Feeling into my Parts
Below are some of my reflections as I learn about and work through IFS exercises, a model created by Richard Schwartz. I am reading and working on his book No Bad Parts. I feel it’s a book that all who facilitate and participate in psychedelic experiences should read, it is a bridge and would have been very helpful in my earlier experiences, particularly for integrating healthily back into the earthly life we are living.
Day 2 in the Argan forest. I slept well, 8-8.5 hours. I dreamed but I don't recall any of them. Not as vivid. I feel better today, dropped into this environment. The first couple of days in a new environment are always a tough transition for the body, heart and mind. Yesterday was cloudy and windy, today it's windy but the sun is shining, both are beautiful. It will be nice to go for a walk later.
I have my laptop, three cups of liquid, coffee, cacao, and water. I love sipping on hot drinks, a close second is munching on snacks. I meditated in bed today and I brought in the IFS meditation. It's like how I meditate and tune into the tight areas of my body except for this time I'm having conversations with these parts like they are separate beings living inside of me. According to the IFS model, there are parts of me that still think that I, my Self, am a child. It was interesting experiencing them opening space so that I could enter like Moses parting the Red Sea in the Ten Commandments. This reminded me of my third sit with Don Juan earlier this year in the Amazonas and how everything just released/parted ways and now I see that the space created allowed my Self to enter my body.
I think my Self am hovering on the outside. It wants to enter but it doesn't have the space to enter. If the Self can't enter, is it because the 'parts' are protecting my inner child? Have they been protecting my inner child this entire time? This is fascinating to me. This IFS model seems to be guiding and helping to create space within, to connect with these parts of ourselves, heal them and have them let go of the responsibility of helping me, this body and being to survive so that one day knowingly or unknowingly the body is prepared to allow my higher Self to enter and steer the ship as it did during that third ceremony with Juan.
As much as I learned and experienced in that ceremony, and I take with me much of the strength and newfound awareness from those experiences when I return to my 'normal' environment my parts are eventually reactivated and continue playing the same roles as before. When I come back to Toronto the parts settle into their default protective mode. This now makes sense to me. I have always thought about this, but IFS is gifting me language and now I am beginning to see it from a different angle. With IFS I am connecting with these parts like I would connect with other humans. So, if these parts played a role in protecting and blending instead of being in their natural and full Self, what will life look like when all these parts inside of me return to their natural roles and create space for my Self to enter permanently? It's like when emotionally immature parents raise kids, and they need to evolve emotionally beyond their years to at times parent the parent and eventually parent themselves. The parts are the same way, if the Self can't protect us when we are younger and experiencing unsafe environments and too young and physically small to protect ourselves, other parts abandon the roles they came to play to protect our hearts, minds and souls. I think this is what happens.
There are some days where I feel completely tuned in and in flow, but most days I feel stuck. These parts in their unnatural roles could be the reason why. Some days my parts fully release and open the space to allow my Self to enter. Perhaps simultaneously they all feel safe in the environment they are in, or they feel safe around a particular individual and release and make space for my Self. This brings me to my theory that the soul lives behind the heart or perhaps within it.
When I reflect on the IFS model and compare it to my 3rd ceremony with Juan, it feels like my higher Self lives above my body. It's connected, ready and willing to enter this body but it didn't feel like it was entering from within, it felt like space was created and the Self came in from above. IFS are similar. Create space within your parts. Especially when the parts start blending, it's like they are weaving together webs, making it hard for my Self to enter my insides, it feels sticky when the self enters the web of parts.
Wherever the Self enters from, within or without, the heart needs to be open.
This raises another question. Who is preparing this body? When I am connecting with these parts who is the 'I'? Is it the self or the Self (aka the soul)? Is there only one 'I' or if there are multiple parts/beings within me, multiple 'I's'?
It doesn't matter. What’s important is to see the parts within you, to connect with them, to let them know that we are safe now and that the Self is 47 years old and no longer a child that they need to protect. What would be best for us now in this present moment is that they return home and play the roles that they were meant to play in this world which is this body.
My parts world is my body and my Self's world is this earth. They can't see beyond this body just like I can't see beyond this earth or this universe. With my eyes, I can see the sun, the moon, the stars, and some other planets but I can't truly experience it and most of the time I am simply here on this planet doing this human thing. My parts may see outside but they can't truly experience beyond that which lives in the body (aka their planet) they inhabit.