|
VOICE DIALOGUE FACILITATION:
EXPLORING NEW GROUND
Hellerwork Ink interviewed
Miriam Dyak, Voice Dialogue facilitator from Seattle,
senior staff member at Delos, Hal and Sidra Stone's training
center, and author of The Voice Dialogue Facilitator's
Handbook, Part I, published in February, 1999.
For more informatoin about Miriam Dyak and her work, go
to http://www.thevoicedialogueinstitute.org.
HW Ink: We hear that Voice Dialogue has really
changed in the last few years -- what are some of the
most signifcant new developments in the work?
MD: I can think of three really big changes. The
first one is a major rethinking of the structure of Voice
Dialogue facilitation itself, one that puts the fundamental
focus of the work on the development of the Aware Ego
process. In fact where we used to talk about "The
Psychology of Selves," we now talk about "The
Psychology of the Aware Ego." We've moved away from
spending a lot of time exploring the experience of the
selves and now hold that exploration in a larger context.
If I talk with a client's Responsible Self, for example,
my reason for doing so is to help my client separate
from that primary Responsible Self and develop an Aware
Ego in relation to it. I'm talking with the self, but
I'm doing it to support the Aware Ego, not just
for the sake of experiencing the energy of the self. And
then, because my focus is on the Aware Ego, I would spend
a lot of time talking with the client in the Aware
Ego place, helping him/her to become more familiar
with functioning in the Aware Ego. A goal of the
work then becomes -- and this is a second big change --
teaching the Aware Ego how to gracefully manage and balance
the energies of the selves. A third important development
is a stronger focus on separating from the primary selves
and a de-emphasis on working with disowned energies, especially
in the beginning of the work.
HW Ink: It sounds as if Voice Dialogue facilitation
is still essentially the same, but working with the Aware
Ego process has deepened and become more grounded.
MD: The essential nature of Voice Dialogue is
still the same, but we now have many more years of experience
to help us see what works well and what doesn't. Hal and
Sidra Stone, the creators of Voice Dialogue, have found
that the emergence of the Aware Ego is the essential
core of the work, and changes that come through exploring
the selves won't really hold without that. Without an
Aware Ego, there is nothing (or nobody) available to make
use of the information provided by working with the subpersonalities.
Without an Aware Ego we are completely reliant on our
operating ego (the central group of primary selves that
forms our personality), and decision-making sooner or
later reverts to these dominant primary selves. In other
words, we've found that it's not enough to initiate
an Aware Ego process, we have to spend real time in the
Aware Ego and create a new habit of using an Aware Ego
if we expect it to be available to us outside of a Voice
Dialogue session in our daily lives.
HW Ink: What you're saying is true of creating
changes in the body too. This is why in Hellerwork we
emphasize the subject's developing new habits of centeredness,
balance and self-awareness, so that they can create new
patterns of living which support and hold the changes
that Hellerwork makes in the physical body.
MD: That's an excellent analogy. We may come at
it from different angles, one from the starting point
of the body and the other from the starting point of the
psyche, but we're concerned with the same question: How
do we integrate and ground change in ourselves? How do
we create real evolution rather than just a lot
of dramatic upheaval that may ultimately revert back to
the same old patterns? The third significant development
in Voice Dialogue work that I mentioned, that of putting
a lot more emphasis on separating from the primary selves
and not working directly with the disowned selves, has
a lot to do with avoiding this kind of disruptive upheaval
in the psyche, and instead working quietly to support
the shift into a functioning Aware Ego. We've realized
over time that approaching the disowned selves directly
(at least at the beginning of the work), can be very counter-productive.
This is a significant modification in Voice Dialogue work
that has greatly enhanced both its effectiveness and its
safety. While it can be very interesting and exciting
to explore lots of different energies, bringing out deeply
disowned parts can make the primary selves very uncomfortable
and resistant. Worse yet, it often creates what we call
a "primary self backlash." By keeping our focus
on working closely with the primary selves and
creating clear separation through Aware Ego work, we strengthen
the subject's ability to perceive and experience their
everyday reality through the Aware Ego place rather
than by reacting directly through the selves. This can
make a really big difference in the way we go through
life -- after all, we already have a huge amount of experience
living life from the somewhat restricted viewpoint of
one self or another and of being bounced back and forth
between them. What comes out of focusing on the development
of an Aware Ego process is a new ability to create an
ever-widening space at center where we can have real choice
about what energies to include in our personal expression
and when to use them.
