I may have stumbled onto a life-changing practice on Twitter yesterday. I have only practiced it a couple of times so far and I feel a dramatic effect on happiness and equanimity each time.
Whenever a life-changing practice works out, it...well, changes your life. So well worth trying out strong recommendations.
Here's how it starts:
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Hm well so all day I’m either talking to my parts or thinking “how can humanity become more alive” and diving into that question. That’s what my head is doing
Body is doing whatever it feels like basically on autopilot
— Nick Cammarata (@nickcammarata) June 11, 2021
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wait hold up. all day you're talking to your parts? can we get a monologue demonstration?
— visa is doing final edits (99.2%) ✍🏾📖 (@visakanv) June 11, 2021
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I'm glad that Visa actually caught the casual mention and asks Nick for a demonstration (I'd probably have simply brushed through the tweet, so this is a good lesson in paying attention and being curious). Nick shares a live stream of self-talk as an example -
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Oh baby nick what do you feel wow you feel powerful why oh it’s because you’re excited for work why does that feel powerful oh you’re excited to show to me what your skills can do cool! Is everyone excited for the gym we’ll be there in fifteen minutes yeah it’s sad our ankle is
hurt but it’s because of dancing and we looove dancing it’s so much fun! I really like being here with all of you oh teen nick what do you feel oh you’re wondering if a girl likes you. Ha that’s cute but you should also think through whether you like her it’s totally reasonable
feel can you do it? Flash it in our mind. Wow that’s beautiful that makes so much sense, I love the waves on the side like that ....
Okay that’s like a random 30 second livestream. Except almost none of it is lingual it’s mostly just feelings. Maybe 20% lingual
— Nick Cammarata (@nickcammarata) June 11, 2021
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You can see that Nick has a few different kinds of talks with his parts and pasts in this example:
- Check-in talks: How is every part feeling and doing, is anything disturbed or joyful.
- Reflection / looking ahead talks: What do we think about what happened or is going to happen.
- Past self talk: Talk to a past self about something memorable - good or bad, and show compassion and heal from that experience.
- Casual chats: No particular agenda. Just talk about whatever is on your mind.
The practice seems almost cuckoo! Basically, instead of thinking of yourself as one thing, you think of yourself as multiple different parts and pasts. Each is alive and has its own feelings. You are their attentive, caring, and compassionate leader. And you regularly acknowledge their presence, their feelings, and talk with them.
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I think the broad thing is I used to feel like one big piece and now I feel like a system of subprocesses I’m like the leader of. Except I’m very explicitly the slave. I remind the parts all the time that I don’t need anything from them, if they want to hurt me they can
— Nick Cammarata (@nickcammarata) June 11, 2021
If they want to call for attention they can, if they want to take over my whole qualia state they can. Any part has the full ability to get me to stop whatever I’m doing, they just have to send the message. My only goal as a leader is to make them feel comfortable and supported
— Nick Cammarata (@nickcammarata) June 11, 2021
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Visa gets it and highlights how powerful this is to increase baseline happiness:
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to be directly reassuring here – this was absolutely lovely and I am very, very grateful that you shared this
numbers are silly but: you gave me a direct glimpse of the *path* from "7 average" to "9 average". i've been 9 before but I didn't really have a compelling precise model for *why* I'm not 9 average all the time. seems exceedingly likely that this monologue makes the difference
— visa is doing final edits (99.2%) ✍🏾📖 (@visakanv) June 11, 2021
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After trying it out, I agree that this practice is very powerful for a few reasons.
- It gets you to regularly and systematically check in with yourself. Meditation practices like body scans do something similar. This leads to more presence, self-awareness, and resolution of internal conflicts.
- The conversation style and humanization are more engaging. fun, and compassionate, compared to meditation practices.
- You show love, compassion, and care to all your parts and your pasts, which helps you heal and feel better.
- I think the attention, love, and compassion to different parts and pasts of you translates to compassion and care towards other people, beings, and things. It takes you towards the high state of "awakening" where ego dissolves and you become everything.
- Conscious and deliberate self-talk takes time away from subconscious self-talk, which is usually less uplifting or beneficial.
- Being conscious more often is the same as being present more often, which is effective for clarity and happiness.
Such a lovely and insightful exchange on the Internet!
Notes:
[1] I'm learning that this is similar to a therapy approach - Internal Family Systems or IFS.
[2] Naming and humanizing pets and things have a similar effect. Nameless, faceless people or things get less of our attention and compassion.