The imaginary child sat on my lap as I played piano. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I sang “Landslide”, one of my favorites songs by Oh Wonder. The most important lyric in that song is “I’ll be here for you” — sing that over and over to your inner child.
I sang the song over and over. Each time, the child aged. At first she was seven, then fourteen, then twenty one, then in her thirties (we were peers), and then she was old…or I was old. She was me, I was her. I sang to her as watched her trust me more and more as she realized that I will always be here singing to her no matter how old she is. She can always sit on my lap and I will always be here for her.
This was my first experiment integrating Internal Family Systems (IFS) into my music making. I had just turned off my computer, my very first session working with an IFS therapist was complete. Shout out to Lindsay Ellen Rein, my badass beautiful soul healer. In my first hour of therapy I had my hand on my heart, eyes closed. Lindsay guided me inwards, into the pain in my chest, into the trauma my body was storing. The memories of seeing my husband gazing into the eyes of another woman, seeing him fucking other women, feeling left alone on the sidelines, aching for his attention, his monogamy. But we are open, polyamorous, bisexual, curious, adventurous, explorative. For years, we’ve been in so many beds with so many people and the wounds piled up. My energetic skin was slashed to pieces with each little moment that cut me.
I didn’t want to inconvenience him or reveal to other people that I was getting hurt. I didn’t want to ruin the party. I wanted to be the cool girl who was chill with all these wild situations. I was down to try everything and if I got hurt, I kept it to myself. But after years, the little cuts were bleeding and I was losing so much spirit blood that I couldn’t function anymore. Nightmares were startling me awake, on repeat. I had to watch the memories over and over. I had to feel the pain over and over.
The pain was feeling left out, not being chosen, not being special, being ignored. I traced this all the way back to childhood. I was a new kid in school…lots of schools. It became part of my childhood identity. I was ‘the newkid’, always on the outside, always full of stories from other lands that these kids didn’t understand or care about. The kids in my new public school in Seattle didn’t give a rats ass about my summer adventures in Singapore or Switzerland. They didn’t get it. They didn’t go out of their way to include me. I could have rotted on playground sidelines.
So I gravitated to the library and the teachers. I hung out with the adults who made me feel interesting, smart, worthy of attention, mature. This was how I coped but it didn’t fix or heal the wound that was getting cut deeper and deeper. I felt left out. I felt like nobody (the other kids…the people whose opinions really mattered to me at that age) cared about what I had to say, share or offer. So I just got quiet. I wrote poetry and stories. I sang in my car and never let anyone hear my voice.
I longed to be seen. I feared being seen. What if they saw me and then still rejected me? At least if I was invisible I could blame it on the fact these kids didn’t know how to welcome in a new kid. What if they welcomed me in and then didn’t like what they saw in me. Yikes. So back to the library I ran for all my breaks and lunches.
I thought I was over this. I thought as an adult woman I wouldn’t still be so butt hurt if someone didn’t notice me. We don’t leave these things behind though. I’m fully grown, naked in bed with another woman and a man. They’re gazing into each other’s eyes and the sickness in my stomach is crippling. I’m frozen in my body. I don’t know who I should touch or where, or how. I bet I could get up and walk out of this room and they wouldn’t even notice. They’re so fixed on each other I could just disappear. I’m obviously not wanted here. I’m outside…again. Fuck.
My best friend told me to get into therapy. She was tired of answering crying phone calls from me as I walked around the neighborhood talking about the horrific pain polyamory and group sex was causing me. I started IFS therapy in particular because another friend told me it helps people who feel like they have different parts or voices inside of them who are in conflict. I felt so conflicted inside, crazy, chaotic. A part of me wanted to monogamous and hog all of my husband’s love and sexual energy directed at me and me alone. Another of me wanted to be free and wild, including everyone in our bed. Another part of me wanted to worship the sun gods and roll in the dusty soil at yoga retreats and never need to have sex again. And yet another part of me was missing my days working in the strip club, longing to feel sexual energy pulsing through my performative body again. WTF.
