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When 'You' Aren't Really You: Exploring the Parts Behind Your Reactions

I have been doing a lot of reading, around psychological approaches, especially body based work. My knowledge gathering hasn’t been linear. I read, I experience, I talk about it with my therapists (yes, plural. I work with three. Judge away), something shows up on social media, I pick up a word or two, then dig into that. Obviously no particular order. One of the frameworks that is becoming more and more popular is Parts Work, as detailed in the Internal Family Systems approach developed by Richard Swartz. This is the first in a series of posts on Parts Work. My aim is to explain the concept as I understand it, bring it to life through personal example, draw some helpful generalizations, and offer practical suggestions for your own exploration. The Internal Family System Here's how I understand Internal Family Systems — The way your mind works, how you react and respond, is engineered by several distinct parts that exist within you, like members within a household. However, thei...
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Proclamation of Intent

Writing has steadied me during times of great emotional upheaval. I write to make sense of my internal world, and I have found that it usually helps. Even though I have enjoyed writing, I have had long periods of hiatus in my writing journey. And every time, I come back to it, as if to a former lover.  Every such return to writing has been a homecoming, a quiet "Welcome home". The familiarity wraps me around in a warm embrace. Building new routines in an old place brings excitement. Revisiting pieces I wrote earlier is like finding old photo albums: a kind of time travel. As with any homecoming, there is often guilt and sadness in not visiting often enough, in forgetting the love that waited. Writing, for me, is an intimate act, a window into the inner workings of the mind.  Therefore, I do experience a hesitation in opening up my writing for a wider audience. Writing for public consumption creates a compulsion to please, a pressure I do not feel ready for.  Still, I have...
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Welcome

  Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here. This space was born from a quiet longing—to hold what doesn’t fit neatly. To notice. To name. To make space for the truths that live beneath the surface of things. I write to understand. Sometimes that takes the shape of a poem. Sometimes a story. Sometimes just a sentence that won’t leave me alone until I put it down. Field Notes from the Self is where I come to make sense of the inner landscape—the ache and the wonder, the questions that return like old friends, the parts of myself I’m still meeting for the first time. If you’ve ever felt too much, not enough, or somewhere in between… if you carry stories that don’t always get told… if you’re tracing your own map by feel—this space is for you. You won’t find tidy conclusions here. But you might find resonance. And maybe, in these field notes, something in you will feel less alone. Thanks for reading. – Vidya
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A Tribute to the Warrior

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The last few weeks have been an eventful time for me. It started with me needing to go off work for a few weeks to address a chronic pain issue, and have been doing a number of things in that regard. I could fill up a post about the events leading up to it. I could fill up another post about the numerous things I did to heal. But today's post is about a constant force that I felt traveled with me through the journey. I call her the warrior energy. I first felt that energy when I did my first ever solo trip to Western Mass. As I looked for activities to do, I stumbled upon a yoga and meditation retreat in the vicinity. They were offering an Archery in Meditation class the following day. I was immediately drawn to it, and I signed up for it. It was a 2-hour session, designed for newbies like me, a lot of talking, a little bit of archery.  It was a resonant moment when our instructor reminded us that each and every one of us has an ancestor that once held bows. Knowing that most tools...
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Healing and acceptance, as I understand

I wrote a poem yesterday How would you think  If you weren't told How to think What would you feel If you weren't told What you must not feel What would you do If you weren't told What you cannot do Who would you be If you weren't told Who you should not be Who would you dare to be If you weren't told  Who you should be.  I send my writings to a small group of friends, sometimes it results in conversation around the topic. As I engaged in conversation with my friends, I realize that this poem represents the ultimate quest that each and every one of us needs to undertake. The discovery of Self and the severing of the metaphorical umbilical cord with the childhood home. Such an a-ha! moment.  Let me explain. Everything I lay out here is bits and pieces I picked up from various books I read in the last couple of years, and I am paraphrasing it in the way I understood and synthesized this information.  The constant struggle of every human being is a balance between ...
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Remembering Appa on his birthday

It is Appa's birthday today, and I am a hairball of emotions.  I am thinking about how we celebrated his birthday last year - not on his actual birthday, but when he was here in Boston in July last year. My parents in law were here for the summer, and my sister & family had brought Appa to drop him here, and he was to fly back to India a couple of weeks later. Both his daughters, his sons-in-law, and all four grandchildren were here, and I do not remember the last time this was the case. It was a good occasion for us to celebrate, and we celebrated his 70th, a few months after his (fake) official birthday, and a few months before his actual one. I had to think hard about how  he  would like his birthday to be celebrated, and we settled on doing a puja at home. Lots of new arrangements needed to be done - had to cook for about twenty people, Indian flowers needed to be organized, etc etc. It was super fun and satisfying to do the puja, that we kinda forgot about Appa's...
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An Invitation from the Park Bench

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Hey you! Yes you! Slow down, stop. Come on, have a seat. It will be okay.  Put down your burden, if only for a minute. Your bags are safe with me, you can pick them right back.  Take a deep breath. Take five. Take more Until you know you can breathe. Feel you feet on the ground, feel the breeze in your hair.  Feel the humid air leaving a trace on your skin. Look around you. See the trees move in the wind. See the children playing. See the colorful flowers. The old woman walking her dog. The single firefly. The brook flowing gently. Gushing over some rocks. Listen to the sound of cars. Hear the children squealing. The water flowing. The wind through the trees.  A stronger gust of wind, louder this time.  The man talking shop on his phone.  Observe the universe around you. Bask in its abundance. Feel the embrace enveloping you. Lightly or tightly. Your choice. It's all yours. Exactly what you need. Exactly when you need. Lean into your inner wisdom. It knows....
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