[:parts:] • Examples of parts: • Parts of our psyche that have detached due to trauma and are looping, reliving that trauma over and over. • Past lives • People internalized in the subconscious • Lots more • Anything that you can be aware of therefore must be separate from you and is a part! • • For the most part, there are a set of parts present in everybody • Inner child, teen, mother, father, superego, protectors • Although sometimes these parts can be very blocked • Even Rose, raised by a single parent, has both an inner mother/father • Note: there's a question here of, well, if I'm told I have an X part or a Y part, then when I do parts work will I not be subconsciously "trying" to find them? The best answer I have is this: parts are generally not created, but discovered. Finding a part should feel like becoming aware of a truth that was already there. (FWIW, this answer does not fully discount the possibility of the influence of "expecting" to find a part.) • • For the most part, the goal of every part is to serve and integrate. • However, some parts have some crazy ideas of how to do that. A part may truly believe, for instance, that self-harm is a healthy and good idea. • And some parts will act in selfish manners, using other parts as a pawn to get their way • It is possible to internalize a part which does not have the interests of the whole in mind. For instance, this can happen if too much time is spent around a person whp dpes not have our best interests at heart. • This will be damaging to the psyche. Can be dealt with by straight up destroying a part. But keep in mind that this situation is very rare! • • When a part needs something, it can cause you to identify with it! • Ever be in a relationship where one side is really insecure? Their insecurity becomes anxiety in their partner, in order to get their needs met. The partner then has them hanging around in their mind all the time. On the contrary, relationships between two people who are both fully independently complete can be so easy as to be almost forgettable. • Parts are the same way! When a part needs something, it may become ever-present, trying to get attended to. On the contrary, a totally healthy part is often mostly working behind the scenes, on the down-low. • (Generally speaking, I am finding that many teachings about parts boil down to "treat them like real people") • • Idle thought: what is a part? • Somehow I'm not comfortable with fully accepting that a part is in a real way "another living entity" within my mind; it feels wrong to me to anthropomorphize it so • But perhaps something like, a part is an identified state of being? So if I have a particular repeating mental process, I might call it a "part", thus identifying it; to 'check in' with a part is to briefly re-renter that mental state • But this doesn't account for the fact that parts very can have precognitive effects. •