknowledge that this situation is beyond our ability to think our way out of is the moment of hope, the moment when it is possible to shift levels. We can stop pinning our hopes on strategies and solutions that will never, can never bring resolution and carrying forward. And as soon as that happens, we can begin to pause, to create the kind of space within which our distressed parts can finally receive the kind of relationship they have been longing for. As those inner relationships heal, the space for a felt sense of our Tangle can form.

Some abilities of the Felt-Sensing Level: o Multiple points of view can be experienced simultaneously o Explicit understanding is not necessary for carrying forward to

occur o Past, present and future are simultaneously experientially

present. Carrying forward changes how you have your past, present and future.

o Whole situations spontaneously carry forward without logical direction or conscious choice – novel possibilities arise, situations and actions flow

o After something carries forward, it seems as if the change could not have been otherwise.


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What are Parts?

Let’s explore more about what parts really are.

Parts arise as naturally occurring products of traumatic stoppages. Okay – so what does that mean?

Let’s look at it the other way around first: carrying forward happens when what is needed for a next step to occur is available. That might be a smile of encouragement, or it might be a clear boundary or it might be patient understanding or it might be some kind of information or a physical resource. Whatever it is, the important bit is that it is possible for the next step to happen. And from that next step happening, another step is implied. And so on.

Stoppages occur in situations when what was needed for carrying forward the next step was not available. Something that was needed was missing. As long as a stoppage is unresolved, when you encounter similar situations you continue to experience that in your body as a sense of ‘missing.’ You feel that ‘missing’ in your body as a discomfort that is searching for something to bring the relief of carrying forward. It is very specific, very finely tuned. That sense of missing implies what would bring carrying forward in that situation.

When whatever was ‘missing’ has been ‘filled in,’ a situation is able to carry forward again (recommence). Even though the missing is very specific – not just anything will do – often there can be many different somethings that can bring carrying forward for the same situation. The next step then forms spontaneously and naturally.

If you are free to explore alternative ways of finding what was missing, a stoppage can be a learning experience. Difficult perhaps, challenging certainly, but if all aspects of your being are free to engage and act, stoppage can be an opportunity for learning and creative problem solving. You are able to shift to more inclusive, more flexible way of interacting with the world.

What makes a stoppage traumatic?

When taking action to resolve a situation brings the potential for punishment or failure, that can create an internal conflict. So now you have a dilemma – in the situation that is now stopped there is still a next step waiting to happen. That doesn’t change. Your body still knows that there is a next step that should happen and would happen if


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only what is missing were available. And taking action to find and fill in what is missing feels fraught with danger. That brings anxiety and fear. Taking direct action then becomes ‘dangerous’ and must be somehow controlled.

Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. You are stuck.

Okay, so now what can you do? Here is this situation where interacting naturally and freely in the world feels dangerous. The stoppage has become complicated. It now includes an inner conflict between the organismic implying and aspects of self that are concerned with safety and reduction of immediate pain. And, of course, this inner conflict implies that there are now parts. We could say that it is now a traumatic stoppage.

Once there is traumatic stoppage you have less than your full self available. The aspects of yourself that are now engaged in keeping you safe are subtracted from your whole self engaging and interacting in the problematic situation.

There are ‘Parts’ that are still attempting to solve the problem of the stoppage - indeed they put their full effort into doing so. Unfortunately, the ‘solutions’ that they are able to create are limited and narrow and often conflict with each other. They are generated from and bound by the narrow points of view that parts have. They are constricted by the concerns for safety that are felt by many parts.

Over time, parts develop habitual cycles of thought and feeling and behaviour to deal with situations that resemble the original one in some crucial way.

What is available is only a segment of your whole being. So resolution becomes impossible. There may be some differences in each instance of the playing out of a stopped situation, but the implying does not change.

What is needed to resolve a stoppage, to bring carrying forward of a stuck situation, is the ability to interact with all aspects of a situation from a larger, more inclusive level - what we call the ‘felt-sensing level.’

What is needed to be able to move to a ‘felt-sensing’ level with a traumatic stoppage is what this course is all about.


