A Session On Needing to Give to Receive

Eline guided me through an IFS healing session, which revealed a tender exile that believes love for me can only be conditional (tweet). That I’m unloveable unless I provide value, reciprocate, offer something.

I started by sharing that I felt like I owed her — between the “unfolding” exercise she did for me earlier in the month, her lending her car, and even this interaction where she was holding space for me. I felt like I kept getting the “better end” of our interactions, I felt bad and wanted to hold space for her.

I shared a lot of parts that came up, including ones that were not super relevant. Some that came up:

• A part of me doesn’t want to owe people because then they have power over me
• A part of me helps others so that I can call in favors later
• A part of me feels embarrassed, or even unsafe, incurring a “debt”
• A part of me wanted to be seen as self aware and gracious
• Another part of me judges that part for wanting to be seen as self aware and gracious
• A part of me feels afraid of being alone/not getting my needs met, hence the need to be able to call in favors

I named a part that was frustrated, that thought “Johnson, you’ve covered this stuff before and spent so much time on it. You’ve confronted your relationship with loneliness/solitude, why aren’t you over it yet?”. It felt embarrassed and sheepish that we were having a session about it. And it clearly wanted to dictate the conversation, to give the vibe of “yeah yeah I’ve covered all of this stuff before, it’s known territory, no insights needed here”, because it’d feel stupid if I uncovered more. The tone of the session changed when Eline named that “maybe this part is trying to lead the conversation rather than letting me guide it”. She asked if that part would be willing to surrender to her guidance, and I said yes.

Then we dug into memories of my mom offering me stuff — food, gifts, piano, whatever, accompanied by the explicit or implicit “see how good I am to you? You need to take care of me and be a good son”. I always hated and resented the implicit power she claimed over me in this exchange.

We dug into this feeling of needing to give in to her demands (which upon writing feels tied to the contempt I explored the next day with Casper). I repeatedly struggled with staying connected to my feelings and bodily sensations (which were mostly in my head, chest, and stomach areas at various points). I was at least able to name this disconnection, and the embarrassment that I feel around not being able to name and stay with those feelings/sensations, plus that I was feeling a bit tired. It’s hard for me to stay connected to a part if it’s been too long since it was last described.

Eventually, I was able to extend some compassion and love to this part that felt the need to submit to my mom, that deeply internalized the requirement to give to receive. I acknowledged that it helped me get my needs met even if it felt like it was debasing itself. I wasn’t able to name requests coming from this part I think, but I came away with (some other part saying?) “I don’t have to do that anymore”.

But I’m really glad that I now have an explicit awareness of this part that doesn’t believe I can be loved unless I give. It’s something that had always been part of my felt experience, though I intellectualized about the existence of unconditional love. I realized that this might be why Jess putting on my pants and Eline “unfolding” me elicited such a strong emotional response from me. Those felt like such pure actions of care and love without expectation of reciprocation that I think they deeply moved this part of me, and helped it believe that “maybe people can care for me without expecting something in return”. With of course the caveat that after Eline unfolded me, I did an awful and autopilot-ed version for her that I felt ashamed of.

I was struck by how difficult it was to to stay with my feelings/sensations, particularly given that early in the session I started feeling pressure behind my eyes and nose bridge, which from the previous day’s grief circle I realized was an indication (probably?) of a desire to cry. But I couldn’t, despite trying to lean into it. Apparently I have real difficulty expressing that emotion. Maybe I have feelings about crying that I need to address first, like shame (insight from a later pod session).

During this session, I often talked “about” rather than “for”/”from” my parts, in a distanced way. I wonder why I have so much trouble speaking for/from parts/emotions. Probably in part, decades of doing not that lol. Another explanation might be related to my tendency to talk in the abstract rather than inhabiting specific ones. In the session, I said “oh there’s a million examples, like if she told me to help her in the kitchen”, rather than focusing on really imagining being in a specific moment.

It’s also interesting how strong my “I got it under control, I can do my own inner work, this is settled territory” response was, the one that caused Eline to name that I wasn’t letting her guide the session. We didn’t even go into it, but I think this response came from a protector that doesn’t want me to seem incompetent. Where the exile is maybe an incompetent, unconfident, confused part. Maybe it’s related to (the same as?) the part of me that’s just confused about life, what we’re doing, and why.