The Good Enough Host

 

Being the host of a system is a difficult job. It is not difficult in the same way carrying the trauma memory is, but in its own way. Between managing daily life, the system, therapy and ourselves it is easy to feel inadequate and just never good enough. And it is true that we will never be perfect. But you will find that we will probably end up being good enough.

 

Everyday life

It is not just work and household chores we have to manage. Often it’s also chronic pain, other PTSD symptoms, our own emotions, all the necessary self-care, difficult relationships (or even just keeping up with normal relationships!), poverty, the kids, the sick cat, getting Christmas presents for Aunt Polly, you name it! It is a lot. And most of it is not fun.

If you are anything like me, you might also put a lot of pressure on yourself to do everything exactly as other people do it (or better of course) and to manage tasks perfectly right away. We tend to be blind to the fact that everything we do is significantly more difficult for us than it is for people who grew up in safety. When we finish the same task it has cost us more. And instead of acknowledging that through self-praise or a reward we brush it off like it is nothing special. Well, screw it! It IS special! We deserve cheering on and fireworks. It is possible to learn how to give that to ourselves.

I am not sure if it is just me, but I grew up in an environment where I was not allowed to make any mistakes. It was expected that I know how to do tasks right away, that I never have to practice anything and that I absolutely never need help. These are impossible expectations. And even back then it didn’t work that way. Learning new things, including all the knowledge and skills we need for everyday life, takes time. It comes with trying and failing, with making mistakes and learning from them. It comes with asking people for direction, watching youtube tutorials and with needing someone to lend a hand. If we stick to the unnatural and impossible expectations that we internalized, life will be impossibly hard. If that is the standard we are trying to achieve then it is no wonder that we will never be good enough. The standard is broken. We need a new one. A realistic one. We are allowed to be imperfect. It is the only way to be. Once we have freed ourselves from unhealthy expectations we can define our own, realistic standard. And suddenly we are good enough. Good enough for ourselves, not for others. And that is usually good enough for those who really matter, too.

 

The system

Being host often means that beside responsibility for everyday life we are also the main manager of the system.

It means being in more or less contact with hurting parts who know a lot of trauma and who can sometimes feel overwhelming or start to flood us with their needs or memories. Taking care of these parts is a full-time job in itself. They are often not oriented in time and space. Their needs can be like an endless void. The demands for attention, care and co-regulation push us into a motherly role for our own parts and can make us feel like we have nothing to give. At least never enough.

Our childhood is over and we cannot repeat it to undo the wrong that was done to us. Some things need to be grieved. The best way to help our hurting parts is actually to help them connect with the present. It is the place where needs can be met, where we can create happy moments and where we can grieve the past. In the Today, we can offer self-care. The needs of Littles who get grounded in the present change. They are no longer endless and no longer impossible to meet. We don’t have to be a superhero to do better for them than anyone has ever done before. In the Today our efforts can be received and they make a difference. Maybe not the effort of one day alone, but it sums up over time and in the long-run this is all that is needed. It turns out being good enough.

 

There might be a different conflict with parts of the system who try to control our actions through criticism, punishment or insults. Nothing we do is ever good enough. Whenever we show weakness or needs or signs of exhaustion the pressure is increased. We can feel like we are still under the looming authority of punitive parents with no way to escape, so we stay in our pattern of appeasement and over-control, accepting that we will never be good enough for them.

Enduring abuse is an old pattern we learned really well, but it is not the path to becoming good enough. What these parts need is not a perfect host, even if they believe that. They too need to get connected to reality some more. Then they could notice that the abusers are not around; being perfect isn’t needed anymore. All the world makes mistakes, fixes things and moves on. No threat to life involved. Nothing bad happens if we are not perfect. We as adult hosts can stand up for this truth and support realization of it in our parts. When their warnings are rooted in the present reality, they can become helpful and keep us from making mistakes. But they lose the sense of impossibility to please. Even former punishers will acknowledge that, actually, we do things well enough. Not perfect, but well enough.

 

Therapy

The problem with being an ANP is that by definition we are neatly separated from the other parts. Dissociative barriers make it hard to communicate. Then there is amnesia to further keep us away from knowing more and THEN there is something that the textbooks call ‘phobias’. They are like extra layers of protection that keep us from exploring the existence of parts, of trauma, memories or the crazy idea that all this happened to us. And, they are made of fear. Intense fear. What else.

Therapists guide us to face the inner experience, to get to know our parts and our past, but in everything we do we will have to work against the phobias, the layer of fear that keeps us from knowing more. It is incredibly hard. To avoid getting overwhelmed it is normal to take only small steps. Actually the smallest steps we can find. And then it can still feel overwhelming at times or too much happens all at once in response to a tiny step.

It can feel like we are taking forever. We might think that we should be better by now and why haven’t we gotten to a different stage yet?! We might judge ourselves for not working hard enough or not being good enough or being too stupid to figure it out. But the truth is, this path is difficult. It is incredibly complex and the road is full of pitfalls and unexpected crises. Most of the representations of systems we see on social media only show a tiny part of what is really happening. Some are still so deep in avoidance that they hide their own problems from themselves, some keep their problems private, some actually have a stable life but when you ask them they have been working for it for decades. People sometimes consider me a role model but we don’t even know half of our system and I struggle deeply with the phobia of getting to know more.

What I am trying to say is that the slow progress is normal. Every moment we sit down and try our best, we are little heros. There is no script that could tell us how to heal. There is no deadline for figuring it out. There is no blueprint, no textbook, no standard protocol. We just do our best. And sometimes we don’t do anything to improve our situation and you know what? That is fine too. Nobody can push against the fear all the time and nobody can keep their mind on trauma forever. We aren’t any better or worse than anyone else who is struggling to find a way through this. Trying when we can try is good enough. Not doing anything when we can’t do anything is good enough. I have yet to meet someone who never muddled through huge parts of this journey. It is totally good enough. This is how it works. We don’t miraculously discover ‘the right way’ one day. This is all there is. Muddling through is good enough.

 

Ourselves

A song with a title I have long forgotten asks “What does it take to be so hard on yourself?“. Isn’t it true, that often we are harder on ourselves than we would ever be with other people? We believe in our heart that we are unlovable if we aren’t god-like in everything. But we want the love and fellowship of humans, and being human ourselves is the best way to get it. We are allowed to struggle with our emotions, all humans do. We are allowed to have needs, I would even encourage it. All healthy humans walk around with needs.

Even hosts are allowed to have their own emotions and their own needs. And we are allowed to take the time to take care of them. Hosts can have breaks. We can have days when we are not serving the system and fulfill wishes and then we are STILL allowed to have some free time for our own self-care or just to hang out. Our wishes and needs don’t have to dissolve into thin air once we took care of the needs and wishes of our others. We matter. Our well-being matters. Taking care of ourselves is a way to make sure that we can take good care of everything else. I know we learned to endure a lot, but today, how we feel while we get stuff done matters. It is ok to be gentle with ourselves. Being hard costs us so much more.

We can soften our heart for ourselves by observing our humanness and accepting it as normal. Being super-human cannot be expected. We are imperfect, we make mistakes and need forgiveness. We have needs and moods that are not ideal but they are real. In all this life we can only be real and find grace for that reality. It is ok. Being merely human is ok. Some healthy self-compassion can reveal this truth. In our human life being human is enough. If we learn to walk in this spirit of grace and gentleness, we will be exceptionally good hosts, partners, parents, friends and co-workers.

 

We will never be perfect. The good news is that we don’t have to be. Not in our everyday life, not for our system or others, not in our healing journey and not even for ourselves. Being real and showing up as best we can is enough. It is actually good enough.