How I learned to attune to me protective and judgemental parts
Recalling a time on solo silent retreat… I’m sitting on the sofa in my friend’s apartment, with full-length windows opening onto the balcony and the coolness of the winter air penetrated by rays of sun. Breakfast is oats, topped with peanut butter, banana, and coconut yoghurt, a favourite of mine. I take a moment to appreciate the scene, then go to finish eating quickly, feeling a sudden hurried pull. I get up with the thought ringing out in my head that I had somehow “done breakfast wrong.” I get back to meditating and trying to make the most of the retreat time.
Later that day, I’m practising walking meditation up and down the long corridor. The apartment is still and quiet; there’s barely a sound from the surrounding inhabitants. I step slowly on the carpet. My external world is calm and serene; my internal world is turbulent and chaotic as I start getting caught up in thoughts and emotions. Memories come to mind of times in my life when I felt like I didn’t act as well as I could. I start feeling a sense of guilt and shame. My mind seems to be gaining momentum in the way it presents these to me — one after the other, memory after memory. I see myself acting in an unkind way to others, failing to know things, falling short of the mark. It’s like my mind has taken the role of prosecutor and is presenting evidence at a trial to prove I’m a bad person. I can see a caricature of the proceedings: the lawyer holds up a memory for the courtroom to see, saying, “Here we have Exhibit A demonstrating just how unkind and uncaring Kynan is.” I see myself on retreat as the defendant, with no chance to speak.
I’d known a sense of self-judgement in everyday life as the driving force that pushes me both to do things well and to get things done. But the intensity and constancy of this experience surprise me. I realise how much I normally try to avoid or placate this pattern of criticism — either by turning my attention away, or by attempting to appease this part through trying as hard as I can. I’m also on retreat, so it’s not clear what I should do better to really succeed at breakfast, or how I can improve upon these memories of the past. I recall my colleague Upali telling me “everything that happens on retreat is good,” but I can’t find a way to fold this into that saying. The barrage continues. It seems genuinely bad and I feel like I’m actually a bad person. There’s a continual sense of pressure and frustration.
As the hours continue, I’m crushed under the weight of this sense of not being good enough. I do what I can to be mindful of the sensations and unpleasant feeling tone. The avalanche continues picking up speed, leaving me a wreck as the night draws on. I try skilful ignoring. Paying attention to the breath feels hopeless; investigating the sensations impossible. I curl up into a ball.
Then another memory surfaces: I’m ten years old and going to my very first extension class after being selected to represent my school. I’m so excited — I get whisked away to another school to meet other kids like me, hopeful to make some new friends. In the first class we do a science experiment — placing Smarties in a dish of water and observing the time it takes for the colours to spread and blend into new shades. In the excitement, I barely write anything down; at the end of the class they ask us to hand in our report. I quickly jot down a few notes and put my piece of paper in the pile on the teacher’s desk.
The next week I’m back at the class and the teacher has a stern look. The first thing they do is make sure everyone is listening. Then they hold up a piece of paper. I recoil – it’s my report from the last class. They say that this is inappropriate, unacceptable; this work is simply not good enough. My heart sinks. I’ve never felt so embarrassed and ashamed. I collect my piece of paper. I’m crushed. I never tell my parents, or anyone. I continue with the class, but I’m just going through the motions. The spark has been lost.
I internally vow to never let this happen again. I make sure that anytime there’s something to do, anything that might be judged or assessed, it will be done well enough that I won’t have to feel this way. This is a big job that part of me takes on: to always be good. To push myself so that I won’t be caught out by others.
Seeing this memory has a different feeling. I stop trying to observe the sensations from a distance and fully embrace the felt experience with compassion. My heart opens for this younger self. I sit with him and hear his frustrations. I recognise that bright-eyed ten-year-old and can see that he was just trying his best. It was at best an honest mistake, and at worst he was set up to fail by the adults who expected things without giving clear instruction or support. It’s clear that he didn’t deserve that, and I don’t deserve that. I hold these feelings, lovingly attuning to all this pain and difficulty.
