By Jillian and Wayne

There are many practices and teachings which offer a model of identifying parts of ourselves in order to gain space from our reactions, to heal deep emotional wounds, and to build a centered adult part of ourselves. We have personally and professionally experienced the gift of self love that engaging with this type of work can bring.

We are not currently affiliated with a specific teacher, paradigm, or practice as it seems to be the phase of us offering our gifts from our own autonomous hearts and from our passion for the healing power  that intimacy with self/others/God offers people. However, what has remained from our years of dedicated self-to-self practice in which we paid a facilitator to hold this space for us and in which we received multiple years of training and practice in offering this work to others, is a core belief in the experiential reality of “parts” inside of people.

Each part inside of someone is a different age and has clear likes and dislikes, preferences, values, hurts and wounds, fears, and desires. There seems to be a core young part, popularly referred to as “the inner child,” which is a young version of us that is often stuck in immature (yet reasonable considering their age!) reactions, victim feelings, strong hurts, and sometimes deep attachments. There is an older part, the crone or male equivalent, which is negotiating life from often a cynical yet wise perspective, world weary and tired, eager to teach and be heard. There is a guardian part of us, sometimes judging of others and self, always protective and eager to keep us safe. There is a higher self, the seat of our soul, holding our connection to the Divine, our soul struggle, and the reason we are here. We call this our “Daemon” or divine guide- a name that Socrates gave to his inner voice of guidance. There can be many others which ,again, are often at cross purposes from each other with different goals, desires, and fears.

In the identification and negotiation process, you would begin a journaling dialogue with a part, which is then shared with us in (typically) a paid session where this part’s needs are met if possible, their desires, fears, preferences, and pains are felt. It’s about tenderly getting to know a part of you and differentiating that from what you’ve been previously assuming is “you”. The results of this process are a growing adult center of yourself that embodies reasonable reactions, a sense of peace, joy, goodness, connection to the Divine, capacity to inhabit intimate relationships with others, and, if reactions do come up, a means for which to navigate your emotions.

Your growing adult center embodies your actual age, is emotionally mature, and living from your soul bigness, expressing from your seat of humanity and healthy gender expression. The younger (and older) parts integrate into this center, their frequencies not being lost but rather flowing into the personality qualities of the adult center in an integrated way.

We feel this process is an ongoing one with ebbs and flows of intensity and focus depending on where you are at in your current life phase. In the beginning of this work, the feelings and reactions from the initial parts that come up and make themselves known can be very strong, disorienting, and even quite resistant to the process. Or the beginning phase can feel like a beautiful honeymoon of self discovery and deepening self love. This self to self intimacy is what allows and draws a deep and loving intimacy with others. It is what draws us external circumstances, including passion work, that reflects this love for ourselves.

The parts identification process is a powerful and beautiful one that we feel honoured to offer to others and with ourselves. Through multiple years of engaging with this process, we both now communicate and negotiate with one main guardian part of ourselves (the daemon). Rather than experiencing young part reactions or deep emotional states that are unexplainable or just feeling numb most of the time, communication with this one core part seems to move most reactions and open up our hearts to ourselves, others, and in our relationship.

There doesn’t seem to be a state of attainment with this work, yet rather a deepening sense of the core goodness of yourself and of life itself. And rather than create a fractured person, it produces an integrated and holistic person able to navigate practical life, emotional reactions, intimacies with self and others, and experience a personal and deepening relationship with the Divine.