So I came to Lindsay. Help me, please. Where to begin? She acknowledge that there was A LOT going on inside and asked me to identify the strongest feeling, the one that was really causing me the most pain or demanding my attention. It was this heartache and jealousy. I told her that leaving the house and taking space from my husband felt impossible because I was living in constant fear that if I stepped away for one night, I just knew there would be another woman in our bed. I felt like I had to stick around to ‘save my spot’. I was co-dependent and clingy AF. Lindsay asked me if the feeling in my chest that arose when I imagined my husband with another woman was a feeling I remember having in the past, in any other situations. And that’s when the little girl appeared.
The little girl who was new in school appeared in the room (in my imagination, my mind’s eye — kind of how the Amazon Shopping app lets you place a virtual object in your room to see if you like it enough to buy it). This little girl was familiar to me. I knew her pain. She wanted friends, to belong, to feel relaxed and playful, to be included and safe to participate. She felt left out and this feeling had been showing up through out my entire life. The sexual relationships and group play were just the newest scenario, and such a raw vulnerable one.
At the end of my therapy session I had homework. I was to be the teacher, the adult woman who saw the value in this little girl. I was to draw her in and let her sit on my lap. I asked her if she would like to play music. I could show her how to play piano and sing. In fact, I had a song I could sing for her. “Landslide” by Oh Wonder perfectly conveyed my message for this little part of me.
I know it hurts sometimes but you’ll get over it…
So when you're caught in a landslide
I'll be there for you, I'll be there for you
And in the rain, give you sunshine
I'll be there for you, I'll be there for you
This song was extra perfect because a couple years before this first therapy session, I had been in Cancun. My husband met a goddess on the beach and left to spend the night with her. I walked alone down the streets, sand in my shoes, tears on my cheeks, headphones playing this song. It hit me. The power of music. Oh Wonder (Josephine & Anthony) were singing to me through space and time. They were in England years before singing the words “I’ll be there for you,” and they were. They’ve been there for so many of us now, around the whole world.
I realized that as music makers, we show up in one moment to record a piece of music that can be there for people on demand, whenever they need us. We can be a friend and a healer to more people than we can ever reach in real time, 1:1. We’re amplifying our reach and impact. They wanted to be here for me and the best and only way they could be (because in reality they have no idea I exist) is through the song the shared online. They gave me access to their emotional support through modern technology. So I realized that as an artist, I will be here for so many people and never even know it.
So back to my story…I knew this was the perfect song to sing to my exiled part. She was a wounded little girl who needed to feel included. I sang to her as she sat invisibly on my lap until we completely forgot about kids at school and lovers between sheets. It was just us — the exile part and my Self, enjoying music together. God, I cried so hard as I passed that emotion like a kidney stone. Fucking pain to express it out of the body but then…it was out.
I want you to realize three things.
1) Music heals us and we are with the artists when we listen to their recordings (time doesn’t exist) and we are there for other people through the songs we create. It goes both ways.
2) We can sing to our parts and heal them with music (consider them real people). We can include them in our music making process, sing to them what they need to hear and also let them take over the voice and express themselves in song.
3) By consciously creating music with our parts we are co-creating with them, building relationship, trust and understanding. Just like going to a therapy session with a loved-one, creating music with your part(s), is a shared experienced between multiple personalities. Co-creation is the highest form of connection. We’re not just talking and listening. We’re not just hashing out what happened and what we’ve been through. We’re decided to create something new, a new way of being, together. We’re calling in a new reality for ourselves.
update: It’s been a year since I started IFS therapy. I’m exploring deeper into co-creating music with my parts and beginning to share this approach with other artists. I have healed my sexual trauma and am able to enjoy polyamory and sexual relationships again. I now know so many of my parts and how all of them show up in sexual situations and how to take care of them when they feel left out or hurt. I have tools to prevent and heal wounds now so I feel safe to explore and play again.
CHA WILDE