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Our Origin Story (what we jokingly call our Big Bang Theory)

1. Something happened so that our ability to interact freely is stopped in a particular situation. Other processes do carry forward, but our full self is no longer available within that situation.

2. A kind of encapsulating frozenness occurs at the stoppage. Experientially time stands still. So when we are in similar situations our whole being experiences the new situation as if it were the originating situation. We can’t really tell past from present in this kind of state.

3. That encapsulating frozenness ‘is’ (or gives rise to) the first of the part-types to form: the Small One. It is closest to Self but it has become constrained. It holds (is) an important aspect of our ability to interact in life. It also holds the ‘knowing’ of how it would be if it could be and the ‘knowing’ of what is missing. Over the years this part of us may have come to believe that it is impossible to get its needs met. It may believe that the only possibilities are rejection or failure or even possibly death.

4. To soothe, manage, and respond to the ‘unbearable’ feelings of the Small One, a second part-type comes into being: the Defender. It has the task of trying to resolve the stopped situation which is still being carried by the Small One. But it has to try to do that without access to the abilities and energies that are now trapped in the constrained Small One. It is also disconnected from the ‘knowing’ of what is wrong and what is really needed to bring carrying forward. Most of the time that means that it is managing feelings of discomfort that stem from the experience of stopped process. It lives in the present (and remember that this is the frozen encapsulated past/present where past and present are merged experientially). It is absorbed by the present problems presented by the incomplete stopped process of the Small One. To it, the situation feels urgent and compelling. So much so that it has no regard for future consequences. It acts automatically, impulsively, compulsively often using well worn strategies that have at least somewhat mitigated feelings of discomfort in the past.


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5. The actions of the Defender don't resolve the stoppage. (Remember that you need your whole self sensing a situation as a whole (felt-sensing) to be able to experience carrying forward in a stoppage.) In fact, new problems arise from Defenders’ attempts to find what’s missing and soothe discomfort. So a third part-type forms: the Protector. As our ability to reason develops, Protectors start to try to figure out how to make things better. There are two problems here:

1. It is doubly disconnected from the source of knowing what would bring carrying forward. There is at least a Small One and a Defender between it and that organismic knowing of what would bring carrying forward.

2. And, it is unable to take direct action in the world. It itself cannot take the actions that it hopes/believes that will solve the problem in the world. It can only try to influence other parts of us that can act in the world.

A quick guide to what type of part you are with: Protectors are overwhelmingly concerned for your safety - whatever that might mean to them. • They are often very hard working, trying to figure out what to do,

trying to encourage you or warn you.• They may be fairly verbal; they can even seem to be your ‘mind’

talking. (For example: “My mind is telling me this isn't practical.”) • Protectors are usually not felt in the body, especially at first. (If

they are felt in the body, they feel anxious or frustrated or even despairing.)

• Protectors can be invisible, only detectible through their effects on other parts.

• Protectors worry; what will happen, what will other people think. • They doubt things, for example your competence, your worth. • They are oriented toward the future, what might or might not

happen. • They do not have the ability to take action directly in the world

using your body (they do not have the ‘car keys.’)• They may seem bossy or mean.• Protectors came into being most recently, so they seem older than

either Defenders or Small Ones. They may look and sound like adults but never forget: even if they have had to take on the cares and responsibilities of adults, they are still essentially children.

Defenders are overwhelmingly concerned with trying to make you feel better immediately.• They are impulsive and present-oriented.


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• They may not be verbal at all. • They can act, and do act. • They are oriented toward autonomy and integrity. (Also pleasure.) • They can take you over so quickly you don't know what happened. • They are usually felt in the body. • Toward Protectors they tend to feel rebellious, resentful, untrusting,

and/or afraid and small. (And they may think that you are a Protector.)

• Towards Small Ones they can either be protective or mean – kind of like an older sibling might be with a younger child.

• Defenders seem older than the Small One. In fact Defenders can seem to be any age from toddler up to adolescent.

Small Ones are very close to Self. They are the embodiment of how that stopped situation is ‘had’ by you at this moment in time.• They are similar to Defenders in many ways; these two part-types

may feel like one part at first. • Like Defenders, they also have the ability to act. • They are very non-verbal, and very young. • They seem either comatose and nearly inanimate, or they roam the

world seeking a ‘savior’ who will give them what they are longing for.

