Discovering My True Self Changed Everything for me.

A Tribute to Miriam Dyak, Voice Dialogue Teacher

Miriam Dyak 1946 to 2022, photo by Cassandra Cosme De Pree

"We are in the most profound way, whole, complete, and perfect beings already.  In that belief...we then create the foundation in mastering any and all of life's challenges....When we feel most disintegrated, it is exactly when we most need to connect to the power and energizing belief that our essential selves are divinely perfect and complete." Oprah Winfrey

I was hoping to take a Voice Dialogue course with Miriam Dyak next year. She, unfortunately, passed in July 2022.

In our very brief email exchanges, her spirit and compassion resonated greatly with me. Upon being informed of her crossing over, I re-read my email correspondence with her and was inspired to pay tribute to her—with only a few minutes of her time, she was able to inspire me to continue to focus on helping others and myself to lead a life from our True Self.

Below are extracts of our correspondence that focus on why we both believe the True Self or the Aware Ego Process, as Miriam calls it, is the most important part of the healing process. Miriam pointed out that it is not enough to only be aware of the True Self, we must learn how to lead our lives from our True Self.

Mariam to Mark: In comparing Voice Dialogue to IFS

Mon., May 2, 2022, 00:11 Miriam Dyak, wrote (notice the magical number):

Hi Mark,

What follows is the briefest of explanations based on my understanding and experience (39 years with Voice Dialogue vs. a couple of IFS sessions, watching videos, and reading), so please don't take this as definitive.

Voice Dialogue is a consciousness-based and relationally-based practice that can be used in therapy or coaching or the arts. The goal is to become aware of which selves are dominant and which are disowned and learn how to make choices that are informed by these parts, but not determined by them. The focus of the work could include trauma, and it could also be about any and all other aspects of lived experience. The selves are not necessarily pre-named and could be involved in any part of the client's life.

Essential to the process is is that the client moves physically to become a particular inner self, the facilitator has a conversation with that self, and then the client moves back to the place where they started in order to separate from the self.This means that for most of the time in the session the facilitator is talking to a part or self that is not a person who has agreed to do therapy with them - this requires a different set of assumptions and a different set of good manners on the part of the facilitator for the process to work well. The main goal of Voice Dialogue work is to establish an "Aware Ego process," which involves holding the tension between opposites, being able to feel them and understand them, see beyond what they can see, and not be compelled to be them.

I do hope this is helpful,
Miriam

Miriam to Mark: Becoming Aware of the Inner Selves is not enough to create an entirely new consciousness

“So glad to hear what I sent you proved helpful. I'll just add one more thing - that Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone evolved Voice Dialogue over many years and came to understand that the Aware Ego process was and is the most essential part of the work. Separating out from selves is useful in helping the client learn to hold center between opposite parts of themselves, which is what the Aware Ego is and does. Becoming aware of inner selves is not on its own enough to create an entirely new consciousness and new position from which to act.”

Mark to Miriam: The True Self is the biggest part of transformational healing.

“Thank You so much, Miriam….I 100% agree that the Aware Ego Process, or as I call it, the "The True Self" is the biggest part of transformation healing.  I would really like that you understand that I can tell I would be able to learn a lot from you about connecting and enhancing this area.

Here are my thoughts from a section of a draft of my workbook where I am comparing and pointing out that in virtually all other healing modalities, the Self is front and center to the healing process.”

SELF

Perhaps the most important integration is the separation of our True Self from our thinking mind (ego) or false self.  In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT Therapy), this separation is positioned as two different perspectives: the conceptualized mind perspective and the observer mind perspective. 

Many of us do not recognize this separation until later in life and the day I recognized the separation is the day that I often refer to as becoming conscious--I noticed the real me or my True Self.  Gabor Mate often notes that the true trauma of developmental trauma is when we lose the perspective of our True Selves.  This is when we believe our thinking mind is also our True Selves and this is called cognitive fusion in ACT--the fusion of our thinking mind and our observer mind/True Self. 

When we are fused, we are often led by a Part of our thinking mind or ego/conceptualized (e.g. our Controller or Sticker) versus being Self-led.  Our Part controls automatically what we do versus having the perspective of understanding this is only one option or way of seeing the event and choosing our reaction.

Many exercises have been created to help you understand more about the observer perspective and some of the characteristics of the observer mind and the thinking mind (see Cognitive for more information).  Awareness or mindfulness (see Attention for more information) is one of the most important properties of the True Self. 

The thinking mind on the other hand often is caught up in cognitive errors, old-programmed beliefs, evaluating, avoidance of emotions and hurtful reminders, and reason-giving.  When combined with fusion, the thinking mind operates based on what Steven Hayes (founder of ACT) calls F.E.A.R = Fusion, Evaluating, Avoidance, Reason Giving.

The True Self is Fundamental in Most Therapies, Spiritual Traditions, and Self Development

From my studies of the original works of many of the best psychological therapies today, there is a common theme that the "client" starts becoming better when they become aware (conscious) of their True Self. 

