Position Vacant

Must be capable of working well with others

Reveries Journal #36 | Sunday 15 March 2026

I believed the cure to a noisy mind was to stop writing.

Brené Brown says that we cannot selectively numb.

A cure for a noisy mind is not to stop writing.

It’s been a month.

I’m back.

Have you heard of Internal Family Systems? I hadn’t until I listened to a podcast a few years ago in which Rich Roll interviewed Richard C. Schwartz about this therapy. The core principle of IFS is that the mind is made up of different parts. These parts have roles that you are guided to name as you see fit, based on the “job” they perform.

When too many things demand attention, every inner employee tries to speak at once.

The result is noise.

The person who runs one business and handles building administration is not responsible for the person who writes poetry and books. The person who tends the garden and cares for precious small people is a nurturer who wishes that the employee in charge of legal defence would simply go away and take all the difficult decision-making with them.

The adventurer and photographer are smothered beneath paperwork and timelines that must be adhered to.

The Yogi wakes and tries to beat the sun, the noise, the lists, to just be here now. The poet appreciates her and quietly takes notes.

So, how did the writer think it was just her fault? Probably because she listens closer to the wound that believes everything is.

And there are others - ongoing handlers and observers of this current iteration of Kate.

Some older models have been around forever — the inner child, the schoolyard girl, the twenty-year-old woman who dreamed, and the thirty-two-year-old who believed she failed at everything. Reflections as tangible as the shadows of trees that flicker across the road we pass.

Who wakes me up at 3 am?

It could be any of them.

Probably one whose voice has been silenced and ignored lately by the cacophony. Priorities shuffled hourly. Balls dropped — and some of them are indeed made of *glass. I cut myself on shards of memory and missed opportunities to reach out to those I love nearly every day.

There is no mistaking this struggle as less than a universal concern. Every human, even the Zen monk on a mountain top, experiences the divided collective within.

The point is not to smother all the voices.

It is to discern who will lead.

Schwartz proposes the entity he calls “Self”. The innate, undamaged core of a person that has the capacity to lead the internal system with calmness and compassion.

I’m not sure it is that simple. When the mind is deep in reaction, it is difficult to find anything untouched by the crowd around it.

Hindsight - now there is a wise sage I would love to lead my internal troops. But where is that venerable saint in a battle? Like our political leaders, it is buried under the doona waiting for the trouble of the present to be past. After which, it is happy to preach from the podium and destroy what is left of Self’s esteem.

Forgive.

Everyone.

Most of all, your internal crew.

We are thinking, feeling, reactive creatures.

So what to do?

The answer is not in the brain, though it will insist that it is.

The answer is in the body.

The body sighs to release. It breathes to live. When stretched and moved, it becomes supple and yielding — a firm place to rest.

The body contains wisdom.

The mind will always be the holder of thoughts.

But the body is the holder of silence.

And silence is the wellspring of contentment and an endless abundance of energy.

With the right food, rest, and movement, the body returns us to balance in a deeply transformative way. And who shows up next? Perhaps the true leader I have been seeking all along.

Have a great week.

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*Nora Roberts proposed the glass ball vs plastic ball theory if you wish to look up her take on how to prioritise the resources of our life.

Photos: mine.