Today I was thinking back to a strange phenomenon I noticed – something I used myself to solve problems that were bugging me, but something I saw when I worked as an IT help desk person in a company of about 500 people. Wandering around the building and helping people out, I often came across the situation where the person would show me the problem, and it would no longer be a problem – my mere presence (or rather the act of demonstrating the problem) seemed to miraculously make the problem go away.
No, I am not some great magician. I used this technique to solve problems of my own, knowing that by explaining the problem to someone else often solves the issue.
The thing is, people would swear they did the exact same thing before several times and it did not work.
The point here is that airing an issue sometimes allows you to resolve the issue by examining it. Vocalising means that you have to think through the problem in order to express it in language. Then you are not just saying it to another person – you are saying it to the different aspects of your self – potentially, all those soul partials with different perspectives inside you.
When you talk about something in your head, then it has already been synthesized with a big bunch of assumptions attached.
When you talk about it out loud, then you have the opportunity of reprocessing the information from outside in. Writing can do the same thing if you read it back.
Sometimes, it is just that you need to reach out to someone and to have their soul partials and your soul partials be able to play and work something out together.
When you get stuck, and are at an impasse, it is tempting to avoid the problem. Vocalising can be the thing that makes the difference and gets you unstuck. Turning the problem into language you can play back.
I literally do this by recording an audio journal every few days – usually when driving, because I am on my own (or with two Poodles if taking them to doggy day care) and I can say what I want and listen to what I am saying. I often respond to myself and point out trends in how I represent things so I can get a different perspective. Sometimes I will do this as a written journal – but I find the audio version works well for me.
I often over-commit because I want to be able to do more than is actually feasible. I can reasonably accurate what is feasible for someone else to do, but I relentlessly over-commit on what I can achieve. What is that about?
Well, the difficulty is that if you treated each of your partials as an individual, then indeed, I could get substantially more done. But I am synthesizing their inputs to one output – one view, so that’s not realistic! But it gives you a sense of how many partials are sitting behind you at any one time – those that you are at least vaguely aware of. I’d say I get done about a 4-5 x less than what I think I should be able to achieve in general. I’ve seen about 3 or 4 of these so far, 2 having been brought more to the surface purposefully. I suspect there’s a few more that are a bit more reluctant, but I am patient!
My difficulty is in being able to effectively synthesize these partials. My suspicion is that there are two who are highly competitive, and one that is highly creative and they all want to be number one! Consequently, it can feel like when I do one thing I am being sabotaged by a feeling I could be doing something else.
Procrastination is a weird thing, but effects a lot of us. Why do we not do what we need to so often? Well, need to according to who? Maybe, you need to do a bit of negotatiation. Or maybe you need to ask the question – why do I have such resistance to this?
There are standard responses to this – fear of failure – fear of taking that next step out of your comfort zone – etc etc. And that is fair. Because maybe there is a partial in there that knows they may not be useful anymore if you take that step. So they are going to fight hard to stop you going further, because they may not fit the new version of you. They may find themselves being replaced by another partial as they don’t serve the new way of doing things. So why wouldn’t they fight?
It is state 2 energy you are fighting with procrastination, and it will use whatever tactics are at hand – typically type 3 energy to go to war with your new plans.
So what to do? Accept that resistance. Take it for what it is. Use the energy and try to turn it into collaborative energy, and funnel it through creative energy to shift the needle.
You can turn an antagonistic partial into an ally by recognizing its strengths and seeing how that could be used to achieve your goals.
Got a report to write? Musically creative partial does not see the point. Moreover if you keep doing that kind of thing, your creative juices will die.
Unless you find a way of using those creative juices. Maybe work out what you have to do, and create a music playlist to get through it, and ask your musically creative partial help construct that playlist. Then suddenly that partial has an interest in what you are doing, and is invested in it. And as you listen to the music, you can bring those creative juices into your report (as best you can!) whilst appreciating the impetus the music is giving you, and thanking your soul partial for helping you get this done. Invaluable partial that seemed to be not connected to your ‘drudge’ work, but in reality can be exactly what you need to get things done!
That’s an example (as my musically creative soul partial came to the fore recently to say Hi!)
You see how working with your partials, getting to know them, can become like working as a team, with you as the leader, syntehsizing all those inputs into reality.
This might seem like getting to know your personality better, but this is much more. It is taking time and care to honour the aspects of yourself as individuals, as you might your children / family, or colleagues.
When you work in a team, you know there are some people who are better at specific tasks. So with your partials – but sometimes more than one partial working together can work out the solution. And sometimes, you can trust them to work things out for themselves and let you know.
Partials are the equivalent to the Unconscious in Jungian terms. That which you cannot see, but strives to be known.
When we only allow certain aspects or partials be represented in our persona then this causes all kinds of problems with the remaining partials – and probably inflates the partial being given preferential treatment!
Like any personality, these partials are going to respond depending on their nature – they might fight and try to disrupt you out of a sense of resentment. They might hide and atrophy. They might allow you to get so far, and then totally derail you just as you look like you are going to make a big change.
So get to know your partials. They’re not so bad when you get to know them. Or if they are so bad, you’d better know about it!
Bear in mind too that you are filtering the energy of others, so your partials will be part of that filtering process. You need to make sure this happens in a way you are happy with, as otherwise you could be unwittingly be taking great energy and transmitting very negative energy further down the chain of champagne glasses!
So how well your partials work with you and work together is important for how they interact with the energy of others too.
Inspiration is important. Guides are important. But remember this is the manifestation of others’ perception, so you need to be sure you are not treating that advice as being unquestionable and without flaw, just because you sense it comes from outside yourself.
Hopefully it should be a little more refined than you can manage – if it were too way off, you wouldn’t even be able to understand it.
But respect that inspiration for what it is – another synthesis that can help direct your actions. But they are not the whole truth, and they are not without their own flaws and biases, so use caution.
Ultimately your soul partials are a rich source of inspiration, and learning to work with them can help you to beat procrastination, but also to get in touch with a guide that can help your reach your next level. Listen carefully – but filter it through your own sense of what is the right thing to do. Make your own decisions. Just use the best information you have available to you, from inside and outside of your self.
