By Dr. Gail Cloud
The other day I opened my computer and the last 3 years and 180 pages of these words just disappeared. I was shocked. Years of work just gone. As much as technology has helped society over the years, it also glitches and malfunctions and causes more harm than good. Both are true. I have no idea what happened, nor do I know how to retrieve them. While part of me is upset by this, another part thinks that there is some way to retrieve them and I just don’t know how, and another part of me says, oh well, so I move forward. The years of words are past. I am here now.
Not only am I sharing something disturbing that happened to me, I am also describing how these are parts of me, parts that all of us have inside of us at one time. In other words, we have many parts of us that make a whole. Our job is to integrate all our parts. Each one has something important to say to us. In addition, I am describing how crucial it is for us to bring forward to our awareness both sides of things. This could be how a parent could be both cruel and evil in some ways, and also good and helpful and loving in others. For myself I have worked hard to reconcile the good and bad of my father for me over the years. I even wrote a memoir describing my experience with him. How can one person be both evil and destructive in some ways, and also good and loving and fun in others? Our job is to make sense of the dichotomies and take in what we like and what helps us, and to decide to release those parts that don’t help us and make us better people.
In fact, I wrote a poem for my son for his birthday recently, and that is something my father did for us. I liked that immensely. And so I decided to carry this on. I am like my father in many ways. Most of the ways I like. Some of them maybe not so much.
If you would like some help in this process of bringing our parts together, please reach out and schedule a session. www.bodypresencing.com., gail@bodypresencing.com. Or call me: 314-995-9755. I enjoy being a guide to you being your own agent of health.