NCL2- Session 3

[Ben Florsheim]

The parts work is helping me to see where certain questions and emotions are coming from. For example if I am in fear of a certain aspect of my coaching or how to handle a certain situation while coaching I can dive in and see what part is feeling that way and dissect if it is a true soul directed feeling or not. I have to be careful because many of my parts want me to believe they know whats best for the soul and sometime disguise themselves as the soul.

Parts work also shows me what parts may be or can be of use in certain situations during sessions. A client may need a certain part of me to come out to help or reflect back. So in that sense knowing or being in tine with my parts can be very beneficial.

[coachtamara]

I’m still fuzzy on “programming” but thanks to my supplemental coaching, I’m getting very clear about parts work, and I’m loving it. I’m excited about the progress I’m seeing in working towards manifesting my vision. Over the weekend, I built a rock labyrinth on our property, despite the very strong winds! I have accessed some very determined parts of myself and I’m learning how to integrate the parts that have been holding me back. Today I got to experience firsthand what it’s like to Just Show Up (It’s my new mantra!) I’ve been doing it previously, but didn’t know that’s what I was doing! Lol! I’ve also found myself bringing parts work into my therapy practice. I have taken actions that are helping me feel safe enough to do the sacred work I want to do, and I’ve reached out to an organization to put some of what I’m learning into practice to offer them a nature-connected leadership experience. Loving this course, the coaching, and how it’s supporting my growth!!

[David Fontaine]

The past week or two I have been focusing on placing intentions into my mind for things I am wanting to change or improve in my life. I have been doing this by first writing the intentions down and then once every day I’m reading these to myself in an effort to build the mental pathways. (example: “I want to start each day with gratitude.” I try to recite these in conjunction with partswork. If any parts have a voice around any of these intentions, I want to know so I can try to resolve it or support it. The partswork is not coming easily to me, but I’ve been jumping into it as much as possible. Along with the intentions, I have outlined action(s) around each of them that will help me move forward. When we learned about Stages of Change it immediately put some things perspective for me and I could sense myself labeling a stage for everything I have been trying to work on. I realized that I usually get derailed at the Action stage because I have been expecting the action to remedy the situation. My challenge has always been remembering to do it consistently and relentlessly. And this fully explains why I have not been completely successful at adopting new ways for myself. Now knowing that it takes time for the brain to build new networking for a changed behavior and, that relapses happen at this stage, makes so much sense to me. So in an effort to support my actions, I am making sure there are visual or some other form of reminders to do the actions. I need to be willing to do whatever it takes to build the actions as habits that become part of my daily life.

[Ash Tallmadge]

This is the first time I have practiced active Programming. Having been aware of “Law of Attraction” idea in the past (and not always connecting to it), I was hesitant to try. I began by approaching it with a lighthearted and easy attitude, so that it wouldn’t feel heavy, or say, the stakes wouldn’t be too high. I wanted to play with it by focusing my conscious thoughts, feelings and body on allowing myself to have something I want. In this case, a new truck. I just sold a suburban connected with my business, and had a really hard time letting it go. I took the opportunity to practice programming myself to look for something new and let go of the old. It wasn’t really about finding a “new” truck so much as changing my behavior in allowing myself to look for one. I am prone to deny myself most anything I desire, and when something desirable arises, many of parts speak up quickly and loudly. Without focus or intention, the parts fight for attention, power and control with my decision making. One says, “Go for it, you will have so much fun with it” another say “It’s so impractical, your partner will chide you, you don’t know what you are doing” and yet another says “You don’t deserve it”. There are surely others as well. So, taking an active role with programming my intention, and consciously stepping into my soul part every time I start to hear the other parts call out, has been really interesting. After only three days of playing with it, not only did I feel much more assured, but I also settled into a sense of ease and peace between my parts. The soul part watched them and heard them compete, and then they quieted, just like that. The soul part felt at ease with focus and intention on the idea of a new truck and let the rest of it slip away. The frantic nervousness of the past was morphed into sureness and steadiness, and most importantly Patience. And wouldn’t you know it, the perfect truck appeared for me and the money to buy it also. In three days. It felt pretty magic.

[Nadine]

I find this exercise very powerful, and I realize that it takes time and lots of re-enforcement for it to be successful. From my experience, I need to be super persistent and consistent otherwise the work I started quickly evaporates. My challenge is to find the time to do it regularly and to be in the right the mental space.

[Sheri]

I agree Nadine, I have to get consistent with this work. So I have been trying to block time daily for EBI. Some days I have more time to give and others not so much. I have also found that I wake up with answers, or ah-ha thoughts, when I spend the time on it my subconscious keeps going through the night. Love that!

[Sheri]

Working on my parts. Figuring out what and who they are and how they interact with one another, or don’t. This has been a very insightful process. I am learning so much about why I act certain ways at specific times. Having two of my parts communicate around a specific issue is amazing. Programming piece reminds me of working with positive affirmations in the past. I do find that the awareness of wanting to change, then seeing the opportunity to practice or shift it whenever the item needing change comes up is that first step. Still much work to do but seeing impact! Thanks.

[Lisa Dahlgren]

I am lucky to have had the chance to hear about parts and part work for about 7 years, and use it a lot with my clients. Moving to a place of lovingkindness toward parts, and/or having the inner judgers that we all carry move back so that parts can freely tell their story, their needs, and their burdens, has been a big part of what I help clients do. I enjoyed hearing Michael talk about the inner board room of parts. I do that all the time, internally asking parts to come to the table and noticing where they want to sit at the table. Some want to be close to me and some farther away. Some won’t sit next to other parts and some are too scared to come to the table because they have been bullied or frightened by other parts. I find a lot of time our parts don’t even know they are parts until we gently point it out to them. So some of our parts think they are the only ones in there and think they are the one who is controlling the whole system!

