Message 332

“With awareness, we can make conscious choices, instead of letting our habitual thoughts and patterns run the show.”
Tamara Levitt

First of all, thank you for not making fun of all I revealed yesterday and not being mean. It was hard to expose so much of me so I really do appreciate your kindness.

It took me a very long time to learn about awareness. I think I was pretty aware of what was going on in others so that I could treat their medical issues.

I had absolutely no awareness of anything going on inside of me, however.

I have increased that awareness through IFS and I can now spot things in my mind that are habitual thoughts and behaviors. With IFS I have learned all about the various parts of me that have been running the show for all this time.

Recognizing and acknowledging these parts of me has been liberating. Now I am able to identity parts that are protecting me from some old hurt (they don’t know you’ve grown up so they think they are still protecting a wounded child).
I found this from the daily discipline newsletter by Brian Kight. 18 November 2025

The purpose of self-awareness is to:
• build a healthy relationship with yourself.
• keep you in a healthy relationship with the environment around you.
• show you the factors affecting your quality of life.
• show you misalignment within yourself.
• show you risks and opportunities in the environment.
• inform your immediate decisions and long-term direction.
• feed your self-confidence.
• push you into self-disciplined action.
It’s not the role of self-awareness to:
• freeze you in analysis.
• highlight your flaws and mistakes.
• hide your talents and strengths.
• push you into self-judgment.
• turn you into a self-critic.
• undermine your self-confidence.
• lock you in a self-imposed prison.
• trap you in a habitual cycle of anxiety, disappointment, and regret.

With this work, I am more alert as to what’s going on. No matter how you do it, it’s key that you have awareness so you can live and love in each moment and enjoy what life is in front of you.

I mentioned I had quite a few revelations last week want to hear what they were?

What a week. I thought I would share some of what happened so you could see the power of IFS

I’ve been working on my book. Although I should say I’ve been trying to work on my book. No matter my good intentions though, I always seemed to find ways and reasons to procrastinate. So i decided to explore why using IFS. I discovered two interesting things. One was that there was a part, a protector, that was afraid of being judged so it didn’t want me to get any closer to publishing my book because then people would read it and decide it was horrible and therefore I was horrible. This was a young part that was criticized harshly as a kid. What my “self” (the inner calm and compassionate me) had to do was remind it that we aren’t anywhere near that point yet AND that we’d done it before without harm. This was such a strongly injured part that a second protector was there to back up the procrastinator. It was the part
that dropped a heavy fog of sleepiness over me trying to prevent me from either recognizing the issue or relieving the wounded parts pain. After working with these parts I spent the entire day yesterday working on the book. That was the first time I’ve ever been that productive.

An even more significant discovery was that there is a little boy (parts don’t have to be the same gender as you) who would give me daily headaches every time something good happened. It turns out he was trying to hold me back from any joy or celebration because he felt I should feel guilty about my little brother’s death when I was only 14 months old – he died of SIDS when

My mother put him down for a nap to feed me. This part said if I hadn’t had to eat, he wouldn’t have died. Remember that’s very young Child’s reasoning. I was able to show him that I hadn’t forgotten my brother (a big fear of its) and we examined the fact that my mother probably had more guilt than either of us could imagine. He was in pain because both his mother and his brother left him in the dark. My mother was emotionally unavailable at that point. All he wanted was attention, both to him and to my baby brother.

And to end today’s session, I had been very upset and jealous of the attention someone was getting that I thought I should have some of. It was really getting to me. So once again I knew it was a part but I didn’t t know what it was from. Turns out it had nothing to do with the people. It was a desperate little child who just wanted attention because it equated attention with love. That also made plenty of sense given my childhood experience that I just mentioned and the rest of my childhood too.

There is one other thing from last week too. I went on a 3 day retreat with a friend and it was the absolute best time of my life. I spent that time just with her and didn’t once in 3 days become upset, disappointed, hurt nor did I overreact. If you knew me even 4 years ago, you would not have believed I was the same person.

That’s the power of IFS

Message 330

Why don’t you measure your mental weight?

“Part of healing is taking responsibility for the role you play in your own suffering.”
Lisa Schlosberg

This quote is exactly why I am so “into” IFS and neuroplastic theory (mind body medicine). The tools we need to “fix” ourselves are within our reach. We can make changes in our minds – our thoughts and attitudes. Those changes will affect our health and can change it – for good or for bad (if we live with negativity and stress).

We can’t just go to a doctor and expect them to know all about you and be able to give you a magic pill. People complain that that’s all doctors do. But you know what? That’s what patients demand. Sure when they’re feeling ok they’re all about natural methods and why don’t doctors teach all that. But as soon as they start to feel bad, they don’t want it to take a long time to heal. They want it NOW and natural methods don’t work that way. They take time. So now they don’t want to spend that time. I’ve experienced this as a doctor and it’s extremely frustrating. Patients demand results and they demand them in their time line.

I think we all (doctors included) need to incorporate all modalities. We are complex systems and need multiple ways to heal or to prevent illness.

And it all starts within. Your mind is much more powerful than you realize and it’s your responsibility to keep it in shape and continue to go to the gym – the mental gym.

Take this opportunity to start forming those mental muscles. Keep track of your thoughts, monitor them. Watch for progress or even regression. People are so obsessed with weighing themselves and say that they are monitoring their weight. What are you doing to monitor your mental weight?