• When you are merged with a Small One you may feel:• very young• easily hurt• fragile• worthless• useless• disgusting• contemptible• on the verge of falling apart• easily overwhelmed by emotions or memories. • You may experienced a wordless sense of distress, physical

discomfort or even nameless dread or terror.

Some Things to note about Parts: Most important: Parts are temporary. They are not entities. They merely appear so. Here is how we put it in our 2008 article:

“Repetitive and habitual reaction sequences can become individually identifiable as they persist over time. Each has predictable emotional reactions, thought patterns, beliefs and behaviors.”


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Parts have viewpoints and beliefs. They see the world in a specific and limited way. They do not see the whole picture. Never let a part make decisions for you (especially in the middle of the night). Another way that we could say it: never let a part drive your car.

When you are enmeshed in a Tangle, you are identified with at least one of your parts. It is only when you are able to move into Self-in-Presence that your parts will be able to change. Until then Protectors think you are a Defender or Small One (and therefore need to be told what to do or try to control and hide what is wrong with you), and Defenders think you are a Protector (and therefore must be hidden from or rebelled against).

When parts discover that you are really Self-in-Presence, everything starts to change. Protectors are relieved that they can give up trying to be the all-knowing perfection-monitoring ‘adult.’ Defenders are relieved that they can give up defending themselves and the Small Ones from others. They are also relieved that they don’t have to do everything. And Small Ones can become free to live fully again.

When your Tangle resolves, your parts will melt into self – gladly. So there is nothing we are going to do that is like mediating between parts, or bargaining with them, or teaching them better communication styles. This assumes they will remain. Parts will melt and dissolve and be released; Self will remain and grow and absorb all the life energy that has been held in our parts. That energy will then be free to be lived and expressed in your life.


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Standing on the Edge of the Cliff

The Edge of the Cliff is a transformational place of possibility, of expectancy, of not knowing, of choice, of change, of creativity, where everything is open, nothing is yet sure or formed – a place of pure potential. It is the moment when you can pause and sense directly into the heart of the dilemma. It is the place where vision forms, where new responses emerge.

Even though Cliffs can feel more exhilarating than other types of being stuck, they are still a place of ‘impossible.’ A part feels that you could finally get what you have longed for, be able to do what you have always wanted to do, feel what you have longed to feel and another part is afraid you are going to smash on the rocks if you try.

Your life force rises up within you at these moments, standing on the edge of possibility, complete with all the pain, limitations, and fears hanging around you like tattered wings. Somewhere deep within your core, wrapped sometimes in so many layers of pain and need that it feels impossible to sense your life energy, the original implying is still striving to find consummation, fulfilment and movement into the next step of living.

The Edge of the Cliff is a particular way that “impossible” can feel, where you feel both the possibility of life moving forward again in an exciting way, and how dangerous that feels, at the same time.

Learning and danger Each time you encounter a situation similar to one that you have experienced in the past, you respond from how your body has all of your earlier interactions. You don’t think about it, it just happens. Mostly this is useful. It is learning. You develop new responses to situations in your life all the time. You learn and adapt every day.

In your process of living, there have been times when you have been blocked in living forward, where a situation has not been able to be resolved and where you have felt yourself to be in jeopardy. It is important to remember that although you have not been able to live forward freely, your body has not done nothing. Far from it. A response has been carved out in you that was the most creative and life-supporting response you could manage in your circumstances.


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Because you experienced being endangered in that situation, your body reacted strongly. Your response had a lot of charge to it. If the danger was experienced as sufficiently frightening, that response would have been seared into your neuronal pathways. That pathway may now be so strong that it automatically takes over whenever something in you feels that you are in even just vaguely similar peril.

When you were little, you had a limited repertoire from which your responses to the world could be created. You were only so strong and so tall (that matters); you only had so much knowledge of the world and people; your understanding of situations was limited. Those responses were sometimes further limited by the sense of being in danger. The responses that you were able to make helped you to survive at the time. And they were limited. They were limited then and within a Tangle they are limited now.