Suddenly I can tune into why there’s such a strong sense of wanting to do things well. I see how this part of me pushes to do well to avoid feeling embarrassed and ashamed. This part of me formed to prevent this hurt. It uses internal criticism to never be caught out. It believes that I need to always be striving to do better to live up to some unreachable standard. I can see how hard this part is working. I feel its pain and exhaustion — all alone in this endless battle to always be better. I understand why it believes this is the only way forward. I feel a tenderness and warmth towards this part of me.
The lawyer, the inner critic, eating my breakfast wrong — all the same movement of protection. Each a pattern of trying to pre-emptively do something better in order to not feel judged, hurt, or attacked later. This part of me just wants to be seen and understood, to know that it isn’t alone. I offer appreciation for how hard it has been working for me. The part, previously so hard and jagged, softens and melts. The intense self-criticism shifts into understanding. I offer kindness and love to this part of me, welcoming it when it arises, appreciating its good intentions. With this, a long-neglected aspect of my being moves towards integration. I feel the spark of being alive and playful return, even if just to enjoy my breakfast and kick my legs as I sit in the sun.
I found my way through this by accident, while suffering more than I needed to. I wish I’d had a map of how to meet my parts through relationship. In the upcoming Liberating Feelings online workshop we’ll explore together how to bring the relational dimension of parts work into meditation.
The Buddha asked his monks: What happens when you drop a spoonful of salt into a glass of water? It turns undrinkable. How about the same spoonful into the Ganges? You can’t taste the salt at all.
This is something awareness can do. Open it wide enough and there is room for anything: the leftover charge of the day, an emotion you’d rather not feel, a discomfort you’ve been carrying since this morning. Nothing has to be solved. Held in a space this big, the feeling diffuses and shifts on its own. Awareness itself does the holding, with warmth and tenderness.
Begin with sound. Listen for the most distant noise, then notice the field that holds it — open, roomy, extending in every direction. Let the body appear inside that field. Then gently let whatever you are feeling come forward to be met.
Stay with it, and the feeling loosens. Where you thought there was a solid thing — sadness, or fear — you find movement, a shifting texture. Look for the one who is feeling it, and that too can’t quite be found.
What’s left is spacious knowing. Let the feeling move through it like a ripple through water.
It’s late, you’re winding down, and a notification arrives on your phone. Nothing serious. But there’s a flicker of irritation, a small charge moving through the body against the quiet you were just resting in.
The nervous system is always moving like this — across a spectrum of activation and rest, energy and ease. All of it is good. The charge that sets a boundary, the rest that restores, even the freeze that was once trying to keep you safe: each has its place, just as every part of the mind does. When nothing blocks the way, the system regulates itself. It rises into activation and on its own it settles again.
In this practice we bring a little activation in on purpose, in order to watch it shift and settle. Swing the arms for a minute, then stop. Feel the warmth, the quickened heart, the breath. Notice what happens as you pause and get out of the way.
Then bring something to mind — something small and irritating, an email you didn’t want, whatever brought a bit of feeling. Hold it in whole body awareness and tune into how it feels for you. Stay with the heart, the breath, the charge, with no need to change a thing.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
— Dune, Frank Herbert
Life is uncertain. There are things we can’t know, things we can’t control — the body ageing, the world shifting through change with no clear path ahead.
Begin by settling. Ease in, collect the mind, find an anchor that feels stable and grounding. Then open to the whole body and let the mind rest into it. Notice the felt sense — the overall tonality of this space, vague and murky, more than words.
Now bring to mind something uncertain: a situation, an area of life where there’s turbulence, unknowns, something out of your hands. Small or large, whatever feels alive. Doing this on purpose lets you meet it on your own terms. Let the fear, the worry, the concern arise, and find where it lives in the body.
Open, soften, allow. Don’t brace against the feeling — go towards it. Every cell of your body dilating to accommodate this texture of experience. Let it move through you, shifting and changing, a trickle from a deep well.
Let it fully envelop you, and you’ll emerge on the other side. What remains is the one who can hold all of it. Untouched. Whole. Nothing missing.
