Resources for reflection
Guides to inner work
Begin with what is happening for you. You do not need to know our terminology. These guides explore how a reaction can become a doorway into understanding yourself, with examples and questions to consider at your own pace.
Start with what you’re experiencing
Why am I suffering?
See how resisting what is and clinging to what should be turn an event and a feeling into suffering.
Explore →Acceptance: Responsibility and Permission
Accepting a trait, habit or reaction in yourself does not excuse its impact or give you permission to hurt someone.
Explore →Why do I react so strongly to some things?
Explore the difference between what happened and what it touched inside you.
Explore →Radical Acceptance and Addiction
Explore what a substance or behaviour is doing for you, recognize the addict in its different expressions, and bring acceptance together with responsibility.
Explore →Why do the same things keep triggering me?
Notice the familiar meaning that may connect otherwise different situations.
Explore →Acceptance: Approval and Boundaries
Stop arguing with what is already here so you can respond to it more clearly.
Explore →What can my anger teach me?
Listen to anger without making it wrong or letting it decide every action.
Explore →What is underneath my anxiety or fear?
Explore what a feared outcome seems to mean about you.
Explore →Why do I keep needing other people to change?
Explore the point where a reasonable wish becomes a condition for feeling okay.
Explore →How do I accept a part of myself I dislike?
Turn toward an inner reaction that feels embarrassing, inconvenient or unacceptable.
Explore →How do I know when to accept and when to act?
Use acceptance, planning and action as parts of one process.
Explore →Why do I know better but still react the same way?
Understand why knowing an idea does not prevent a part from taking over in the moment.
Explore →Tools for going deeper
Old School Tools
Three direct ways of discovering what is operating beneath a reaction.
- Projection
Recognize in yourself what you strongly judge or reject in someone else.
- Attachment
Separate what happened from what you expected and the belief you are holding onto.
- Getting to the Root
Follow fear to feeling unloved, unvalued, unsafe or unseen.
Internal Family Systems
Meet the part involved in the reaction and discover what it is protecting.
- IFS and Addiction
Get to know the addict part and the part that judges it, listen from the Conductor, and approach the wounded part at a pace the system can trust.
- Parts and the Conductor
Listen to protectors and wounded parts from calm, curious and compassionate presence.
Michael Singer
Work directly with the energy activated by an event.
- Allowing Energy to Pass Through
Feel the energy without suppressing it, following it or closing around it.