This exercise called “exploring the multiple selves” aims to help our clients understand their different emotional selves (angry, anxious and sad) while building a more compassionate self. This can then help them to better regulate those other selves. When we are compassionate with ourselves we are being at our best; wise and strong with an overall perspective, and can deal with situations with calm and resilience. The goal of this exercise is for the client to experience their different parts or selves in a balanced and healthy way and as their compassionate self becomes stronger and wiser they can understand themselves more. Through this we can then begin to promote tolerance, integration and transformation of the selves.
This exercise has been kindly created and shared by Marie Bloomfield of www.bloomfieldpsychology.com.au
How to use the ‘exploring multiple selves exercise
Print out the sheet and talk the client through the different questions, considering how the different selves might have been feeling. To begin you might suggest that the client chooses a recent event where they were struggling, for example, arguing with someone, or a situation where they failed or were frustrated and then explore how each self experienced the situation.
Asking questions like “What were you doing and feeling?”, “What were you thinking?” and “What were your intentions and motivation?” within the context of these different selves can help us understand how they interplay together and which emptions come to the forefront for the client. Following this, then cross referencing the emotions with questions like “What does the angry self think of …” or “What does the anxious self think of…” can highlight where there is room for the compassionate self to be nurtured and evolved.
