The Power of Befriending the Exile Within

You're reading The Power of Befriending the Exile Within, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you're enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles. Exiles in the Psyche I had a dream that there was someone else living in my apartment when I wasn't there.  A friend turned to me and said, “Hey, did you know there is another woman living here with you?”  I shook my head.  If it was true, how was it that I had never encountered her? Gazing around my messy apartment, I realized it explained a lot. When we are young, we all learn how to exile parts of ourselves. Life demands things of us before we are ready, before we know how to show up to them.  So, we show up the best we can. We improvise.  Spontaneously and instinctually we adapt, and because of this, we survive.  It’s brilliant really, a testament to the genius latent in every person.  Then, we grow up, and we find that the same set of tools that were so successful once, don’t work anymore.  Perhaps we find that our relationships never last, or that we choose to stay in abusive ones to avoid being alone.  We find the same pattern happening over and over again and feel helpless to do anything about it.  But we aren’t helpless.  There is a way forward. Rejection as a Coping Mechanism When our unconscious coping patterns make life difficult for us, it is really the exiled parts of ourselves that are trying to get our attention.  They are making l...
Source: PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: blogging confidence featured happiness psychology self confidence self improvement exile pickthebrain self analysis Source Type: blogs