Unbeknownst to many of us, parts of ourselves are living small, frightened, embattled lives—cruelly cut off from the self that engages with the day-to-day world. 

 

These are the parts that have been fanned into existence by the fear, hurt and trauma we have encountered in our pasts. They are like trembling children gone underground, throwing up shields as they fiercely guard access to the tender parts of our psyches. Their sole purpose is to protect us from ever being hurt again. 

 

The problem is, they know things, have things, and can do things, that are important to our happiness and fulfilment. They mean well, but their protection cuts us off from the energy we need to transform our lives; an energy Jolly calls “transcendent, otherworldly, spirited, full of creativity and mystery.”

 

Put your shields down and come out, we want to say. But—small, dark, frightened, and born of hurt as they are—our disenfranchised parts need reassurances and permission from our everyday selves to be set free. 

 

A core self that is split off from its secret, scared, hidden parts, leads to “small, tense, tight living,” Jolly says. How can you live up to your potential, she asks, unless all the parts are united? 

 

The question is, how do we persuade them to come out?  

 

Stop thinking, Jolly says—one of the first tenets in her tour of creative processes to achieve integration. Give your intellect a hall pass. Listen with curiosity and inquiry to what your body and your psyche are trying to tell you: those are your lost parts whispering, sometimes shouting, for your attention. 

 

As a writer, I was especially attracted to her writing exercises. I have had the privilege and advantage of having watched Audrey Jolly walk her talk, when long ago we belonged to the same writing circle. During a free-write, she’d disappear into the zone, scribbling madly. When the bell rang, she’d emerge with full pages and margins full of “rogue” ideas, ideas that “were often more interesting and personally engaging than the writing path [she[ was on at the time.” Bring on the tangents, the cross-pollination, the peripheral thoughts, she says. With spontaneity comes possibility. 

 

When you feel blocked, that’s a voice, too – that’s a disenfranchised part saying, Hold everything, you’ll get hurt if you enter. Get back into your everyday. I’ve put the block up for a reason—so you don’t get hurt. Blocks, Jolly says, are the portal to creative gold – where “the vulnerable, core material resides.” 

 

I love the paradox of this, that the shut-down parts of us have the most exuberant things to say, if only they can be coaxed to do it. It’s a beautiful realization.

 

“Resistance,” Jolly says, “often rises up just before a breakthrough.”

 

Our bodies have stories to tell us. After reading this book, I imagine mine as a grand old castle full of secret staircases, locked doors, doors slightly ajar, doors wide open into a yawning darkness or a welcoming light. For every door, I have a key and it is up to me to find the right one. My body will help me. My creativity is the way in. 

 

The chapter on anxiety and fear was particularly instructive, teaching me breathing techniques that hovered over, knowing them to be effective, yet lacking the know-how to practice them effectively. 

 

My copy of this amazing book—itself a portal to golden possibility—is full of underlines. I recommend it to all of our everyday selves, as well as to all of our cowering, hidden selves yearning to be free. 

      – Heidi Croot, author, business writer, and principal at Croot Communications.