It may seem as if it would be very difficult to change such a deeply ingrained response. The reaction happens so quickly, how do you get to grips with it? When you come to a cliff edge, the first thing you can do is Pause, neither throwing yourself over the edge or running back to what feels like safer ground.

Different kinds of cliffs Some cliffs are so exciting you can almost taste it – your body shivers in anticipation.

Some cliffs are scary – you can see the rocks below – imagining your battered body splayed out on them.

Some teeter back and forth between feeling excited and scared. It might feel like standing on a high dive or at the top of a ski jump. Sometimes it might feel like a herd of butterflies in your stomach - butterflies with big heavy feet. Sometimes you can barely breathe for anticipation and dread.

Coming to the Edge The experience of Cliff emerges when the process has moved to a certain point, rather than being already there waiting to be located. It emerges at that moment when a new response to the situation could emerge – in the moment before your automatic patterns take over.

How do you get to the Edge of the Cliff? There are three ways. The first occurs spontaneously in life, the second occurs spontaneously in Focusing and the third occurs deliberately in Focusing.


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When a Cliff appears before your feet You can recognise it both in life and in Focusing when you find yourself there. When you have been working with a Tangle for awhile and things have started to shift. Different parts have come forward, you have been with them, they begin to change but the whole situation hasn’t yet shifted. You encounter your Tangle in your life again. Something has changed and there is a moment of possibility, of potential, of something possibly happening in a different way than ever before and yet something holds back, unsure and insecure.

Walking to the edge of the cliff You can deliberately invite the Cliff in your Tangle by sensing for what feels exciting to contemplate being able to do or think or feel and feels somehow impossible to do or think or feel.

Conflict on the edge Whatever they feel like, there is always work to do at the edge of a cliff. If everything was healed, if your vision was clear, if you were in total alignment throughout your whole being, there would be no cliff, just path and movement forward. This work requires as much Self-in-Presence as possible. It is very easy to become identified right here.

Each kind of territory will have a Cliff kind of place. The Protectors and Defenders that are engaged in a battle about whether to take this new-never-before-action/thought/belief or not will be different depending on the Territory.

How is this different from the wars that you are familiar with? This happens when there is a possibility of you doing something different and something is scared of you taking that step out in the ‘real world.’

Defenders on the Edge Defenders at the edge are either full of energy and juice, ready to take that leap or conversely, they are terrified that they are going to be thrown over the edge and told to fly.

Protectors on the Edge Protectors at a cliff edge may encourage action or try to hold you back depending on what the Defender is feeling. If the Defender is afraid, the Protector will be encouraging, finding inspirational quotes and stories to try to silence a fearful Defender. It can also be pushy, making little of a Defender’s fears. It might call that part names like wimp or scaredy-cat. If the Defender is gung-ho, the Protector will be


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pointing out the rocks and clinging to the Defender’s legs trying to make sure it doesn’t simply step off into thin air.

Beyond the cliff It’s easy to get merged with one side or the other when you are teetering on the cliff. It is also easy to be identified with something that believes that one side or the other must have the truth about what is the right thing to do. From Self-in-Presence we know that when you are inside a Tangle, you are only seeing a limited part of the whole situation. You will need to sense the whole thing freshly and hold a space for a whole new way of being to emerge.

One thing that we can say is that it will not be exactly what either side is advocating. Each part has a piece of what you need to know/feel/understand and neither part has the whole answer about what is needed in your situation. The ‘right way’ forward will be resonant with what both sides are Wanting for you. As with any Tangle war, Focusing with a Cliff brings surprising new possibilities.

Some cliff edges you will need to return to again and again before the way forward is revealed. Knowing and honoring when your being has had enough for today is to be a compassionate and supportive inner presence for these parts that are changing. Take your time.

A process for Focusing with a Cliff: 1. Be Self-in-Presence and sense the quality of this particular

Cliff – sense it as a whole. Take some time to notice what feels like it might be possible that hasn’t been possible before.

2. Notice if there is a conflict about what is possible. Acknowledge each side in the conflict.

3. Sense which one needs to be given company first.4. With the one that is first, sense how it feels in the body, sense

its emotion, sense what it is Not-Wanting and sense what it is Wanting. At each of those stages, acknowledge it and let it know you hear it.

