2023-01-30 Mon 11:03 AM > [!-cf-]+ [[Related notes]] > - [[IFS meditations]] ![[moses_a_man_sits_in_a_comfortable_chair_meditating._he_is_surro_ef58c6f1-5609-4233-8510-3d61720a65dc.png]] > Even though I had been meditating for years and could shift from negative feelings to calm (or sometimes even bliss) by focusing on my mantra for a few minutes, when I didn’t meditate for a while, the feeling of worthlessness crept back in like fog, obscuring my calm and confidence. Now my clients were showing me a new way of accessing calm and confidence. I began to experiment with noticing parts in my body and asking them to step back instead of using a mantra. Amazingly it worked, and this is how I continue to meditate today, almost 35 years later. > [[Ref. Richard Schwartz and Martha Sweezy 2019 - Internal Family Systems therapy, 2nd edition]] (p. 17) --- # [[Journal section]] ### [[MOB]] at 2024-10-05 Sat 13.05pm > Now I had new data. Clients were not only separating from extreme feelingsand beliefs, they were spontaneously demonstrating unalloyed ego strength.Nothing I knew could account for this. Most of these individuals not onlylacked good-enough parenting, their childhoods had been nightmares of fearand degradation. Some had never been held or comforted in their lives. Theyhad no good attachment figures. The implications of what I was seeing werestartling for developmental psychology and attachment theory. I wondered,“Are we born with these qualities so we don’t have to get them from theenvironment?” Maybe our psychologies, philosophies, and religions hadradically underestimated what we call human nature. Even though I had beenmeditating for years and could shift from negative feelings to calm (orsometimes even bliss) by focusing on my mantra for a few minutes, when Ididn’t meditate for a while, the feeling of worthlessness crept back in likefog, obscuring my calm and confidence. Now my clients were showing me anew way of accessing calm and confidence. I began to experiment withnoticing parts in my body and asking them to step back instead of using amantra. Amazingly it worked, and this is how I continue to meditate today,almost 35 years later. > [[Ref. Richard Schwartz and Martha Sweezy 2019 - Internal Family Systems therapy, 2nd edition]] p 37 in pdf