Who’s Leading Your Life?
I’ve been sharing resources on Parts Work as offered through Aletheia coaching, inspired by Internal Family Systems (IFS). I’ve written about how to identify your Parts, get to know your Inner Critics, and how Parts Work supports creativity, slowing down, and even healing polarization in our world. And there’s still so much more to say about the benefits of this kind of inner exploration.
While I offer leadership programs, leadership isn’t limited to managing people in organizations. It permeates every area of life: our work, projects, relationships, communities, families, and setting our personal direction in life. Amidst the demands, doubts, and conflicting priorities of modern life, true leadership begins within. It starts with the question: Who is leading your life?
So often, we become identified with a particular Part of ourselves without realizing it’s that Part making our decisions. You might notice yourself saying, “A part of me wants to go this way, but another part feels equally strongly about the opposite.” We discount or ignore certain Parts while centering others, leaving us confused, stuck, or heading in directions we can’t sustain.
Vanessa Andreotti, in Hospicing Modernity, offers a powerful metaphor: Who is driving your bus? Are there passengers whose voices and desires are seated in the way back and are never heard? Or, if you prefer water metaphors, who is captaining your ship? These questions help us pause and notice which Parts are steering and whether we’re moving forward from habit, fear, or authenticity. And yet something inside of you knows, this might not be the full expression of your life.
"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
Viktor Frankl
And what is this “something inside of you” I’m pointing to? Parts Work helps create that space between stimulus and reaction. By asking gentle questions, listening deeply, and offering appreciation for what we discover, something within us begins to shift. We start to meet what’s truly present, ourselves as Presence.
Presence is your innate wholeness. Your inner resource for navigating the complexities of life with clarity, compassion, and purpose. It reveals itself through qualities like joy, truth, peace, strength, and compassion. The part of you that is always OK and can hold everything. Presence is your true Self.
It’s important to say: our Parts are not wrong. They are often well-intentioned, working hard to meet our needs or protect us from pain. Seeing from a “parts” perspective reminds us that when one Part reacts, that’s not all of who we are.
Remembering Wholeness
We tend to forget our wholeness. We feel deficient, as though something is missing, and we go searching for what will fill the gap. Often, this turns into a self-improvement project. A simple example might be going shopping and buying what you already have. You buy a green sweater just like the one already in your closet. It’s a small but familiar way of feeling that something is missing, and not pausing to ask what is already present.
This is a way to care for our resources and deepen our resourcefulness because you aren’t your Parts. You are Presence: whole, grounded, confident, and able to take the lead in your own life. When Parts get triggered, we forget our wholeness. Remembering Presence brings us back home to ourselves.
Seeing Wholeness
So how do we begin to see the innate wholeness that’s already here? So often, we’re blind to it. Parts language is so helpful because it gives us a shared way to speak about what’s happening inside and between us. It helps us create space within ourselves and within others to navigate complexity with care. But only seeing the world through a “parts” lens is still partial.
If we want to move in a new direction, individually or collectively, we need a shift in perspective. We don’t want to treat each other as parts; we want to see each other’s wholeness because we are more than the sum of our parts. Like in nature, wholeness is always here, even when it’s hidden. The invitation is to let it reveal itself. I share much more about how we can discover wholeness in an earlier blog.
Wholeness is dynamic and relational. It’s the way life weaves itself together. Artists and gardeners know this well! They’re attuned to the living patterns of wholeness. How do we become the artists and gardeners of our own lives?
What’s really needed is cultivating a mood of wonder. The curiosity that asks and follows what unfolds. This way of being is regenerative. The more we can perceive ourselves as whole, the more we see others and the world in that same light.
As wholeness, we can face reality exactly as it is. Wholeness is indestructible.
Start Where You Are!
Parts Work is often the beginning of this inner discovery. Dreamwork can be another way into this transformation, often more playful and imaginal. We always start exactly where you are. Coaching helps uncover your historical thread. Seeing past challenges not just as problems to solve, but as opportunities to reveal deeper patterns and truths.
The path of self-leadership is about following a golden thread, deepening self-awareness, cultivating compassion, and allowing growth to unfold naturally. Each step brings us closer to our authentic self, drawing on inner qualities of Presence that strengthen our clarity, confidence, and care in how we move through the world.
1:1 Coaching
If you’d like to explore these threads personally in more depth, reach out for a free discovery call.