A Room of Her Own

1. The Part That Wants to be Loved

At first there was only a feeling — anger, she said, though she couldn't yet say at what. I asked her to stay with it, to try to give it words. And once she did, a whole story came pouring out — he does this, she always does that — and before either of us noticed, we were back in the castle of the head, all analysis, no feeling left at all.

I stopped her there. You're identified with this part right now, I said. It isn't all of you — it's a part you found somewhere in the house. Let's step back from it, and find your center again.

I asked her to find her adult self — not necessarily her deepest, truest Self, not yet. For a parent, that's often easier reached through a part she already trusts completely: the competent, loving parent she already knows how to be. Imagine this is one of your children, I said. See it outside of you, the way you'd see your own child.

From that steadier place, I asked her to look again. That part — the angry one, the one telling the story — where is it now? Can you see it somewhere around you, while you stay here, in this calmer part of yourself?

This is where it always surprises me, no matter how many times I've watched it happen. Something shifts, and a person starts using a different kind of knowing altogether — not thinking anymore, but sensing, imagining. It goes back and forth for a while, thought pulling them in, imagination pulling them out again. And then, truly, it happens. She could see it. A child, she said. Eight years old, maybe. She gave it a name.

What does it want? I asked. The answer came easily, almost bratty. I just want you to see me. I want chocolate. Small, material, a little ridiculous — the way a child's wanting often is.

And what does it need? That question took longer. I had to ask it two or three times before the real answer surfaced. Underneath all the wanting, something softer was there. To be seen. To be held. To be loved, simply, without having to perform for it.

Can you give that? I asked. Can you hold her? Take her onto your lap?

She did — in her imagination, quietly, the way she would hold her actual child. Her whole body changed. Her shoulders came down. She let out a long breath. And then a peaceful smile settled onto her face — a true, timeless peace, a kind of coming home.

This is the part of my work I still can't get used to, even after all these years. Watching someone discover that they are not only the wanting, not only the old story — they are also the one who can turn toward all of it and simply give what is truly needed. Psychosynthesis calls this the Self — I sometimes call it the wise, loving parent within, the one who loves without condition. It is contentless, still awareness, yes — but it isn't only that. It is also the one who can act: who asks the question, who extends the hand, who holds what needs holding. Once you have felt that distinction in your own body, you don't forget it.

2. Every Other Weekend

I know this part from the inside too — the competent, loving parent. It's the one I lean on with clients, and it's the one who shows up every other weekend, when my stepson comes to stay.

Every time, I notice the same thing happening in me. I want to drop everything. I want to cook for him properly, listen to him fully, make sure he feels loved and seen and free to be exactly who he is. We have wonderful conversations. It is, genuinely, some of my favorite time.

But I've started to notice what I drop to get there.

Not the business — oddly, that part of me keeps functioning. I still answer emails. I still show up for my clients. That part of me is disciplined, devoted, reliable — a kind of parent-part in its own right, I suppose, one that knows how to take care of things.

What I drop first is smaller than that, and more important. My morning practice. Drinking enough water. Sleeping enough. Showering, some days, later than I'd like to admit. The quiet things that don't take care of anyone but me — the things that, over the long run, are exactly what let me keep showing up for everyone else at all.

I know this pattern well enough now to name it while it's happening, and I still do it anyway. It has cost me burnout more than once. Knowing the map does not mean you stop walking into the same room. But I am slowly learning to befriend the more quiet hidden inner personalities that often hide in long forgotten rooms.

3. The Room She Forgot

This is what I keep noticing in the people who find their way to me. Not parents with a parenting problem, exactly. More often, women — mothers, mostly, though not only — who are already doing everything right. Present, devoted, attuned. Building, room by room, a home where their neglected parts can become fully themselves.

And somewhere in all that devoted building, a door gets shut on a room of her own. The part that wants to speak in her own voice. Build her own thing. Be seen as herself, not only as someone's mother.

It isn't a competition between these two rooms. It never was. But one of them is loud, with stong needs and is rewarded constantly — and the other waits quietly, the way the child in my client's story waited, for someone to finally ask not what she wants, but what she needs.

I don't have a tidy ending for this, and I'm suspicious of writing that pretends to. But I know this much: the room doesn't disappear just because the door is shut. It's still there, still yours, still waiting to be opened. That's the whole practice, really — not fixing yourself, just remembering which rooms are still in the house and discovering what is waiting there for you.