Did you ever meet someone who is always cranky? Or constantly complaining about something? Or desparately in need of attention? Chances are, that person is being run by a part of their self that might do better with some healthy, uplifting attention….To learn more about how ego parts could be running your show and what you can do about it, read on…

On Sunday, Darren Littlejohn, author of 12 Step Buddhist, spoke to a large audience of In the Room members in South Florida in a workshop sponsored by In the Rooms and The Treatment Center. The message I got from his talk is that regardless of what we do to grow our recovery, 12 steps are the foundation and looking to enhance the process with additional inner work does really help. In Darren’s case, he is a Buddhist and he shared meditative techniques with the audience as well as a technique he called “Aspects of Self”.

According to Darren, his Zen teacher studied with the creators of Voice Dialogue, Sidra and Hal Stone, and developed a Zen adaptation of their work, which Darren further adapted into what he calls “Aspects of Self”. (An interesting look at Voice Dialogue, developed by the Stones, can be found in their book Embracing Our Selves: The Voice Dialogue Manual, in which they discuss the parts of self that can plague us when kept unconscious, but can add to the strength of one’s self, when respected, accepted and understood.)

In Darren’s ‘Aspects of Self’ part of the workshop, he asked audience members to get in touch with and then “be” different aspects of themselves aloud in answer to specific questions he asked. For instance, he asked people to “be” their controller and then he asked the controllers questions aloud and asked them to answer aloud. Then he called on individuals in the audience to tell the group what they, as the controller, had to say about different things like what their job is, how they get along with others, Higher Power, etc.

The interesting part came when he asked people to take on the persona of the addict within them. One by one, members of the audience shared their feelings as ‘the addict’ and you could feel a subtle shift as people gave voice to their addict and learned from the addict in the people around them.

As someone who does this work a lot, both individually and with clients, in a written form, I found Darren’s workshop valuable in that it opened doors for me to further work with my own inner addict, inner controller, and others who were mentioned.

When I do this work with my clients, I call it ‘Parts Work’. Trained by Tim Kelley, founder of the True Purpose Coaching Method and author of True Purpose: 12 Strategies to Discover the Difference You are Meant to Make, I find parts work to be one of the most powerful tools in my coaching repertoire, especially for clients in recovery from substances, behaviors, and codependency.

Parts work is designed to allow the participant to get to know all of the disparate parts of self that have long been pushed down yet keep popping up and wreaking havoc on everyday life. By forming a respectful relationship with one’s parts, or to use Littlejohn’s language, ‘aspects of self’, the recovering person now has a way to learn more about the motivations behind the character defects that run so much of the show, and gains tools to negotiate with the parts and help them learn new ways of being and becoming aligned with the recovering person’s new, healthier lifestyle.

To take it a step further, when I do Life Purpose work with clients, through which they get detailed, useful information on why they are here and what specific contribution they are meant to make in this lifetime, I teach them parts work to help them break through the blocks that are keeping them from manifesting their purpose. In fact, parts work is an excellent tool to align one’s ego parts with the intention of one’s soul, also known as one’s life purpose.

I completely agree with Darren’s invitation to start with the steps, consider them your foundation, and then move beyond them to gain additional inner and outer growth. They provide us the ability to clean up our relationships with God, ourselves and other human beings. In two weeks, I’ll be leading a 12 step weekend workshop at the GCNA Naranon Memorial Day 2010 Convention at Bahia Mar Hotel. (Go to www.Nar-Anon.org for more information on this convention or contact me) I do this work with others because of the foundational nature of the steps to recovery. They provide a priceless paradigm for recovery that is open to enhancement and expansion. Indeed, for many of us, there is more out there to help us grow that can help us go even further in these three vital relationships of God, self and other that the Steps guide us to heal. Therapy, coaching, and meditative practices to name a few.

Parts Work, too, is one of the many paths available to bring about this inner healing. Neither Darren, nor Tim Kelley, nor the Stones, invented the idea of addressing the parts of the ego and becoming a more integrated, whole person as a result. In the 1970′s, Depth Psychologist Ira Progoff wrote At A Journal Workshop: Writing to Access the Power of the Unconscious and Evoke Creative Ability which includes an entire section called The Dialogue Dimension, in which he has participants do dialogues with persons, works, the body, events, situations and circumstances and society. In a later chapter, he invites them to dialogue with their Inner Wisdom. (For more information, go to www.intensivejournal.org.)

I attended his Intensive Journal workshops regularly through the 1980′s and found them hugely helpful in my ability to grow my relationship with my Higher Power as well as to better understand my relationship to my body and wrote an article on the intensive journal and the 12 steps (under the pseudonym Jane A.) which I will be happy to send you if you contact me. Now, as a result of studying with Tim, I’ve taken this work much further, both in relation to my ego parts and in relation to Higher Power, which he refers to as ‘Trusted Source’.

Tim Kelley’s unique contribution to this work can be found in his approach which guides clients to align parts to purpose. Through working with Tim and then sharing this work with my clients in recovery, I’ve witnessed and had the privilege of being a part of transformations that have allowed people to move forward tremendously in their recovery and in their lives. You can order Tim’s book True Purpose by going to http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/?af=1043560 .

If you would like to learn more about parts work and/or the life purpose in recovery work that I do with clients, please contact me for a complimentary consult or visit my blog at www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com and take the survey to see if you have enough recovery under your belt to do this work and find your life purpose. I am more than willing to meet with you by phone or in person to introduce you to this work and help you find how it could help you move your recovery to the next level!

Til next time,

All the best!

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA CEC CLPF
Family Recovery Coach (aka The Empowerment Coach)
www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.12stepfamily.com
www.familyrecoverycoach.org