The core self

Building the inner strength and resilience to process extreme emotions

Extreme emotions are terrifying. When I started down this path and was binging Nicole Sachs podcasts, I heard her refer to those of us who were healing as people who had big feelings. As someone who had so successfully and efficiently repressed my emotions, I had no idea what she was talking about.

I was not someone who had big outbursts, I did not cry in public (or in private), and I did not lose my temper or my cool. So I assumed that meant that I did not have “big feelings.” I still don’t do any public displays, but I have since learned that I do, in fact, have very big, extreme, terrifying feelings and emotions.

For someone who’s subconsciously scared of their repressed emotions, trying to access the most extreme forms can be overwhelming. I found a source of strength in the idea of a core self, which was something I previously would have thought was a bunch of woowoo, but which I’ve since learned is a component of many of the recovery techniques I used.

Our fragmented selves

My understanding of the core self—also referred to as the higher self or true self—is as follows: As we grew over the years, we developed a “self.” However, each time something traumatic* happened that our younger self wasn’t able to process properly, we developed a fragmented self that essentially stayed that age. Whenever something similar to the traumatic event occurs, the fragmented, younger self emerges to address the situation. Additionally, the fragmented self may have developed the idea that something was fundamentally wrong with our true self because our true self allowed the bad event to happen, and so we developed negative beliefs about the true self. Over time, as we faced more and more events in life that we couldn’t properly process, we lost access to our core self, and I suspect that many of us who got sick are almost entirely run by our fragmented selves.

I learned about this concept when I was reading about self-acceptance, inner child work and Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy—especially the works of Nicole Sachs, Richard Schwartz, and Cheri Huber—but it’s discussed widely by many different writers, therapists, and mindfulness practitioners. I’ll write more about our fragmented selves at some point in the future, but I recommend looking into it more if this is a new concept for you.

While our fragmented selves are the misguided source of fear, shame and self-hatred within us, our core self is full of love, support, inner strength, and compassion. Typically, I found that when I did a JournalSpeak session, it would be one of my fragmented selves who was ranting and raving or crying or hating me. I could tell that I had sufficiently processed the event for that session because I’d feel a shift deep within me, and suddenly the stuff I was writing would be full of compassion for the scared, sad, angry voice. It was as if for each issue I processed, a piece of my core self would appear. (Note that I’m only speaking for myself here, and I don’t know if this is how others experience it.)

This was critical for me because it was that core self, that inner strength, that source of self-love and self-compassion, that made it possible for me to deal with some of the intensely negative things within me that I had to process.

Strengthening and supporting my core self

Looking back at the process now, I realize I also did a lot of meditation and positive journaling practices to build up and reinforce my core self. Some of my work started with the early somatic meditations that I did, and it continued throughout my entire recovery. And this is where the “woowoo” really comes in. As long as the worst side effect of something I was trying was nothing worse than being irritated by a badly recorded meditation, I was willing to try just about anything, even if it was something that I otherwise didn’t believe in. That includes: tantric buddhist meditations, kundalini, opening chakras, shamanic meditations, the work of Louise Hay, the work of Barbara Ann Brennan, the work of Judith Blackstone, yoga nidra, qigong, breathing into my lower tantian, and sound healing. There were probably others too, but these had the most powerful effects for me. I accessed most of the books via the library apps for audiobooks, which I highly recommend if you’re short on cash.

As a result of laying in bed and breathing while listening to all of those books and meditations, I had some really intense meditative/hallucinatory experiences. With each experience, I could feel my core self getting stronger. For a while these were almost spiritual experiences, which was especially meaningful for me because I’m not a spiritual person, but now I just feel much more connected to myself. The resources and practices above helped me, but there may be other practitioners or writers who resonate more with you, and unfortunately, it’s a matter of trial and error to find those authors, meditations, and practices that are most helpful to your core self.

The other thing I did was what I refer to as positive journaling, which I describe in detail here. This was another powerful process to help release a negative framing and enable the positive, loving part of me to come through.

Feeling safe with extreme emotions

So what does all of this have to do with extreme emotions. In short, I believe that having a stronger core self enabled me to feel safe with the more extreme emotions. Intense feelings and emotions can easily feel overwhelming and terrifying, especially if we’ve been taught not to have them, or if we feel like we need to hide them from others. We need some form of support in order to feel safe enough to experience these emotions.

It was only after I’d gotten comfortable with the idea that there was some higher version of me sitting within me that I was finally able to tap into some of the strongest emotions. This created a positive cycle in which, the more I felt safe having strong emotions, the more strong emotions I’d have, which reinforced the idea that it was safe to have strong emotions, which reinforced the idea that my core self can be trusted to support me.

At this point, when a fragmented self is struggling to feel an emotion or is feeling scared of any emotion, my core self is there offering love and support and sympathy and internal hugs to the younger me who’s scared. Admittedly, sometimes the fragmented self still rages or freaks out for a bit before my core self remembers to make an appearance, but there’s always something deep within me that’s offering me a sense of safety as I feel the scariest emotions. I also always know that none of my fragmented selves will hurt me or others because my core self is the source of my inner strength.

If you’re also struggling to feel your emotions, I write about some of the techniques I found helpful here. However, if you find JournalSpeak to be too intimidating or if you feel like you don’t have the inner strength to tackle some of your repressed issues, it might help to start by building up your core self.

Feeling science-y

I don’t know of any science that backs up the idea of the core self, and clearly the list of resources above is not scientific, but for those who like a more science-y approach, this is another way I think about it:

The “fragmented selves” are likely just neural circuit pathways that got formed as a result of something traumatic. Meditation has been proven to help us rewire our brains to have a calmer, more relaxed response to stressors in our lives, and I suspect much of what I experienced was my brain and nervous system being rewired. So from that perspective, all of this comes back to brain retraining to release fears of emotions and reinforce the sense of safety.

I’m not entirely sure how the idea of the core self fits in to any scientific hypothesis, but I can say from first hand experience, that this is a real phenomenon, and I’m happier and healthier for having tapped into my core self.

*As always, it’s important to remember that something that seems benign to us as adults can be very traumatic to a little kid.