Max Littman, LCSW
July 4, 2025
During one of my morning parts meditations, a swirl of impressions, sensations, and questions arose from somewhere near the surface. They came from a place within my inner landscape that knows how easily I can be pulled off center in the presence of someone powerful—someone sharp, clear, charismatic, with conviction and competence. Such figures know how to read a room and fill it, especially in spiritual, professional, and progressive spaces.
In these moments, I sometimes notice a subtle (or not so subtle) riptide inside me: parts of me going quiet, my own knowing becoming blurry or delayed, parts taking on the other’s truths. Sometimes I don’t even register that I’ve been swept away until hours or even days later. The conviction of the other becomes a kind of gravity and, without realizing it, my system begins to reorient around their clarity while detaching from my own.
It brings forward a question:
Where am I rooted?
In my body? My breath? My principles? My history? My fears? My longings?
Am I rooted in Self energy? In a protector part? In relational attunement? In survival?
And if I’m not rooted:
How do I get uprooted?
Is it the magnetism of confidence? The wish to belong? A part of me seeking safety or approval? Is it admiration shading into self-doubt? Or a younger part still trying to figure out who and what is right? Or is that younger part trying to establish some sense of coherence of the external world?
Who is there when I get swept away?
Which parts go quiet? Which speak up? Which feel left behind or try to hold the line?
When I sit with this, I notice a familiar tension. Some parts want me to resist being influenced altogether—to wall myself off, dig in my heels, stay wholly “me” no matter what. They fear that if I am not rooted and do not have a center that others will question my integrity. Others feel the seduction of merging, of letting someone else’s clarity feel like enough for both of us. But neither extreme feels quite right. Being totally impermeable shuts down connection, learning, and growth. Being totally porous can erase me altogether.
So I find myself asking:
What am I influenced by?
Is it the person’s confidence? Their seeming certainty? Their pain or brilliance? Their unspoken hopes for who I might be to them? A stronger sense of coherence about the external world and those around me?
When I take in their truth, what happens to mine?
Do I lose it? Do I integrate and expand it? Do I amputate parts of my truth to make room for theirs?
Sometimes, I realize, I don’t actually lose my truth—I just can’t feel it clearly when it’s suddenly surrounded by someone else’s strong energy. Or I realize I’ve taken in new truths, but without giving my system time to metabolize them. Other times, I recognize parts of me edit what I say, leaving something behind that parts of me weren’t ready let go.
Where do I go when I’m swept away?
Is it a kind of emotional exile? A false harmony? A bubble of projected clarity or authority that doesn’t actually match my inner truth?
And then the question I hadn’t expected to ask:
Is there such a thing as being too rooted? Not rooted enough?
Too rooted, and we become rigid—stuck, closed off to nuance or transformation. Not rooted enough, and we lose ourselves in the presence of strong currents. So what, then, is the right kind of rootedness?
I’m beginning to think it’s not a static place or posture, but a kind of ongoing relationship with our inner world. A living dialogue between Self and parts. A flexibility grounded in something deeper than opinion or performance. Rootedness, then, might be the capacity to stay in contact with our own inner landscape even while letting in new landscapes from others.
That led to:
Does it make sense to replant and reroot somewhere else as more truths become available?
And my sense is: yes, but with care. Yes, but not impulsively. Yes, if it’s what’s right for the system—not what’s expected, idealized, or demanded by others. Our roots can stretch. They can move.
Just because someone else is grounded doesn’t mean they’re grounded in my truth. Just because someone is brilliant doesn’t mean they’re meant to override my knowing. And just because someone sees the room with clarity and complexity doesn’t mean they see me.
So now, in the presence of strong energy, I’m learning to ask again:
Who’s here in me?
What’s happening inside?
Can I stay close to my own system while staying open to another’s?
Can I trust the pace and rhythm of my own unfolding, even if it’s quieter, slower, or messier than theirs?
For feedback and comments, I can be reached at max@maxlittman.com.
I provide private practice mentorship, consultation, and therapist/practitioner part intensives.