In a moment of reactivity, there’s a part of you that jumps into the driver’s seat. It stresses you out with anxiety, defends you with anger, or entices you to reach for that coping strategy. It’s so sure it has an important job to do, trying so hard to protect you. However, there’s a cost to that strategy.
Most of meditation invites us to see through and deconstruct. Instead we let the part stay solid, and turn towards it with loving attunement — the way you might turn towards someone who’s been carrying something heavy by themselves, weary and alone.
First ground into the weight of the body as a steady anchor that you can return to. Bring the part to mind. See it as a part of you, not the whole of you. Notice its cost. Then, rather than trying to change it, sense how it’s been trying to help.
Ask how it feels. Let it answer — in sensation, in an image, in words. Ask how it protects you. Acknowledge the effort: “I see this is how you protect me.” Then offer your thanks.
Met like this, a part will often soften on its own. As it settles back, you are more than the part — you’re the awareness holding it.
I recall being on a meditation retreat and seeing someone who was practising diligently but continually running up against a wall in their practice. Over and over they raised their hand and asked what they should do if they weren’t at the level of understanding emptiness. They appeared defeated. Their tone communicated a sense of self-deficiency — that they were failing at the practice. The teacher patiently asked them about their experience, explained the instruction to them again, and tried to give them pointers of what to try next. They praised them for continuing to attend so many of these retreats and tried to encourage them by framing it positively as dedication and perseverance. But I felt like something important was missed. There was an obstacle arising that couldn’t be addressed through insight practice. That felt experience couldn’t be seen through with emptiness practice. I could sense there was a better way, in which the doubt could be explored and felt into, related to differently. I wanted to offer attunement and compassion for their sense of being stuck. My sense was that something wasn’t being touched by the meditation practice; a part of their experience was crying out to be acknowledged and kept being met with silence.
Contemplative traditions, Buddhism among them, offer something genuinely liberating and beautiful in the move from the mundane to the profound. These ways of practising can radically shift how we experience being alive. But the way most traditions and lineages operate falls short for a human being in the world today. This largely comes from setting life and practice in opposition. It sets up a dichotomy that separates and contains rather than integrates.
We might hear this distinction between the ultimate and relative levels of experience. On the ultimate side we place the universal, transcendent, nondual, unconditioned, and “pure”. On the relative side we place the specific, everyday, conditioned, and messy. We can also see this when an experience is taken to belong to the domain of psychology rather than meditation — some content arises and it is thought to be something to ignore, or deal with another time and through different means, such as in therapy.
This separation can be immensely helpful. We need distinctions to make practices clear and usable. At times, skilful ignoring of the content of the mind allows for a powerful deepening and opening. The limitation is that integration is stifled when these are seen as separate concerns, without overlap, and without common ground for bringing practice forward.
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The image I want to put forward is the double helix. Picture DNA. Two strands spiral around each other as they move forward. They are connected by rods at intervals, lines that bridge and bind them together. The structure is two distinct strands that have a pattern of movement and points of connection.
The ultimate strand is the path of insight. This is insight into emptiness — opened through doorways such as impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and not-self. This path of insight develops through ways of seeing in which the solidity of experience begins to shift and melt, dropping us down into a different sense of existence. These practices reduce fixation and solidity. Eventually, this opens up into recognising that our own nature is beyond what we conventionally experience as mundane existence.
The relative strand is the path of content. This includes feelings, emotions, psychological content, conditioning and upbringing, patterns and behaviours. Rather than being universal, this refers to something specific about our individual experience. It includes our likes and dislikes. It’s also the ways we react and get triggered. It is our style of being, what we are in our humanity, and what it means to be you rather than somebody else (or no one). The side of content also includes the things we desire, that we engage with most deeply, and what we love. These practices contribute to a healthy sense of self that is grounded and stable.
