The World of 5 Christins

2022-11-13

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Dear Friends,

Have you heard of Internal Family Systems (IFS)? It’s a psychotherapy model that views the mind as one of several sub-personalities or parts, each with their own functions.

Here’s an illustration that describes the components—do you recognize any of them in yourself?

Image source: https://www.etsy.com/listing/692960221/internal-family-systems-instant-high

Or think of the movie Inside Out, with our various emotions deciding what we will do in a given moment:

Pixar Animation Studios

Image source: https://www.pixar.com/feature-films/inside-out

The World of 5 Christins

Those of you who get random DMs from me throughout the day may observe an obvious phenomenon that happens. There seems to be various Christins cycling throughout the day, vying for the steering wheel! Let me introduce you to…

Goofy Christin

She constantly generates random ideas to amuse herself, but doesn’t want to do them. She hands them off to Entrepreneur Christin to deal with.

Chaplain Christin

The peaceful, calm, good listener who mentored for Write of Passage and is now happily chugging along in her chaplaincy class. Optimistic and aspirational without being bogged down.

She gets very little time at the steering wheel because by definition she doesn’t crave control…

Entrepreneur Christin

Gets handed giant todo list of possibilities from Goofy Christin, and gets annoyed at Chaplain Christin for not taking care of her financial safety.

Thinks she’s the only one working around here! Imagine her wearing a headset holding a clipboard like a stage manager.

Yanks for the steering wheel away from Goofy Christin and Chaplain Christin often.

Housewife Christin

Tidying, decluttering, industrious in household duties. She can watch YouTube cooking shows all day.

Gets resentful when she doesn’t get enough time at the steering wheel, because she can see the dishes pile up and the trash can overflow. We can’t always be working!

Dark Christin

The “exiled” part of Christin who doesn’t see the point in doing anything. Self-destructive and stares into the abyss.

Yet she exists to protect the traumatized parts, and is the one who can pull the emergency brake when an accident occurs.

She hasn’t appeared in a long time thanks to friends, traditional Chinese medicine, and strengthened resolve from Chaplain Christin.

I’m not suggesting that I have tiny homunculi running around in my brain, nor am I experiencing pathology beyond the standard human experience. But what I do notice is that when I am feeling stuck or tired with no physiological cause, it’s because the Christin-parts are wrestling for the steering wheel.

Chaplain Christin is the most nourishing and stable of them all , but other parts dissent. Goofy Christin gets under-stimulated, Housewife Christin gets antsy, and Entrepreneurship Christin does not trust her to look after everyone. Yet all these parts appreciate Chaplain Christin for taking care of Dark Christin, whose destructive vortex can overwhelm all the parts.

Chaplain Christin wrote this tweet thread a while back: if Buddhism is all about understanding what is “not-self,” how can viewing one to have multiple “selves” be relevant/healthy?