5. Repeat with the other side.6. Invite the body to have and experience the two Wanted

feelings at the same time.7. Hold a space for something new to emerge in your Tangle.


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All over the Map!

The four territories are: Swamp (action blocks), Wilderness (addictions), Pit (despair), and Mountain Top (unfulfilled desire). Not every Tangle obviously falls into one of these territories, and some Tangles seem involved in several.

It is one of our latest discoveries that each of the territories expresses an aspect of our lives that can be found in essence in every Tangle. Each of the territories is ‘about’ an area of our lives that is somehow constrained.

So, for example, in every Tangle some kind of ability to act is blocked. Something in your Tangle will be ‘Swampy.’ In every Tangle there will be some kind of inability to restrain action – something will be ‘Wilderness-like’. There will be a Pit of painful feeling that you can fall into somewhere. And you can bet there will be a Mountain Top of deep and unfulfilled longing for some area of your life to come alive looming over them all.

Swamp of Action Blocks Action by Defenders is

• impossible • very difficult • driven (Protector-Defender collaboration)

Wilderness of Compulsive Habits Restraint by Defenders or Small Ones is

• impossible• very difficult • rigidly controlled (Protector-Defender

collaboration)

Pit of Despair Emotions that are experienced by either Defenders or Small Ones:

• held onto• overwhelming • frightening • rejected• frozen

Mountain Top of Longing Feelings of longing experienced by either Defenders or Small Ones:

• held onto• overwhelming• rejected • frightening • frozen


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Wars: Action, Emotion, Hope and Dreams And if we look at it yet another way we can find some fundamental conflicts that can show up in all the territories.

Action Wars What action to take, or not take. Whether you are doing too much or not enough or should do it differently. This is so common that we have a name for it: The Action War. And we say “The Action War cannot be won.”Action wars can occur in any of the territories though the Swamp and the Wilderness are most obviously action war zones. One of the ways that you can tell that there is an Action War happening is when you hear, “I don’t know what to do!”

Emotion Wars Emotion Wars can also not be won. The war might be about whether it is okay to have certain emotions, whether they are valid or real. Not just emotions but also thoughts and beliefs are at issue – sometimes beliefs as fundamental as what kind of world it is and what reality is. Emotion wars can occur in any of the territories however, the Pit and the Mountain Top are the territories which are centered around emotion and belief.

Truth and hope In every Tangle there is some kind of war about what is true and whether it is possible to live life with integrity and honesty. Linked with this are feelings of suffering, pain, loss, and hope. Pain and suffering can be found in every territory. How to face the truth of that pain and not live with your whole life centred and stuck in that pain. How to live with integrity and authenticity is the core issue of the Pit.

Dreams and reality In every territory there is a longing for things to be different from how they are right now. That longing can be deep and persistent. And how it shows up in a Mountain Top way is that the war is centered around hanging onto or letting go of your deepest dreams. Battle after battle rages about the nature of reality and possibility. How to live without knowing what the future holds without giving up and denying what is longed for.


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The Essences and Gifts of Each Territory If we look at the territories from another point of view we could say that there are some fundamental issues at stake in each of them:

And within all Territories there is a core of aliveness just waiting for the right circumstances to flare into full life again.

Swamp of Action Blocks Mastery, competence, and the ability to interact freely in the world. The ability to say “No” and “Yes” to the right actions for you.

Wilderness of Compulsive Action Autonomy, the ability to act with awareness, integrity and self-restraint. The ability to say “Yes” and “No” to what is right for you. The ability to take good care of yourself.

Pit of Despair The ability to maintain your integrity. The ability to know when something in life needs attention. The ability to honour your life – to honour whatever happened and to know that you have lived beyond that. Forgiveness can happen. The ability to feel deeply and to be sensitive.

Mountain Top of Longing The ability to stay connected to what wants to live forward. The ability to be persistent and tenacious and be open to the outcome. The ability to hold a vision of what could be possible. The ability to honour your life energy. The ability to experience satisfaction and fulfilment.


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Advanced Treasure Maps to the Soul - Focusing Resources

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