Guest post by my mum. I asked for a brief guide to 'the voices' and she kindly obliged.
Transactional Analysis (TA for short) is a helpful model that describes something of what internal conversations go on within each of us. Without wishing to imply that any of you dear readers ‘hear voices’, we do all have a whole range of messages that we ‘hear’, and that inform our decisions and actions. It’s a bit like those cartoons, where someone has an ethical dilemma, and we see the ‘angel’ sitting on one shoulder, and the ‘devil’ sitting on the other shoulder, and they’re arguing. So what are these messages, and where do they come from?
According to TA, there are basically three different sources of messages: Parent (Taught); Adult (Thought), and Child (Felt). Of these, two of the three can be further broken down: the Parent divides into Critical (CP) and Nurturing (NP); and the Child can be either Adaptive (AC) or Free (FC).
Our Critical Parent’s job is to teach us right from wrong – clean your teeth, put your seatbelt on, don’t steal, murder, lie, etc; the down-side is that it can be a very hard task-master. Our Nurturing Parent soothes us when we’re hurt, and encourages when we’re afraid; maybe it can be a bit soft on us, or a bit suffocating. Our Adaptive Child feels the hurt, anger fear, etc, and alerts us to what might be wrong or harmful for us. Our Free Child is full of fun, excitement, laughter, joy. Neither of our Children have much self-control, though, so AC can fly off into rages, become Victim, blame, etc, while FC can be terribly irresponsible. Our Adult is our CEO; it’s all in the head. This is the one that delegates, gives considered responses. Of course Adult can be rather like a whole box of dried fruit, sucking all the yummy juice out of life!
So maybe we’re a bit like speaker boxes: different speakers within the box give different sounds – bass, treble, etc. Sound technicians specialise in balancing all these sounds to get just the right mix. When one is too loud, it makes for terrible music. The same with us: if one or two parts of our psyche are over-functioning, if they are shouting too loud, we, too, make terrible music.
The two who tend to shout loudest together for most of us are Critical Parent and Adaptive Child. Try this exercise: write down 10 statements (more if you like) beginning with “I should….” Now read through your list again. How are you feeling as you writing and read all your ‘shoulds’? You have now heard your very own CP, and felt your very own AC! CP is all about ‘should’, ‘must’, ‘always’, ‘never’, ‘more’, ‘less’. AC is all about feeling guilty, sad, unworthy, angry, afraid.
It seems to me that ‘good’ Christians have most problems with our CP and AC. On one level, we know we are saved by grace, but on a much deeper level we also know we should be doing more, better; measuring up to God’s perfect standards somehow. There is so much ministry to do. How can I possibly waste time enjoying myself?!
I recently heard a sermon based on Deut 20:1ff, and the point was made that the kingdom and the battle is God’s! In this passage, all the fit, strong, brave (and even scared) young men were to be sent home from God’s army, so they could dedicate their houses, farm their land, marry their wives; they weren’t needed, because God would win the battles. And the first application? STOP running around like a headless chook and trust God! So now I’m wondering: if all I feel when I think of ‘ministry’ is tired and weighed down with guilt, maybe I’m listening more to my own personal, portable, Critical Parent rather than to my loving, gracious Nurturing Father. If this is the case, maybe I’m not really trusting in God to win his battles, but myself to do it for him.
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