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Walks ยท one sitting, about 11 min

Awake at three

For lying awake when you can't sleep and worry keeps going round: stay in bed, find the part on the night shift, hear what it is guarding, and see whether it will let the list wait until morning.

14 steps, drawn from 20 books on IFS.

A draft: every passage it quotes is in its book, but its own wording has not yet been checked against them.

Read every step first
  1. Awake, and it's still dark. For when you are awake at three and your mind keeps doing laps. Turn the screen down as far as it goes. You can stay lying down and answer in a word or two. This is not a trick for knocking you out. It is a short visit to the part working the night shift. If sleep turns up halfway through, let it. Stop any time.
  2. The bed is doing the holding. Feel the weight of you on the mattress. The pillow under your head, the weight of the covers, whatever your feet are touching. Holding yourself up is not your job right now. Eyes open in the dark, or shut if that is easier. Either is fine.
  3. What is it going round about? No need to write the whole list. Tap the nearest.
  4. Where it sits tonight. Turn from the worries to the one doing the worrying. Where is it right now? Behind the eyes, in the chest, low in the stomach? A word is plenty.
  5. One part, on night shift. Try saying it inside: 'a part of me is on the night shift.' Notice that you are lying here, noticing it. It is one part of you, awake. Stay near it for a moment.
  6. Your feeling toward it. Toward the wakeful part, not toward the worries. At this hour it is very normal for another part to answer: one that is furious, or one counting the hours until the alarm.
  7. What it's keeping watch over. Ask the night-shift part what it is keeping watch over. What does it think needs guarding at this hour? Wait. No need to answer for it.
  8. Off duty until seven. Ask it: if it went off duty until seven, what does it fear might happen? Give it time.
  9. Where did its answer point? Sometimes the fear is about now: tomorrow, the money, someone's health. Sometimes it points further back, at someone younger inside you who got hurt and still carries it. Both are worth knowing. Only the first is for today.
  10. The list can sleep here. Offer it a deal rather than a promise. It can hand you the list, here, and you will keep it until morning. Let it write whatever it wants kept, as short as it likes. It can check the list in daylight.
  11. Not on its own. Now just stay with it. Breathe a little slower than it wants to, and let each out-breath drift toward wherever it sits. Nothing to ask it. It is three in the morning, and it has company.
  12. The quiet one noticing. If there is any room around the part now, notice the room. Whoever in you is quiet enough to notice. No need to make it bigger. A little counts. Stay there for as long as it lasts.
  13. How loud is it now? The same scale as at the start. Any change is worth noticing. No change is fine: you spent the time beside the part instead of under it.
  14. Back to the bed. Thank the part on the night shift, and the one that wanted sleep, for letting you be with them. If you told it you would look at the list in the morning, do it. Then return to the bed: the pillow, the dark, the sounds of the house. Phone face down. Let sleep come, or not.
  15. Meet the one that keeps stepping in. Fine. This is the part to meet tonight. Ask it what it fears might go wrong if it gave you some room. Then wait in the dark for its answer.
  16. Where did its answer point? Sometimes the fear is about now: tomorrow, the money, someone's health. Sometimes it points further back, at someone younger inside you who got hurt and still carries it. Both are worth knowing. Only the first is for today.
  17. Seen, and not today. If someone younger came forward, let it know you saw it and you will not forget it. You are not going to it tonight. You can leave yourself a word, so you know where to return in daylight.
  18. Stopping here is fine. If a part will not give you room tonight, you can stop here. Nothing has failed. It is three in the morning and trust takes more than one go. If it told you what worries it, you can jot a word.
  19. Ask the sleepy one for a minute. Turn to the one that wants sleep. It has a point. Ask whether it would let you spend a little while with the night-shift part, since fighting it has not worked so far tonight. It can stay close. Nobody is going to keep you up on purpose.