If you haven’t seen the movie, “Inside Out”, it might be fun to do. It is a movie all about parts.

So here is a question I have been having; when we set an intention are we setting an intention regarding vision, or regarding dream? Sometimes when people talk to me about the book, “The Secret”, or other things in which they feel they should set an intention, it seems to me they are building the intention around the dream. I hear things like, “Easily clear a path for new clients to come to me”, or, “Opening a new store”. I was thinking setting an intention would be for the vision and expressing the vision. So it would be more like, “seeing possibilities for expansion”. Michael used the example of being thirsty and getting a glass of water. Thirsty was the intention and so it had no form. Was getting the glass of water the dream? I am just playing around with these ideas and so if anyone wants to comment that would be great.

[Lisa Dahlgren]

Hi again, I have continued to think about programming and intentions and parts-work. It is continuing to swirl around without really landing yet. Just needs a few more rounds of my 600 questions. But I have been taking time to be with my vision council. For awhile it seemed as if I was able to feel the vision council, and I really liked it, because at first I felt like I didn’t have a vision council. For some reason when I did feel the vision council it seemed to help me relax and feel confident, or whole. I also felt a certain sense of softening inside of me at those times. And much more a sense that I was in each moment rather than in a state of waiting for the next moment. When I added those sensations with remembering that each person I was watching, was with, or was thinking about, also had a vision council around them, it really felt powerful and connecting. Like I had less of a screen up between myself and the other person. I saw them differently-I mean they even looked a little different, it was that noticeable.

Over the last week, despite me taking time to be with my vision council, it has gone back to feeling as if I have no vision council. Once again, it just feels empty when I focus on it. I imagine it is possible a part is coming up that steps in between the vision council and my felt sense of it being there, but I do not feel a specific sensation of a part doing that.

So I have gone back and listened to the audio recording toward the end of this session, once again, to see if anything there would be of assistance. Michael said something like doing the programming “as a leader” and for some reason those three words really resonated for me (perhaps I was programming them already?). The resonating did not produce images or words, but it certainly happened. So I am going to use some of my meditating time to bring focused awareness on that resonation-even as I write that I feel the resonance within me. So I am thinking that meditation will be interesting and potentially enlightening.

[Tracy Cash]

I’m catching up from the last two classes and reviewed the first 20 minutes or so of session 3. I appreciated more discussion about baseline. I think about baseline as homeostasis, but I’m not sure this is an accurate perception. Homeostasis is whatever our normal pattern is, whether it’s beneficial or harmful. We move away from homeostasis for periods and always drift back, but we can change our homeostasis to a new setting. My question about baseline is, if it’s like or the same as homeostasis, then are we looking to change baseline when we are working toward a goal? And, as leaders, are we then supporting a change to a new setting or level of homeostasis when we are supporting a goal?

Sadly, I have had lots of disruptions and distractions that have kept me from practicing any of these tools regularly. I do take moments to tune into baseline and Vision Council (mine and others), and then those moments pass. I’m working with a coach some on the 7 Stairs and partswork.

When Looking at my notes, and the comments of others, I think about Programming from the perspective of Jack Canfield’s work and the law of attraction. I like the idea of paying attention to the feeling, images and words that go along with, and inform, the intention itself. I’d like to work with this more. I also like that the discussion question asks how partswork is involved with intention. So much to work with!

I’m clear after reviewing a bit about concentric rings, that my baseline has been quite disrupted over the past couple of weeks after a family member landed in the hospital with a new serious diagnosis and then traveling for several days for a vacation. I took space during that vacation in Ouray, CO to tune into baseline and check in with Vision Council. When I’ve attempted to converse with VC and “wander” with VC, I find that I’m not sure what to say. I’ve started with Michael’s questions of “How am I doing (in this area or that)” but then notice that I don’t really want to got to those places (work, relationship, etc.). I spend so much time thinking about and dreaming into those areas, that I don’t trust anything that might come from VC (that it’s not coming from VC). So, there’s the doubt. As I write and consider that part of the video I just watched, maybe these areas are facing great change. Michael said that where there is great change, there is big doubt. More to ponder….

[jgotts60]

I decided to start my programming activities small. I have done other types of very similar exercises but focusing on big things or in some cases focusing on my emotional reactions to things at work or in other parts of my life. In those other practices, the first step is to remove or focus on changing the behavior or response that’s not serving one and then replacing it with the desired response.

Since this was a little different, I just built the intention on doing some things I’ve been putting off for a long time. It actually was very helpful. I know straightening up and decluttering my office/computer room is not a big deal, and I should just get in there and do, but I had been thinking about it and procrastinating for months. The intention programming helped me break through whatever was holding me back and actually do it. There’s still more to be done, and I look forward to applying this very direct and efficient programming technique to other things. Again I plan to build slowly to build confidence in the practice so to speak.

I’m still getting to know my parts in the way that Michael has presented them, so I can’t pinpoint how parts work has come into play for the programming or other work. One of my parts is a Doer (I think…and I’m not sure that name does it justice at this point). That part was clearly not active in the task that I was putting off for so long, so maybe the programming practice helped engage that part. Again, it was helpful, at this point, to focus on a very specific and tractable task and not on recruiting specific parts per se. If I had done the latter, I think it might have been too abstract.

This raises the thought for me about setting the intention for recruiting a specific part when doing the programming practice. For example, if I work on intention to do something else I’ve been thinking about for a while, can I explicitly engage my doer part, so I start building the linkage between this part and accomplishing tasks and then call on that part/linkage in the future. I think I might play with that a bit.