EMBODIED PRESENCE: Week 4

After watching the talk and reading this week’s handout, spend some time contemplating some of the many “parts” of you that you’ve been meeting with in your practice. Is there an energy in you that worries a lot? Another part of you that’s distracted a lot? A dissociative part? A part that’s sad? A part that’s outraged? A part that’s lonely? An energy within you that is clear and open and un-neurotic aka “self energy”?

Identify three to five of your parts and give them friendly nicknames, e.g. “The Worrier,” “Little Me,” The Analyzer,” “Lonely Girl.” (In the spirit of meditation, let’s avoid giving parts of ourselves negative and sarky names; that’s self-abuse). It might make sense to you to give them more unique names or even human names. Just go with it. Identify and name three to five of your parts, write about one to three of the ones you identify and label.

Is it possible to see that when each of these parts is present, you’re in a different mind altogether? You feel different, your body changes, your thoughts change, your desires and behaviors change? You might “not feel like yourself,” or have a sense of not quite being in control if an extreme enough part is present such as with rageful or compulsive parts. In identifying these different parts as if they were other people, it might just become easier to feel compassion and empathy for these struggling (and often exhausted) parts of ourselves. It might start to be possible to forgive ourselves for some of our involuntary reactions to things.

Finally, if thinking of yourself in this way seems odd or problematic for you, feel free to tell us about that, too. Question everything.