How Parts Adopt Contradictory Beliefs
Suppose a young boy feels unrecognized and unheard by his family. He wants to be seen and acknowledged but feels as though he is invisible. This experience drags on for a time, and the sense of irrelevance takes root in his heart. It seems as though nothing he does is significant to those around him.
During a dark episode, this young boy seeks out help from his friends and family. He confides in them and describes his struggles. To his astonishment, they react with overwhelming love and support. He becomes the center of attention, and suddenly his life takes on an outsize significance and importance within the family.
This experience leaves a mark on him. A part of him learns this lesson: if you want to receive love, then you must share your struggles. But this presents a problem for him. What if you begin to thrive? What happens to love then?
And there are moments when he does thrive. He has experiences of great joy. But something happens that frightens him. His family, they notice he is doing well. And then they begin to pay less attention to him.
Perhaps his mother says: “Oh, that’s so wonderful.” And then she continues going on about her day, forgetting all about him.
The boy panics. He was invisible again. A part of him identifies the problem immediately: he expressed joy. Suddenly, the part of him that seeks love and validation turns against the other parts of himself. Those aspects that bring him excitement, elation, and joy are enemies. They will rob him of the love and attention he craves.
And so the boy adopts a very dangerous belief. He must cultivate darkness in order to receive love. He must crush happiness in order to experience love.
But then something else happens. He has adopted the belief that love and joy are incompatible. If he wants love, then he must crush joy. The parts of himself that seek joy, happiness, and elation: they don’t like this at all. No, they will not consent to simply be crushed. So they, in turn, adopt another belief: they don’t need to be loved. They will abandon love, and choose joy and elation for themselves.
And now the boy is locked in an internal battle. He has rejected the need for love, and yet he desperately craves love. The part of himself that seeks love clamps down on experiences of joy and tries to stamp them out. On the other side, the part that seeks joy fights back, spitting on the idea of needing attention, scoffing that other people should hold him back from pursuing his passions.
The part seeking love begins to cultivate a dark perception of the world. It adopts negative beliefs about itself, others, and reality in order to close off any possibility of thriving. It must remain in a constant state of struggle in order to attract attention and support.
The part seeking joy recognizes this as a terrible threat. The part seeking love is darkening the world, and so love itself must be rejected. It cultivates a fierce independence and tries to numb itself to any sense of longing for connection.
Locked in this battle, each part suffocates the other. The part seeking joy blocks the boy’s ability to experience love, while the part seeking love blocks the boy’s ability to experience joy. Both begin to starve as they grow more and more hostile to the machinations of the other.
A cycle like this can last years. Without breaking that cycle, the pains of feeling unloved and despairing can feed into each other, exacerbating an experience of growing darkness.
This is inner conflict. This is how parts can adopt false beliefs. To break free of this situation, the boy must learn to untangle those knots and release the falsehoods that are keeping him trapped.
