Listen to your broccoli

A short exploration of intuition and our many human sub-personalities.

Brainy-looking broccoli via Unsplash

Dear friend,

Yesterday, I meant to return a bag of items I’d ordered for the office (an online purchase mistake), but despite looking at said bag just before picking up my keys, I found myself halfway down the stairs when I noticed I’d left it behind.

Whoops.

The funny thing about that is just as I was leaving, hovering over my handbag, I’d muttered to myself:

‘Do one less thing today.’

Obviously, I didn’t mean THAT thing.

It’s no big deal, I returned the items the next day, but it’s amusing: one part of me spoke and another part decided to listen and take immediate action. I hadn’t foreseen such direct cause and effect. I should have seen it coming, though.

I’ve been studying IFS, or Internal Family Systems, you see. It’s all about parts, and how to understand them, work with them and live with them. One of the lecturers explained:

“My parts are my humanity, sub-personalities inside all of us, like little people inside of us.”

Today, as I write this newsletter, it is Thanksgiving in the USA. I’m so envious of their four-day holiday. One of my ‘parts’ has been ringing the alarm to the rest of them (to us or me?):  I need to take it easy. Or easier. Nothing drastic.

Do one less thing today.

Could you also benefit from this advice?

We’re nearing the end of the year and in my household, the one putting pressure on myself is… me — or let's say the A-type part I call ‘speedster’.

I’ve been developing an important piece of writing, in my eyes, and last night, I admitted to myself that because it’s important, it needs more TLC. More time to develop, too.

I could have pushed through and worked late and early this morning, but I wanted to give it that time and space to develop. Perhaps since I’ve been making my own pasta, I’m emulating the dough development process. My pasta is phenomenal, by the way. I digress.

One of the reasons I listened to this intuition, perhaps, is because I had instinctively reached for one of my favourite books, which is safely tucked right behind my desk chair: Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. Flipping through it, I came across the passage below, which I’d marked with a big heart and circled with a blue pen. The whole book is covered in annotation. I really can’t hand that one out to someone else to read.

Here’s what I read:

“There’s an old Mel Brooks routine, on the flip side of the 2,000 Year Old Man, where the psychiatrist tells his patient, ‘Listen to your broccoli, and your broccoli will tell you how to eat it.’

And when I first tell my students this, they look at me as if things have clearly begun to deteriorate.

But it is as important a concept in writing as it is in real life.”

Fabulous metaphor, don’t you think?

Inspired, I started afresh and wrote this for you instead.

I listened to my broccoli, and it told me how to eat it.

Cheers to that.

How about you? Would you consider listening to your broccoli?

Or maybe do one less thing today?

… Thanks as always for reading me. Happy Thanksgiving to the Americans, and happy Friday to everyone else.

Until next week,

Much love,

GOING DEEPER 

Whether or not you are a writer, just get yourself Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. It’s just a phenomenal book that will make you laugh, and think.

PS. My broccoli is my newsletter.

---

WANT MORE ON THE STORY OF YOU?

If you’re inspired by the above and feel like getting started on this work, fill in this beautiful sign-up form to get updates on future workshops and further articles on the topic. 

Or if you feel ready to do the work and you’d like to schedule an exploratory session for one-on-one coaching on the story of you, get in touch and schedule a consultation here.