In the locker room

     Usually there are three primary identities in a fractured person, G said.
     One has the job of holding the pain--the rawness of the memory, depression, anger. From this identity can come protectors.
     Another one maintains denial. "If I accept this is really happening, I will die." This belief isn't foolish. It's necessary.
     The third is confused.
     I have a hard time believing in these primary identities. (Am I denial?) I don't understand or identify with any of them. (Am I confusion?) Supposedly, they are all parts which "feel like the real me."
 
     Today the one who came to the front struggled to discover who s/he was. "I'm not little--but I'm not [my real age]! I'm not a radical, I'm not depressed or angry. I'm not a passive reporter. I screen outside information. I may be a kind of peacemaker. I keep balance inside the system."
     "What requires you to stay separate?" G asked.
     "I'm cautious. I protect the whole. Is this true? Is that safe? Does this apply to us? Is that helpful? I screen those things. I've been in charge of walls. I build walls to protect against threats and hurts from outside.  
     "I'm not just a surface guard, looking around. My work is deeper, more foundational. I deal with structures.
     "Some walls do not need to be there. Do I let them down now--inside walls? outside walls? Bunker walls? God is a better protector than I am. I want Jesus Christ to be our protector now. I know He can do a better job than I can. He knows everything so He can anticipate any threat and He's all-powerful so He can deal with each one appropriately.  If I pull down all the dissociative walls between each of us--will that be good?"
     I don't know if G answered that. (My notes are sketchy and two months old.) At some point he asked where the rest of us were. I saw them all in a kind of locker room, with makeshift curtains dividing temporary living spaces. Maybe this was the bunker they'd chosen to hide in from the bombs going off at church.
     G complimented me for having had courage and taken risks to protect the system. He said I had an opportunity to merge with the original self. Or else he was talking to the young ones in the locker room, encouraging them to have courage and take risks. Maybe he said they had an opportunity to merge with the original self. (These notes are cold.)
     They were peeking out from behind the curtains and I read their minds: "I'm listening." They were curious.
     G said, "Invite Jesus to show you what memories contain the deepest of conflicts, that will have the most wonderful and deepest effects." As often happens, he talks too much and I halfway tune him out, as what is happening within me absorbs my attention. I was seeing all ten or so of me come to the open center of the room. Jesus was standing in the midst.
     One at a time each self, some with boldness, some more shyly, was holding out her traumatic memory to Him, each one like a ball or globe. Each memory contained a lie: "I am not allowed to have pleasure. I have to suffer," was one of them. That was a generational lie. I saw ancestors wtih dour, severe faces. Prudes. A spirit of masochism had attached to that one.
     By Your stripes we are healed. Somehow that truth was being conveyed to all of us.
     Sometimes Jesus knelt to listen or speak to a self and receive the ball she was handing Him, putting it into his heart. Sometimes while he was kneeling, others, already free of their balls and no longer hesitant or serious, were climbing all over Him.
     One self was invisible. Jesus peeked into her robe or jacket to see the very little girl inside. He pulled off her hood and offered her His hand, inviting her out. She joined the others who were free, playing with them, enjoying each other.
     All this time, as each of the others held out their lies to Jesus and He received them somehow into Himself, there was a little boy sitting apart, his arms folded, his whole face pulled into a frown.
     I was giving G a running commentary and I described what he was doing. G said, "Have Jesus tell him he can come to Him, too."
     But I said, "He already told him. He already knows he's welcome. Jesus reached out to him but he would have none of it. He pushed his chair even farther back. Jesus laughed at him."
     G didn't want to hear that so I had to explain. "It's more like a chuckle. The boy is doing this to himself. He's telling himself  'I'm supposed to be punished. I'm bad. I must pay for my sins! The others are getting away with their sins. I'm the only one who is doing it right!'  He is telling himself he doesn't have the right to come to Jesus like the others do. He is supposed to deny himself and suffer. But he knows better."
     Finally the boy got up and came to Jesus, who welcomed him with an embrace. Then he ran back and kicked over the chair! He refused to deprive himself of joy any longer! Truth overcame the lie, "I have to be perfect.' The confict was resolved. Now merging was possible. All the little selves were streaming toward me now, being absorbed into me.
     G prayed for me in closing, ". . . Help her to feel stronger, richer, more like a 'me.' We speak shalom to her. . ."

December 16, 2011