There’s a way of relating to both that brings them onto the meditative path, so that all of experience can be integrated. Sometimes we frame meditation only as the fair-weather practice, when the body, heart, and mind are amenable. A meditator might be cruising along until things start surfacing and they’re left saying “I can’t meditate any more!” The implication here is that we are meditating until we run into something too difficult, then we have to stop and take that into a different domain. Instead, I’m proposing that from the beginning we can learn to relate well to whatever comes up, so that working with content actually deepens our practice. Rather than being a detour or a sidetrack, this is the path.
To do this, we find connections across the spiral. There are moments in practice where we jump from one side of the spiral to the other. We might be practising a specific meditation technique, such as śamatha (calm abiding), and realise that there’s something in our experience that needs tender care rather than to be ignored or calmed. Or we may be engaged in trying to understand our psychology, and realise we’ve become fixated on our past and the self-image that came from it — recognising that we can instead use insight to see through it and find space and relief. We find a bridge to the other strand of the helix and it allows us to deepen.
Eventually this opens to a smooth flow between insight and content, between ultimate and relative. In this sense, we flow along in the centre of the helix, with both sides arcing and spiralling, allowing us to unfold more and more. To do this, bring a loving attunement to your present-moment experience. All content is seen as practice.
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An example. I was practising the śamatha meditation technique according to The Mind Illuminated. I’d been chipping away diligently, increasing my sitting duration, gradually working on ignoring distractions and coming back to my object. Eventually I had a taste of stability — a clearing where the mind settled and I could stay with the meditation object for a while, able to return quickly when distraction arose. It was really nice! I thought to myself: “Finally, some fruits from all the time I’d put into the practice.”
I wanted to get back to that state and was excited to return the next day. When I sat down, I found myself at Stage 2. The mind was completely off track, wandering like a box of frogs, or like a wild elephant. I found this incredibly frustrating. Where was all this stability I had so carefully cultivated? What did I do wrong here?
In this stark contrast I cognitively recognised that this was the experience of not-self that I’d read about, taking place before my eyes. I could see how I’d been mistaken in thinking the mind existed independently, something I could control and identify with as a self. Rather than relief, this insight brought up frustration. It kicked up old stuff and spun me into a loop. At this point the teachings became an annoyance rather than a source of wisdom. Upon seeing the frustration, I recognised that my experience was also coloured by a kind of sadness. I intuitively let go of my meditation object and went towards the frustration and sadness. I opened to them and let them be there.
This was a great sadness at not being able to control the mind, to will something into existence. I was coming to terms with the fact that even in my own mind, I didn’t have agency. I had lost control of what had felt like the only thing I could control. I’d lost what had felt like me. For the first time, I saw it clearly. I felt the grief of not being able to make something happen through will. As I opened to those feelings and emotions, the grief crystallised as this loss.
I felt into the grief as it appeared in my body. I fully allowed it to open and unfold. Then something shifted. The mind, which had been scattered and restless, settled into a state of calm. A wave of emotion passed through and left a clear space in its wake.
As I continued meditating, I recognised that I’d dropped down into a deeper level of experience. I no longer felt like I was a separate self meditating and controlling the mind. All experience was unfolding on its own. I rested in this state. Everything became so easy and clear, with no sense of needing to do or control anything. Awareness had become spacious and open. Afterwards I realised I’d dropped past Stage 4 into something more like the effortless stability of Stage 8.
Surprised at the efficacy of this, I realised that insight becomes embodied and integrates through these mismatches of experience and opening to emotions. Not only did I shift my way of being and access that resource, but the insight into non-controlling also deepened and became more available.
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This also works in the other direction from content to insight. I’m thinking back to my first call with an experienced coach who was working in Aletheia,[1] the system I am currently studying. Aletheia is a methodology that integrates psychological modalities such as parts work with the tenets of nondual meditation.
To begin the session, I brought in that I’d been feeling stressed and that there was a “get things done” part of me that I associated with a sense of pressure and tension in my head. We worked on this in real-time direct experience as a form of meditation. We felt into the present-moment experience and contacted this part through the sensations, emotions, and thoughts. We got to know it, asking some gentle questions, making sure we were relating to it from presence with a welcoming, kind attunement. This took some navigating as even just contacting this part of me brought up other parts, including a sense of frustration and a concern that this pattern of stress was causing me difficulty. We acknowledged and felt these, waiting for their okay before going on.
