Written by: Nadija Bajrami, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Feeling stuck in your life? Can’t stop self-sabotage?
Let’s explore your “Inner conflict” that could be at play beneath the "stuck-ness" you might feel.
What do we mean by inner conflict? The underlying cause for “stuck points”.
So many of us struggle to achieve lasting success because we end up sabotaging our own efforts. We make great efforts to change and move forward, but then a setback leaves us feeling like a failure all over again. If you have been working on a goal in any area of your life and you feel like you are not making any or very little progress, and are rather spinning in circles despite great efforts, you may want to look for a potential inner conflict. The inner conflict is one that is happening between the different “parts “of us.
What are “parts”?
Inner Parts are not multiple personalities but rather a “sum of one unified whole”.
We all have parts, and this does not mean that we are different people or have multiple personalities, but rather that we are human. Working with your inner parts allows you to uncover the most beautiful elements of yourself, that often have been buried. When these elements are unleashed, you feel more in harmony with yourself, you can more easily connect and relate – to self, others and the world.
Let me start out by asking how often do people experience inner conflicts that prevent them from achieving their goals?
As hypnotherapists, we often use proven techniques to help our clients change undesired habits and achieve their personal and professional goals. Yet, despite the best efforts of both our clients and us therapists, unresolved inner conflicts often prevent our clients from reaching their full potential. This is when Parts Therapy comes into play and often provides the answer.
Parts Therapy is the concept that our personality is composed of a number of various parts from our subconscious. Parts-work therapy attends to the conflicts between parts which when left unresolved can sabotage our efforts towards healing and prevent us from achieving our goals. Parts therapy can help you resolve Inner conflict. That conflict takes the form of reluctance in one part of our personality to fully embrace our desires to move forward in life.
Parts therapy is truly efficient when the results from symptomatic hypnotherapy are limited. when our client reports limited success, we can often hear it in their language. We know there is an inner conflict when our client says things such as “a part of me would love to do it but another part just can’t let go”. Our role as a therapist is:
To help our clients to recognize the part of their personality in conflict with the goal they want to achieve.
To help our clients acknowledge the part of their personality that wants to change.
To determine the positive intention behind the conflicting part’s behaviour.
To establish mediation between the parts and eliminate conflict through negotiation.
To help both parts reach a satisfactory compromise for the client’s highest good. This is an essential part in this specific therapeutic process.
To integrate all parts back into the client’s personality and always thank their subconscious mind for the great work it does for the client.
To provide positive and empowering suggestions based on the agreement reached between parts.
I will use a case study to illustrate how parts therapy works and how I have included this therapeutic modality in my client’s therapy plan.
When thinking of inner conflicts issues and resolution, one particular client springs to mind. Holly is in her 40s, married and the mother of two lovely children. When she first contacted me, she just got promoted to an executive position within the company she has been working in for the past 10 years.
Holly heard about me from another lady client I helped who suffered from anxiety, especially in her work environment where she was often chosen to speak in public. Holly came to me because she related to the stress and what she used to call “a crippling anxiety”. She did not understand why she was always feeling this discomfort.
Holly told me that she had everything that most people would want to have but despite all the good things she had in her life, she could not feel happy and appreciative. In fact, her mind was constantly filled with negative thoughts, always discounting the positive. She believed that the good qualities or achievements didn’t count, that anyone could accomplish what she did. Those negative thoughts had her head spinning often making her feel dizzy.
When I asked Holly what she thought was causing these thoughts, she said that she did not feel worthy of the life she had. She then said that a part of her did not feel good enough, beautiful enough, or loveable enough to have the family she had. She did not feel she was capable enough to deserve the new position she had been promoted to. Every time she was trying to enjoy herself or what she had, a part of her kept sending her those sabotaging thoughts that she just did not deserve all she had.
Holly really wanted to be happy, but she just couldn’t “switch off” that part of her that kept nagging her and kept repeating that this was probably because she did not deserve to be happy.
After explaining how parts therapy through hypnosis works, Holly agreed to book the first session with me.
What had Holly tried before seeing me?
Before contacting me, Holly tried conventional therapy with no results. It is important to note that she has not formally been diagnosed with any anxiety disorders and was opposed to taking psychotropic medications of any sort as she feared they could affect her personal and professional life.
Holly also signed up for some evening mindfulness and meditation classes which, she said, had been helpful in helping her relax but the inner negative thoughts and dialogue persisted.
How did I arrive at my course of treatment of Parts Therapy?
Before taking any new client on, I always ask them to book a discovery call to make sure that working together is a good fit.
Through the initial discovery call with Holly and listening to how she was explaining what she felt, I understood there were parts of her in conflict. For most of the time, the self-sabotaging overbearing part of her was in the driver’s seat of her life and was preventing the wonderful, happy, and confident person she was to come out in her private and professional life.
Living with this inner conflict led her to sometimes feel directionless and pushed her to always work harder and do more, feeling that she always had to prove herself as otherwise she couldn’t avail of anything good or feeling worthy of all the good existing in her life.
What modalities or therapies did I implement and what was the outcome of the services I provided?
First session: I used a symptomatic hypnotherapy intervention, the Cloud Metaphor to help Holly shift her entrenched beliefs and negative self-talk. The Cloud Metaphor is not the therapy itself but a way to create the time and space Holly needed during therapy to accept new and positive reprogramming to be able to handle every situation with calm and confidence. This helped the therapy to move along at a brisk pace without interfering with any coping skills Holly may have developed to help her deal with past failure and limiting beliefs.
We mapped Holly’s limiting beliefs and negative thoughts and the way it made her think, feel and act. I used the Cloud Metaphor to effectively discharge the symptoms of Holly’s problem and negative thoughts, feelings and actions.
Second session: We expanded the work with the self-sabotaging thoughts and used another symptomatic intervention, the Mirror Therapy, helping Holly forgive herself for her past failures and for not being there for herself so that she can look forward to her future with a sense of certainty that things will work out just fine.
The third session: I used Parts Therapy to communicate with the sabotaging part of her personality and harness the power of positive intention. I helped the part of her that was sabotaging her efforts and making her feel unworthy of a happy life to work for her and not against her.
We acknowledged that this conflict part was an important part of Holly’s subconscious mind and acknowledged its positive intention. I then asked that specific part to explore some more beneficial ways of working to help Holly. The goal was to find an agreement between parts and once an agreement has been met, I returned all parts to their relevant internal roles.
I also used some short mind coaching sessions in between to help Holly keep up the good work and remain accountable to herself and her goals.
This 3-session therapeutic plan has helped Holly see things differently, step into her power, optimize the way she lived her life and allow her to accept herself and reach her full potential.
Parts therapy is extremely powerful and can be truly life-changing, aiming at inner conflict resolution.
We are all worthy of love and of having a happy life, we all matter, and we are all enough.
My work and clients have helped me fully realize that we all have the needed resources within ourselves and that we just need that little bit of help to unlock them to reach our full potential and get the life we deserve and desire.
Nadija Bajrami, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
French by birth, Nadija has lived in Scotland for 7 years and has travelled the world. After recovering from some serious health issues, Nadija had a wake up call and came to Ireland to find her path. She has been living in Dublin since 2017.
Nadija is an empowerment specialist and holds a double diploma in Hypnotherapy, Mind Coaching and online therapy.
She is dedicated to help her clients get empowered, supercharge their confidence and self-esteem, overcome their limiting beliefs as well as manage anxiety, symptoms of traumatic experiences and helps people on their grief and healing journey through her therapy, coaching and spiritual work.
