Unburdening the thinker
I recently attended a two day course on Internal Family Systems (IFS) taught by Loch Kelly, one of the western authorities on Dzogchen, a buddhist tradition taught in Tibet.
Both IFS and Loch deserve many more posts in this publication but what I want to focus on today is an IFS concept that was particularly appealing to me: “unburdening the thinker” or “the manger”.
IFS postulates that our psyche is made up of many parts playing different roles and that in order to free ourselves from dysfunctional patterns, we have to uncover these parts, interact with them and finally unburden them from negative believes or pain.
The intersection with mindfulness stems from the key role that access to “Self”, i.e. our ability to recognize our true nature, plays in IFS’ unburdening process,
One key part in most of our psyches’ is played by “the manager” or “the thinker”. This is the part, that is constantly stepping in for most of us to handle our interaction with the external world.
Often times the thinker is burdened because he is overly-vigilant, constantly protecting other vulnerable parts and he is overbearing, taking up a greater role than is his due.
This over-vigilance and overbearingness can be recognized directly through observation and when done from the ground of capital S “Self”, can be relieved extraordinarily quickly.
This simple and elegant insight and practice can make the difference between overthinking a decision and acting from intuition, between painful friction in our day-to-day interactions and straightforward clarity.
If you’re interested in more about IFS and its intersection with meditation, I highly recommend this interview with IFS’ creator Richard Schwartz and Loch Kelly.
