The following story was told to me by a Process client at the end of her first week in the Process. The relevant (to this story) teaching that occurs during the first week is that we learn to identify the four parts of the self: the inner child, the intellect, the higher self, and the body. Here is her story:
When I was a child, while going to sleep at night, I would feel my body getting very small, or maybe the room was getting bigger. Then there would often be a weight on my chest or my legs. It would feel like an elephant sitting on me. I couldn’t move. Sometimes my arms or legs would feel like they were very far away. It was scary.
Once I grew up and starting co-sleeping, it stopped happening. But last night it happened again, and I again felt the room getting bigger and bigger, and me getting smaller and smaller. My arms felt as if they were far away, even though I could move my fingers. It was just like I felt as a child, and the fear started coming up. But this time I was able to ask myself what was going on. For me it was an epiphany: My inner child was the one experiencing getting smaller. She felt little and powerless. My intellect was scared because it was not in control, it was immobilized with fear. My higher self was able to comfort my inner child and intellect as soon as I recognized that they were both frightened about being out of control. And that made everything better, because my inner child and intellect could relax, with our higher self in charge. I could then fall asleep without the fear.