To Be, Not to Become

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there."
Rumi

This morning I was walking in Slad Woods with my partner, arm in arm, sometimes sharing words, sometimes quiet. Dog mooching, butterflies flitting through the grasses and toadflax, sunlight shining through the plants, birds chirping to one another, and all that extraordinary green around us.

As we walked, quietly being, I became aware of that familiar felt sense of presence. A feeling of being here, right now, with nothing to fix or change. Just being.

I can feel it here too, writing these words, relaxed on my sofa, moving between the memory of the woods and the experience of being right here now. I feel it often in my daily swim too, with the cold, the resistance, the rhythm. Something settles and I come back to myself: Present, alive and feeling connected inside and outside Connected to myself, to the people I love and a sense of something larger too.

In IFS we call this Self. IFS holds the belief that Self is here at all times, simply hidden by the parts that blend with us as we move through our days.

IFS is a constraint release model. When we can befriend our parts and they trust us enough to relax, we begin to unblend… and then here we are. Calm, curious, clear. We can become the Captain of the Ship, the Conductor of the Orchestra, the sun emerging from behind the clouds.

One of my favourite Rumi teachings echoes this beautifully: "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

Im not becoming something new instead im noticing what has been obscuring what is already here. Perhaps that is why so many traditions describe awakening less as finding something new and more as remembering something that was always there?

Gestalt therapy has a beautiful idea known as the paradoxical theory of change. Change occurs when we become more fully who we are, not when we try to become someone we are not.

That feels deeply compatible with IFS. Self does not need building, improving or perfecting. Many of us spend years becoming… Learning, striving, protecting, proving, gathering qualifications, experiences and identities. We build careers, relationships, families and ways of making sense of the world. Then slowly (or dramatically!) for many of us I believe the invitation begins to change and question becomes less, "What do I need to become?" and more, "Who am I underneath everything I have become?" What might this look like? Maybe less striving and more noticing, less constructing annd maybe more uncovering ourselves. Self has never been missing, just hidden underneath all the effort.

Loch Kelly comes at this from a different direction. Instead of working with parts first, he uses glimpse practices. Tiny shifts of attention that allow us to drop directly into Self and then meet our parts from there. Frank Anderson often speaks of this too. One of his simplest invitations is to remember the first time you held a puppy, saw a breathtaking sunset, or gazed across a snowy landscape. What is there in that moment of open wonder before thought catches up? It might look like openness or presence, warmth or connection ..

What Is Self, Exactly?

In IFS, Self is described through qualities: calm, curious, compassionate, clear, confident, courageous, creative and connected. The eight Cs. Other words may feel congruent here too like presence and wisdom, open heartedness, flexibility, nuance.

It’s my understanding and experience that Self has access to life experience, wisdom and learning, the whole system. Many spiritual traditions point towards Self being not just individual but also connected to something collective, universal or sacred. Self being both individual and the collective: wave and the particle. I know that when I’m feeling Self energy it’s like I feel both more me, myself, and less separate to others at the same time. How about you?

Many spiritual traditions point towards something similar. Atman in Hindu philosophy. Buddha nature in Buddhism. Spirit or soul in Christian traditions. Perhaps even the field Rumi is describing.

My colleague Laura Patryas writes: “We walk two paths at once

The horizontal path of immanence, grounded in the here-and-now of human life

The vertical path of transcendence, rooted in the timeless dimension of universal Self”

Similarly, the older I get, I find I am less interested in choosing between those two paths as for me life seems richer when both are allowed to be true.

There is a polyvagal piece here too, which we'll be exploring more fully next month. Ventral vagal is a physiological state associated with safety, connection and curiosity. For many people this feels calm.

For those of us with neurodivergent nervous systems it does not always look that way.

It can feel alert. Engaged. Curious. Even a little electric, while still being deeply connected and safe. When I trained in neurofeedback, I could see my own brainwaves. My AuDHD was right there on the screen. Fast processing/ firing and Multiple things happening at once. This is simply my hardware.

So I began wondering whether Self always feels the same. Sarah Bergenfield has suggested that her Self is autistic, shaped by autistic perception and processing.

Others hold that Self is universal. The nervous system differs. The parts differ. Self itself does not.

I find myself sitting somewhere in the middle. The quality feels recognisable yet I wonder about the texture. My Self is rarely slow calm and floaty. It feels alert, alive and tingling with possibility.

The Field Is Between Us

Gestalt therapy has a concept of the contact boundary. Where we meet The idea that Self is not simply an internal experience but is often discovered at the point of meeting so incontact rather than isolation.

Rumi's field is somewhere we go together.

Hedy Schleifer talks about this as crossing the bridge… Leaving your own world and taking your passport and leaving everything else behind.. stepping into the world of another. Becoming a good visitor. Curious, respectful, not rearranging the furniture! When they cross into your world, becoming a good host. Which could look like being Welcoming, present and available. When you are rooted enough in your own experience, it becomes safe to leave it and return.Self makes the bridge crossable. Without it, we either merge with the other person or never leave our own territory at all.

The Centre of Health

We’ve been looking at RLT theory - the Wise Adult feels similar enough to me. Flexible, humble, grounded in reality and relaxed in the body. On the Relationship Grid, this is the Centre of Health. It's not walled off, nor boundaryless, nor above or below.It is the place where I can be fully myself and genuinely open to you. It is a practice and a showing up. Maybe we call it presence, moment by moment and conversation by conversation. Distinct enough to know where I end and you begin. Connected enough to meet you anyway.

My orchestra of parts still show up. The managers, the firefighters, the ones with feelings and the practice is noticing them, supporting them, and returning to relationship. First internally and then with the people around us.

The Field

Perhaps the field is not somewhere else at all but woven through ordinary moments. For me it’s walking and Swimming. Listening. Meeting a part with curiosity instead of judgement. Being quietly with someone you love.Nothing extraordinary yet also somehow gold. Maybe all the same field, the one Rumi is pointing towards and the one Gestalt therapists discovered at the contact boundary, and Hedy's bridge leads to. Ordinary life and something timeless, meeting for a moment in the same place.

so with curiosity I wonder when did you last feel present and you? What were you doing and who were you with? What does your Self feel like from the inside?

I'd genuinely love to know.