HW Ink: I know that the Aware Ego develops in
relation to opposites. How do you manage to create separation
from these opposites if you only facilitate primary selves
and avoid working with the disowned selves?
MD: That's a rich question that has quite a few
answers. Let me begin by saying we've found that
we can often approach the disowned energies more easily,
safely, and effectively from the protection and centeredness
of the Aware Ego place. For example, you might work with
a client who has a very strong "nice person,"
a Pleaser, who doesn't ever allow them to express any
irritation with people much less any outright anger or
rage. Let's say this client is a woman and we'll call
her Jill -- just because it's easier to talk about a real
person with a name. The stress of being nice all the time
may show up in Jill's body, it may show up in her dreams.
It's very likely that it will show up as Jill's disowned
anger outprojected on a friend or partner or child who
is angry all the time. The primary self -- the
Pleaser -- is not going to like it at all if you ask to
talk with some part of Jill that is really angry. The
Pleaser has been doing everything it can to keep what
it perceives to be dangerous (anger) suppressed, stored
in the body, projected out onto others, or confined to
the Unconscious. But, after separating from the Pleaser
in the Voice Dialogue work, it becomes possible for Jill
to connect with its opposite disowned self through
the Aware Ego, feeling the anger (at a distance) without
having to risk going fully into that energy.
Another way to facilitate opposites without threatening
the primary selves is to work with opposite primary
selves. Most people tend to think of opposites as
extreme polarizations of each other, but actually opposites
exist along an entire continuum of energy so that
some "opposites" are in less extreme contrast
to each other than others. These less severe polarizations
are easier to approach in Voice Dialogue work because
they are allowed into the primary self system while the
extreme ones are outcasts. If you continue working with
Jill, you may find that even though her Pleaser doesn't
want her to even think about getting angry at people,
she is able in certain situations to take a very strong
stand in defense of others, sticking up for a child or
a friend in an unfair situation. A certain amount of righteous
indignation is allowed in Jill as long as it's for a good
cause and not at all selfish. Helping Jill to separate
from her Pleaser and from its less extreme opposite, the
part that defends others, can quite amazingly loosen up
the tension between the Pleaser and the deeply disowned
angry part(s) as well. You might think about it like the
trim tab on a rudder of a large ship -- the trim tab is
a tiny little rudder that is easy to move and as a result
the giant rudder begins to move easily as well. But if
you were to try to move the big rudder directly you'd
meet a huge amount of resistance.
There is a near magical quality in this more subtle way
of working. You do what may seem to be a rather ordinary
facilitation with a part that isn't such a big threat
to the primary self system, and you find that it helps
profoundly to disengage a much more deeply disowned
energy further down on the continuum of opposites -- and
this is without even having to approach the difficult
or dangerous energy directly. By working gently and gradually
on the edges of the disowned territory in this way (instead
of plunging in to the deep end of the pool), we honor
the concerns of the primary selves and we also strengthen
the Aware Ego process at the same time. When the work
develops to the point where the primary selves begin to
relax and to trust the Aware Ego to start taking care
of some of their responsibilities, then it becomes easier
and more effective to approach the disowned selves.
HW Ink: So you do eventually work with the disowned
selves?
MD: Eventually we do, but only if doing
so is organic to the process and contributes to the unfoldment
of the Aware Ego. I usually let the Unconscious direct
the work in this area -- I let the subject's dreams or
events in their life tell me when it's okay to approach
a disowned self. I think that practitioners in many modalities
follow this same wisdom. Certainly I've experienced the
extraordinary effect of a skilled bodyworker whose hands
really "listen" to my body, respect the
armoring (the primary selves) and then are able to work
to release that armoring when the timing is right. I've
also, unfortunately, experienced the opposite approach
where someone has been determined to break through my
tension and force me to let go. Of course that can be
very traumatic -- and often our protection just gets stronger.
HW Ink: I imagine from my own experience that
being able to work in the kind of intuitive or "tuned
in" way that you are talking about has a lot to do
with the second development in Voice Dialogue that you
mentioned, learning to manage and balance energy. Could
you talk more about this aspect of the work?
