Acting within the ecosystem of the self

I learned two actionable models of the self from Gordon White, which he learned in turn from others: The soul incarnates into three bodies, i.e., the physical, emotional, and spiritual/mental bodies. The center of the physical body is the gut. The center of the emotional body is the heart. The center of the mental body is the head. I prefer the ambiguity of “gut” and “head” because specifying “stomach” and “brain” invites materialism. “Heart” already has sufficient ambiguity in our culture. This has been on my mind a lot lately so I expect to write more about it. The self is an ecosystem of parts. This is an insight from internal family systems therapy. I’ve written about this before. These parts represent different aspects, or even time periods. They’re often wounded in some way. They’re often trying to protect you by making their voices heard. Your job, as the caretaker of this ecosystem, is to care for your parts, hear them, and act responsibly. Sometimes this means taking their…