True Self in Internal Family Systems

I first came across this in Internal Family Systems (IFS) when Richard Swartz, the founder of IFS, noticed that his clients would start to really get better when they began calling one of the Parts their True Self.  In IFS, one of the assumptions is that humans have a multiplicity of minds.  One of these minds that is in control of all the other minds is the mind we call the True Self.  In IFS, the True Self is not only a psyche mind but is also a spiritual-based concept. 

True Self in ACT

When I read Steven Haye's first books on ACT, it was the first mainstream accepted psychological therapy that acknowledged the True Self and its foundational principles.  However, in ACT, Self-as-context or the observer self is differentiated from the conceptualized self.  Same concepts, different terms.

True Self in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy  

In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the founder of CBT, Aron Beck also came close to the concept of the True Self implicitly.  The story goes that one-day Beck asked his client what she was thinking.  Beck was assuming she had some sexual-related Freud thinking.  She replied that she was thinking about what Beck thought of her.  This led Beck to “discover” that people had "thoughts" and if he could be aware of those thoughts, then he could understand what they were thinking. 

He saw this as an additional tool in psychodynamic therapy (think couch therapy), but the traditional psychiatrists at the time would not allow him to consider this as part of their psychodynamic therapy, so Beck had to name his therapy something else and he came up with Cognitive Therapy, which when added to Behavior Therapy (think Pavlov dogs) became Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. 

The interesting thing about Beck was that he created an exercise of mindfulness (i.e. rediscovering it).  He would set a time and write down what he was thinking about say every hour.  He was essentially watching his cognitive mind or conceptualized mind using his observer self (i.e. who was watching his mind?).  However, Beck did not concentrate on the observer self.  Beck concentrated on what were the thoughts. 

However, implicit in practicing watching your thoughts is the observer who is watching your thoughts and in order to increase the abilities to watch your thoughts, Beck gave exercises that are very similar to mindfulness-based practices.  When you read Cognitive Therapy and Personalities Disorder, you begin to recognize that Beck was able to trace most pathologies to erroneous “Beliefs” or Schemas.  So in CBT concentrating on changing how the mind thinks is the primary goal.

True Self in Dialectic Behavior Therapy

Similarly, in Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT), founder Marsha Linehan was a practicing Zen Buddhist and found that patients benefited from mindfulness practices.  Therefore, mindfulness is one of the 4 foundational skills of any DBT therapy. Mindfulness implicitly has the Self, Awareness, and the thinking mind as 3 components in order to practice mindfulness. 

True Self in Buddhism and Christianity

In Buddhism, the "no-self" is equivalent to the True Self or observer self.  So in all 3 mainstream psychotherapies today, the True Self being aware of the thinking mind (monkey mind sometimes thought in meditation) is a central concept.  In Buddhism, it is no-self.  In Christianity, it is sometimes referred to as the "soul" or "spirit". 

True Self in other Modalities: PQ, RIM, Clear Beliefs, Canfield

In Positive Intelligence (PQ) which is a mental fitness program, Self-Command is central to the theme with PQ reps (mindfulness practice) and Saboteurs (breakdown of the top thinking mind issues) are central to the overall program. 

In Clear Beliefs the observer self is the True Self; with Gabor Mate's Compassionate Inquiry the observer is the True Self; in Dr. Deborah Sandella's Regenerating Images in Memory (RIM) the observer self is called "presence" or from her book Goodbye Hurt and Pain, the "human spirit, the intelligence of life itself that expresses as pure awareness and senses there is more to you than mere humanity." 

Jack Canfield in his success principles promotes the concept of 100% Responsibility--when you are 100% Responsible, you need to be able to observe your thoughts, feelings, sensations, and behaviors--which is similar to the Self-Command concept in PQ, which is a form of the True Self--the one doing the observing.  In Somatic Experiencing, the True Self is often referred to as the "Felt Sense".

Qualities of the True Self

My thoughts about the True Self are a combination of the ACT observer and the IFS True Self and spirituality.  While I am in agreement with Steven Hayes and the secular concepts of the Observer Self, I believe much more in the IFS, Clear Beliefs, RIM, Compassionate Inquiry, and spiritual sense of the True Self being connected and part of the big universal energy of wholeness. 

I believe that our True Selves are innately divine, whole, and perfect.  As such our personal evolution is to chip away at the plaster that has hidden or disconnect us from being our True Selves.  It's like the true story of the Golden Buddha at Wat Traimit (Bangkok) which was covered in plaster to hide it from invaders for centuries and treated as an ordinary statue until one day it was dropped and a broken plaster revealed that under all the plaster was a 5,500 kilograms of real gold buddha.

Because our True Selves are pure and complete and connected to universal source energy, our True Self's innate qualities are best described by IFS as the 8C's and 5P's, though we are not limited by just these aspects.  The 8C's are: curiosity, compassion, clarity (wisdom), connectedness, creativity, confidence, and calm.  The 5P's are patience, presence, persistence, perspective, and playfulness.

The more we become our True Selves, the more we are able to act from these innate qualities.  Our True Selves are already compassionate or playful. We don't need to learn those qualities, we just need to become more of our True Selves and we become more compassionate and more playful.

Warmly,

Mark