When I got embarrassed, I got struck in a place where I could no longer bear to choose to let her talk--to choose to follow those small impulses. So instead of me consciously acting out the impulses and saying the words that came up from her, I let go of control. And she took over, not in any threatening way, but because I wasn't able to believe that it was okay for her to talk, I couldn't hear what she said.

This was an important lesson for me because I had always worried about about how I mostly repeated words that I could hear in my head rather than switching more completely. I wondered if I was still repressing the insiders when I needed to let them out more; or, on bad days, I worried about whether the fact that I had so much control meant that I was just making it all up. When I discovered that I didn't remember what I had said after I let go of control, I realized that my choosing intentionally to let the insiders speak allowed me to hear them. Choosing to let them speak meant that I accepted their existence and therefore could bear to hear what they said.

In the last few weeks, I have moved away from just repeating words that come up in my head to a more complete kind of switching. It used to be that almost all the time everything was filtered through me (blue). Now the others act more autonomously, but blue is still there watching. I try to be intentional about it. If I feel pressure inside, I try to make space to figure out who wants to talk and let them write or do something that they want to do. I think if I waited until they forced a switch, I wouldn't remember. However, because I choose to switch, I am still present.

4. Sometimes reaching out to the insiders can really help. I recently had a nasty new bit of memory, and even though it was a small fragment, it overwhelmed me. But I was able to get in touch with the part that had the memory, even though I didn't know her before, and find positive things about her and nice things for her to do (a chorus of voices in my head said to go to the zoo, so after a minute's resistance, I decided to do so). At the zoo, she wanted to see the lions, and she decided she would take the name baby lion or little lion because she wanted to grow up to be strong and fierce and able to protect herself. The memory came up Friday night. By Sunday, her presence wasn't the presence of a child overwhelmed by something bad that happened to her, but a child who was excited about having been to the zoo.

I have sometimes said that what seemed to happen last fall with the adult parts was that they gradually gained ego strength and became more fully rounded people, but as that happened they also overlapped more. I visualize that what happened with this new little one is that she started out as narrow--just a memory fragment--and I found ways for her to get wider, so that she included happiness and playfulness, not just pain.

next: The Whole and the Sum of the Parts