My therapist uses Internal Family Systems, and it's completely changed my thinking of myself. I have so many parts internally that have wants and needs, and they have many names: Empathy, Anger, 17-year-old, 2-year-old, Love, and Self. While I was raised to speak critically toward them, I'm learning to talk with compassion and curiosity, and I find they have so much to tell me. I'm amazed at how more integrated I am when I'm loving toward my different parts ❤️
Thanks, Padraig. I find my voice comes out and speaks to me most often when I'm in some kind of shame spiral or a moment of extreme lack of confidence. After 35 years of practicing architecture I can still lack confidence in my ability to know how to begin the simplest task or maybe how to approach soothing a fretting client or colleague. Usually I say out loud something like, "C'mon, John. You know how to do this. Just begin with what you know and fill in the rest as you go." That usually gets things moving.
Solid prompt Padraig! Thank you. I have observed my banter with myself shift over the years. From a more adult, shaming perspective to, on my better days a playful, loving one. I often find myself narrating not only what is happening around me, but what "could" happen - to myself. I hear myself say "what if the dog across the street suddenly started singing that Elton John song stuck in my head?" and ofcourse I laugh at my own (terribly funny) dad jokes! But then, what really is prayer than a deep attempt to talk to the Divine....within us? The voice in me is slowly morphing- in to a kinder, gentler voice- an amalgamation of the voices of my beloved community- mentors and lovers and friends- human and non-human animals all included. "Sometimes, the message is really clear! Go get a coffee dude! Chill out. The day is full of adventures"
Isn’t the activity of thinking always inherently plural? We are always in conversation with more than oneself. Conversation with others may multiply the participants and pluralize the perspectives encountered but even when nobody else is present we are not simply an identity without constitutive difference.
Thank you as always Padraig for your lovely companionable reflections and thought provoking prompts- they make talking to ourselves more interesting and fun.
I have a long habit of pushing myself past tiredness into exhaustion. I used to do it and become grumpy and surly with others around me. As I have gradually become more self aware (a surprisingly slow process sometimes!), I realize now a voice always talks to me when I’m tired and I’ve ignored her. “Please stop. Please stop,” she says over and over. I’m getting better at saying, “Yes, dear. I hear you,” and stopping.
When I lost my son, beloved beautiful 32 year old, I felt my heart fall to the floor in pieces. My heart has always been the best of me and he in many ways was the best of me. I spoke to myself quietly, “now gather yourself up for now, for your other darlings and people who look to you for love and strength and wisdom” my faith in God has been a long journey a conversation with His companionship, but on that day I spoke to myself, “get up, stand in the rain if needed stand up for your son, that is what he would want” this talking to myself allowed me to do the impossible many days and nights.
I have developed a habit of addressing Dear One in my morning journals. I write to Dear One and it seems to make the journaling go a bit deeper into my thoughts, connections, or playfulness. I think Dear One is the anchor to let me go anywhere in my mind.
This is a wonderful suggestion. The closest I have come to it is writing in my journal every morning, before I do anything else. I've been doing that for my entire life. Often, by the time I finish writing, usually about four pages, I have written myself into a better frame of mind and a fresh point of view, greater understanding. But actually addressing myself out loud seems like a different, very helpful approach and I am going to try it out. Thank you, Padraig.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
That act of accusing the self strips away self-deception. In addiction recovery, we both are and are not who we once were. We can never escape the confines of our own skin and our own story, but we are becoming something else just the same. The act of self-accusation brings with it the opportunity for self-forgiveness, a chance to repent, and to resolve to live differently.
As I have aged, as I have lost the person who was the love of my life, as I see my own ending down the road, I feel those words “I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you.” as a mantra, as a comfort, as a hope that the good I have done overshadows then hurt I have caused.
Lately, I’ve been using a lyric from Carrie Newcomer’s song, “You Can Do This Hard Thing” to talk to myself as I get up each day to do my job as a hospice chaplain:”You can do this hard thing. You can do this hard thing. It’s not easy I know, but I believe that it’s so. You can do this hard thing”
Thank you for this invitation. Recently, I’ve been having an on-going conversation with my 8-year old self who had a particularly difficult day. The incidents of that day weren’t traumatic in any life- or psychologically-challenging way in and of themselves. And for many years it’s been a funny anecdote I’ve told about myself. But in my 60th year, I’ve been able to see how this experience - and the deeply visceral way I relive it when I would retell the anecdote - is really a window into a very deeply hurt part of myself that I carry into my life everyday. That girl shows up and I spend a lot of emotional and unconscious energy protecting her. So this fall, I’ve been spending a lot of time going back and sitting down beside her. Sitting with her to better understand what was going on that day. We laugh at the comic parts. I validate the hard things she has trying to carry at that point in her life. Together we explore different ways to understand what was happening in those moments. We are learning together, she and I. I call her Sweetheart.
I started a practice of silently saying "I forgive you" when dealing with people I am in conflict with or feel hostility from. It doesn't necessarily solve the issue but it shifts the energy.
My therapist uses Internal Family Systems, and it's completely changed my thinking of myself. I have so many parts internally that have wants and needs, and they have many names: Empathy, Anger, 17-year-old, 2-year-old, Love, and Self. While I was raised to speak critically toward them, I'm learning to talk with compassion and curiosity, and I find they have so much to tell me. I'm amazed at how more integrated I am when I'm loving toward my different parts ❤️
I love to check-in with myself. I find it so beautiful - and sometimes life-saving - to ask myself ‘how are you?’ ‘Julian, are you okay?’
many times I will answer ‘yes, I’m okay.’ other times, I’ll answer ‘no.’ regardless of the answer, it’s a lovely practice. 😌
Thanks Padraig, often I speak to myself and twice I wrote poems about these conversations, like these tthree stanzas of my poem:
Sweetness
wound not,
pardon me for this
bleak exposure.
