Sledgehammers and chainsaws are great tools. They pound what’s needed and they cut down trees. But don’t use them to kill ants, please.We humans come fully equipped with powerful parts that basically run a tight ship for us.
There is a part that gets me up in the morning without an alarm clock. I say to myself that my yoga class starts a half hour earlier on Tuesday so I need to get up that much earlier, and to the minute, almost, I’m up on time.There’s a part that knows the words I want to say even when my conscious mind forgets them.
There’s a part, for that matter, that seems to write these posts for me without any pre-meditation. It just writes. And there’s the post! When I took my oral defense for my dissertation, I was frozen. Speechless. Scared, shaking numb. And my part took over for me. I don’t know how. It knew what to say, looked calm and cool to any outsider, and inside I was just a mess. But it did the job.Parts jump in to remind us to eat and make us notice we’re tired – when we are taking care of our bodies.
They’re amazing because they do all the work of our bodies and a lot of the work of our minds.I couldn’t think of the word I wanted one day this week, and try as I might, it wouldn’t come. But I woke up the next day and there was the word, right in my mouth. “Oh yeah,” I thought, “that’s it.”
Trouble is, they do just as “well” with bad behaviors we’d rather not have.
What do I mean?Those automatic parts of us are very good at what they do.
They’re efficient, very fast to react, and pretty much run through the same patterns each time they’re triggered.They are our “protectors.”
But often their behavior is awful. It can be antisocial at worst and annoying at best. Parts of us that do these things don’t have ethics. They will lie, steal, and hurt, without a thought.That’s the problem.
They’re good at being bad.
But remember – they came into our lives when we were kids. So of course they won’t have the ethics of an adult.Yet they take over us.
So much so that people often don’t even realize that the parts that take over them are not them. They’re just part of them.And the “them” is really quite nice, kind, understanding, and loving – underneath the parts. (Please see last post.)
Even more problematic is that the parts that have automatically taken over us for so many years and decades don’t want to let go. They would rather do their thing, whether it’s blow up, or sulk, or run out the door than step aside to let your true Self take charge.That’s the power of your parts.
The good news here is that like with weightlifting in the gym, your Self can get stronger and stronger.
Your Self can say to the part that wants to blow up, “No, that isn’t necessary.” We teach you to do that. But it is not for the faint of heart. It’s for people who want to take charge of all the parts of them, no matter how powerful.After all, think of how powerful you become when you have powerful parts at your command. That’s what Self Leadership is really about. Pretty exciting, actually.
What do you think?
I enjoyed this because all of what you said it’s true, we can talk to those parts if we really want change.
This sounds empowering. I want to know more!!