MD: I would be delighted to because I personally
find this to be the most exciting part of Voice Dialogue
facilitation. The other aspects we've been discussing
are essential because they give us the means to work more
effectively with the Psychology of the Aware Ego and the
Voice Dialogue method. However, working with energetics
and training the Aware Ego to manage energy takes us beyond
learning to be better facilitators and gives all of us,
facilitator and subject alike, the means to live and relate
on a deeper level in the world.
One aspect of learning to manage energy grows directly
out of the work with the selves and the Aware Ego. In
facilitating the selves, we have the subject physically
move into a subpersonality. When the subject moves to
another spot in the room and becomes say a Responsible
Father, or an Inner Critic, or an Adventurer, what actually
happens is that they move into the energy of that
inner self. This is a wonderful process for initiating
a separation from self, but it's hard to use in real life.
If you're in an important business meeting, for example,
you can't really say, "Excuse me while I move to
another chair and go into my entrepreneur self."
Instead you need to be able to call in the energy
you need, bring it in to you, instead of having
to go out to find it. A lot of the new Voice Dialogue
work focuses on teaching people how to do this -- how
to be aware of your different selves/energies, how to
invite those energies in when you want and need them,
and how to adjust their energetic "volume" appropriately
to a particular life situation. When we learn to do this,
we have much easier access to our inner selves and much
more mastery of our energetic expression. The more I can
consciously regulate my own energy and channel the energies
of the selves through an Aware Ego, the less I have to
fear that some part of me will come in and unexpectedly
take over or that another part of me won't be available
when I need its energy to act effectively in a particular
situation.
HW Ink: How do we manage our energy in relationship
with other people?
MD: That's the other area of energetics where
the Stones have really broken new ground. Their earlier
work on bonding patterns, the way our selves interact
in relationship, has taught us all so much about the way
relationships are created and how they play out. Their
new understanding of "linkage," the underlying
energetic connection that can enliven all human interactions,
really gives us a picture of the "invisible"
part of relationship, the energy that is behind our actions
and words. Becoming aware of linkage (or the lack of it)
and learning to link consciously through the Aware Ego
(instead of just experiencing energetic connection and
disconnection through the selves) makes it possible for
us to to be deeply intimate with others and at the same
time maintain healthy boundaries. Being aware of linkage
is a real eye-opener for everyone, or perhaps we could
say that it lets us see a whole new layer of reality in
relationships that was previously invisible. I think this
is especially essential for all of us who work as Voice
Dialogue facilitators and Hellerwork practitioners, because
the quality of linkage, of energetic connection we have
with our clients profoundly affects the depth of the work
we do.
HW Ink: Do you talk about the energy dynamics
between practitioner and client in your new book, and
can you tell us a little bit about whatThe Voice Dialogue
Facilitator's Handbook contributes to Voice Dialogue
work?
MD: Thank you for asking. Definitely, a big focus
in The Voice Dialogue Facilitator's Handbook is
on the energetic relationship between facilitator and
subject. The book is full of sample facilitations and
in each one I've endeavored to describe the energetic
shifts, the body changes, the silences, the way the energy
in the whole room changes, as well as the words that are
spoken. I've already had very positive responses to this
from practitioners in other modalities as well as in Voice
Dialogue -- people are excited to finally have descriptions
of an incredibly important part of working with people,
something that they were often able to feel but perhaps
didn't have the language to describe. I think another
important contribution of The Handbook is that
it is really the first text written specifically for the
facilitator, for the practitioner -- I wrote it so we
would all have something to refer to after the trainings,
something designed to anchor and expand our understanding
of facilitation and examine the challenges of doing this
work. The Handbook outlines the ground rules of
Voice Dialogue work, it explores energetics in depth,
and it illustrates all the different structural components
of the work -- what happens in a Voice Dialogue session,
step by step by step. In addition, the last section of
the book explores "locating the self in the body,"
as well as working with silence, with dreams, and with
channeling the energies of the selves through the Aware
Ego. My hope is that by providing an upbeat and grounded
foundation for the facilitator, it will open the door
to a lot of new exploration and creativity in Voice Dialogue
and the Psychology of the Aware Ego. |