Stillness
collect yourself
curve in that healing posture
on the inside.
Tenderness
enfold the delicate in secret abode,
Protect her by soft encounter,
curve in that healing posture
Thanks, Padraig. I find my voice comes out and speaks to me most often when I'm in some kind of shame spiral or a moment of extreme lack of confidence. After 35 years of practicing architecture I can still lack confidence in my ability to know how to begin the simplest task or maybe how to approach soothing a fretting client or colleague. Usually I say out loud something like, "C'mon, John. You know how to do this. Just begin with what you know and fill in the rest as you go." That usually gets things moving.
Solid prompt Padraig! Thank you. I have observed my banter with myself shift over the years. From a more adult, shaming perspective to, on my better days a playful, loving one. I often find myself narrating not only what is happening around me, but what "could" happen - to myself. I hear myself say "what if the dog across the street suddenly started singing that Elton John song stuck in my head?" and ofcourse I laugh at my own (terribly funny) dad jokes! But then, what really is prayer than a deep attempt to talk to the Divine....within us? The voice in me is slowly morphing- in to a kinder, gentler voice- an amalgamation of the voices of my beloved community- mentors and lovers and friends- human and non-human animals all included. "Sometimes, the message is really clear! Go get a coffee dude! Chill out. The day is full of adventures"
I am the she in me and my poetry best gets her ongoing duality
“She’s totally
Wounded healed
Cracked repaired
Confused focused
Doubting confident
Helplessly, hopelessly
at odds, in sync
with herself and
life.
Did she mention she’s
She’s Nothing She’s everything
All in this one moment.”
Isn’t the activity of thinking always inherently plural? We are always in conversation with more than oneself. Conversation with others may multiply the participants and pluralize the perspectives encountered but even when nobody else is present we are not simply an identity without constitutive difference.
Thank you as always Padraig for your lovely companionable reflections and thought provoking prompts- they make talking to ourselves more interesting and fun.
I have a long habit of pushing myself past tiredness into exhaustion. I used to do it and become grumpy and surly with others around me. As I have gradually become more self aware (a surprisingly slow process sometimes!), I realize now a voice always talks to me when I’m tired and I’ve ignored her. “Please stop. Please stop,” she says over and over. I’m getting better at saying, “Yes, dear. I hear you,” and stopping.
When I lost my son, beloved beautiful 32 year old, I felt my heart fall to the floor in pieces. My heart has always been the best of me and he in many ways was the best of me. I spoke to myself quietly, “now gather yourself up for now, for your other darlings and people who look to you for love and strength and wisdom” my faith in God has been a long journey a conversation with His companionship, but on that day I spoke to myself, “get up, stand in the rain if needed stand up for your son, that is what he would want” this talking to myself allowed me to do the impossible many days and nights.
I have developed a habit of addressing Dear One in my morning journals. I write to Dear One and it seems to make the journaling go a bit deeper into my thoughts, connections, or playfulness. I think Dear One is the anchor to let me go anywhere in my mind.
This is a wonderful suggestion. The closest I have come to it is writing in my journal every morning, before I do anything else. I've been doing that for my entire life. Often, by the time I finish writing, usually about four pages, I have written myself into a better frame of mind and a fresh point of view, greater understanding. But actually addressing myself out loud seems like a different, very helpful approach and I am going to try it out. Thank you, Padraig.
Step 5 of the Alcoholics Anonymous program reads:
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
That act of accusing the self strips away self-deception. In addiction recovery, we both are and are not who we once were. We can never escape the confines of our own skin and our own story, but we are becoming something else just the same. The act of self-accusation brings with it the opportunity for self-forgiveness, a chance to repent, and to resolve to live differently.
As I have aged, as I have lost the person who was the love of my life, as I see my own ending down the road, I feel those words “I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you.” as a mantra, as a comfort, as a hope that the good I have done overshadows then hurt I have caused.
Lately, I’ve been using a lyric from Carrie Newcomer’s song, “You Can Do This Hard Thing” to talk to myself as I get up each day to do my job as a hospice chaplain:”You can do this hard thing. You can do this hard thing. It’s not easy I know, but I believe that it’s so. You can do this hard thing”
Thank you for this invitation. Recently, I’ve been having an on-going conversation with my 8-year old self who had a particularly difficult day. The incidents of that day weren’t traumatic in any life- or psychologically-challenging way in and of themselves. And for many years it’s been a funny anecdote I’ve told about myself. But in my 60th year, I’ve been able to see how this experience - and the deeply visceral way I relive it when I would retell the anecdote - is really a window into a very deeply hurt part of myself that I carry into my life everyday. That girl shows up and I spend a lot of emotional and unconscious energy protecting her. So this fall, I’ve been spending a lot of time going back and sitting down beside her. Sitting with her to better understand what was going on that day. We laugh at the comic parts. I validate the hard things she has trying to carry at that point in her life. Together we explore different ways to understand what was happening in those moments. We are learning together, she and I. I call her Sweetheart.
I started a practice of silently saying "I forgive you" when dealing with people I am in conflict with or feel hostility from. It doesn't necessarily solve the issue but it shifts the energy.