About 'Voice Dialogue, the Psychology of selves and the Aware-self-process'
‘Voice Dialogue’ is an individuation process. This process guides us in the discovery of the energies that animate us. At the same time it furthers the enfoldment of an Aware Self, of an Inner Witness. Developing such a ‘witnessing, and aware space” inside us will help us to exercise free choice, enable us to build a loving relationship with who we are, and to hold the ‘tension of opposites” in our psychic structure.
Voice Dialogue is based on the ‘The Psychology of Selves and of the Aware Ego” as created and developed by Hal and Sidra Stone, PhD. USA. It conceives our psyche as a Family of subpersonalities, or Inner selves, and teaches us to relate in a conscious and loving way to who we are and how we feel.
Voice Dialogue is a powerful device for self-growth, a wonderful complement to any other technique or therapeutic endeavor. It invites us to a concrete and judgment-free experience of our psychological processes and of our dynamics in relationships. However, it is not a therapy; it is a consciousness tool; it should not be used as a substitute for psychiatric treatment.
It really teaches us an Art of living, an Art of loving, of understanding oneself and the other; a way of entering the Mystery of Self.
We will experience ourselves as a ‘three dimensional Mandala,’ a volume of Conscious Presence, where our sensations, emotions, images and thoughts, become Inner persons. Inner persons, who respond, relate and find their place and peace in our welcoming Awareness.
Illustration © André Hiernaux
To love is to know. It is to embrace our light as well as of our shadow. As the moon wanes and waxes and back again, we too will travel from strength to frailty, from joy to pain, from turmoil to silence. Each of these ‘forms of self’ weaves the Body of our life and challenges us to honor it as it is!
Love requires a body, demands an incarnation, a quality of substance, an intensity of being. We can awaken this by a sensitive, feeling relationship with ourselves, with the other, with Nature, with Life itself. We can further it through an ongoing encounter and sharing process that unites heart, spirit and matter; that builds on our five senses, on our creative imagination, on the power of our love. This can be seen as a spiritual service, a spiritual discipline, leading us to an intimate linkage and acceptance of our present moment experiencing.
‘Voice Dialogue’ practice is full of spontaneity. It stages a lively face-to-face between facilitator and client. It sends us on a Journey where we explore, discover, and nourish all our energies. It is a dance of selves, full of humor, of surprises, serious and yet tender, where we grow rich, not only with what we have mastered or acquired, but also with what we ignore or reject in ourselves!
What can we gain? To be true; to find a lost quality of being, the bubbling aliveness that we knew as small children close to tears, close to laughter and sheer joy, close to the heart. Don’t we yearn, deep down, to turn to our feelings, to our needs, to a meaningful life; to see the world afresh, to recapture this early enchantment, when we were still curious about everything?
Our work begins when we consciously experience our personality, as it manifests itself in our everyday life. We will access what stimulates, enraptures, discourages, hurts or frightens us. We will learn to live with our contradictions, to recognise the value of our resources, to balance our strengths and weaknesses, to renew our capacity for joy and our sensitiveness. We will translate our life situations into the physical experience of emotions, images and thoughts. We will meet the Inner Selves who rule over us, move us or block us, and realise why we act and react in certain ways.
As we start to draw from our Inner Well of Love and Wisdom, as we relate with stability and kindness to our various Selves ... we will become our own guide, our own Spiritual Friend. These Selves will speak to us, quiver in us, cry and become angry, impart their knowledge, share their experience, and finally come together inside us like an Inner Tribe, an Inner Family. As a Witness, we will step back; stand upright in the Center of who we are, of what we go through. We will enfold a Holding, conscious Presence, harmonising the infinite variety of life’s expressions inside us.
We will learn to respond to our vulnerability, to what we lack, to the small helpless child we become when we are hurt. We will gain maturity, autonomy; support ourselves in difficulty; create peace where division reigned.
We hold in our hands the key to our universe. When we take responsibility for ourselves, we acquire the capacity to choose our own direction; we actively partake in our own evolution. We reduce compulsive dependence; we stop accusing others, and start relating more consciously instead.
You and I can open ourselves to the most radiant adventure of love:
the inner and outer adventure of relationship,
born between yourself and yourself, between one and the other,
between the Cosmic Source and our human Heart,
at the core of our Being.