INTRODUCTION

Pillar 3: The Internal

What is the Internal?

The internal is your mind, but it is not “you”. I know that's confusing. Let me explain.

There is an “I” who can step back and see their own mind working. In neuroscience, this is called metacognition. This “I” is the part of us that can identify one's feelings, override one's proclivities, and interrupt one's reaction before it goes out.

“This article makes me angry.”
“I am ambivalent about his cooking.”
“Just sitting here in the park makes me feel at peace somehow.”

This “I” can override the body. It makes you get up to your alarm even though your body still wants to sleep, or do the workout at the end of the day even when you're tired. It decides to go to the obligatory party, or decides to speak up in a meeting to practice being less timid.

This Internal “I” overrides tiredness, sadness, fear, and pleasure. If anything, this is the real “you.” It lives in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, in charge of conscious thought.

In this framework, Internal will explore our relationship to parts of ourselves. Specifically our relationship to hunger, tiredness, sadness, pain, fear, shame, pleasure, and contentment, because these are the relationships that affect us daily, and steer us into a path that we may not choose if we were lucid enough to recognize them.

Issues with the Internal

  1. We don't know who we are. We don't know...
    • Our desires
    • Our fears
    • What we'll put up with (our boundaries)
    • What hurts us
    • What we hate
    • What makes us angry
    • What gives us pleasure
    • Why we do what we do, the origin of our tendencies and behaviors

  2. We haven't accepted the parts of us that we don't like.
    • “I'm not as far along as I had hoped at this age.”
    • “I wish I was rich / smart / pretty / successful etc.”
    • “I wish I were less sensitive / weak / overthinking / sad / anxious / etc.”

  3. We are afraid to change.
    • “It's embarrassing”
    • "What if I fail?"
    • "Things aren't so bad as they are."
    • "I don't want to be presumptuous."
    • "I can't because [excuse]."
    • "The way things are feels familiar and safe."
    • "Better to dance with the devil you know than the devil you don't."

Exercise

SELF-DISCOVERY

  1. What do you want?

  2. What don't you like about yourself?

  3. What would you change about yourself or your life?