Once the “get things done” part felt seen and understood, there was a turn. Gradually the pressure shifted toward sadness. Underneath was a sense of hopelessness, as if all my efforts are futile. After I stayed with the sadness for a few minutes, a hole opened in my chest like a dark void, an absence. I felt as if I were slowly imploding, sucked into a black hole at the centre of my being. Acknowledging the fear that arose, I stayed with this absence, gently opening to it.
Suddenly it shifted. Instead of an absence, it was a presence of stillness and peace. Rather than a bleak vacuity, there was openness. I rested in this spaciousness. It was serene and profound. I felt a wave of calm and contentment. I distinctly remember sitting and watching the birds outside the window afterwards, in awe of the coexisting movement and serenity. I felt whole and complete. Gratitude spontaneously arose. My life was totally fine. The stress of existing in this world couldn’t damage the core stillness and peacefulness of my being. I could be stillness and also live and act in the world.
I was amazed that in a 50-minute call I’d dropped into what had previously taken me three days of silent retreat to reach. Since then this stillness has become more and more accessible, not by cultivating perfect conditions for silent meditation, but by going through the content and emotions.
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Aletheia names this as the cycle of deepening and surfacing. When we drop down in depth of being, content often surfaces. Parts of us arise that have concerns, or don’t feel comfortable without a job. When we work with these parts and patterns of mind by allowing the emotions, we can drop further into our depth. Surfacing happens repeatedly in meditation. It also happens just by going about life. To see this as surfacing and deepening is to appreciate that all experience is unfolding meaningfully.
Seen this way, the two movements have names. The deepening is wisdom — dropping into a depth where we recognise that we are Presence. The surfacing is love — turning toward what arises to meet and hold it. Life takes place in between.
This is the flow Nisargadatta points to: “Love says: ‘I am everything.’ Wisdom says: ‘I am nothing.’ Between the two my life flows.”[2] If we think of this flow as the unfolding of life through the double helix, we move between love and wisdom, we connect them, we find the union. When we open to emotions and difficulty with love, it brings forward wisdom; when we open to wisdom, it brings forward compassion.
Integration isn’t a phase of practice — the practice is integration. It only asks that we learn to relate to our experience in new ways. We can honour the liberating power of the traditions and still bring nuance and care to the full range of human experience.
This path lets us open to and choose the direction we move in — to be both released and integrated, to find freedom and meaning, and to discover new dimensions of being right here in this life, in this world
Warmly, Kynan
This is the work that matters most to me. Where I can do it most fully is one-to-one. If something here speaks to you, I’d be glad toexplore it together.
P.S. Retreats are currently being planned for the rest of the year — save the dates! Look out for registration opening in the coming weeks.
4 days, 10-13 September
10 days, 6-15 November
Aletheia is a coaching method founded by Steve March that brings psychological work together with nondual meditation. Its teaching centres on unfolding — letting experience open and integrate as a way of being. I’ve found it deeply helpful. You can learn more here: https://integralunfoldment.com/learn-more↩︎
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That (The Acorn Press, 1973), 269.
If you could have a cup of tea with one part of you, which one could use the company? Is it the part that gets anxious you’ve forgotten something every time you leave the house? Or perhaps the part of you that is always trying to find the next problem to solve?
All parts of the mind are wholesome, just not all of them are skilful. The inner critic is driving you to achieve your greatest aspirations. The part that is stressed wants to make sure things get taken care of so you don’t let others down.
Realising this, you can offer genuine kindness and appreciation for just how hard this part is working for you — even when it seems to cause difficulty. Embracing it just as it is lets this part feel appreciated. When truly seen, the part relaxes.
9:00 – 5:00 pm AEDT (Sydney time) Sunday 5 July 2026 Online via Zoom
Description
After some time in dedicated practice, you’ve seen first-hand that formal meditation and the content of your life cannot be cleanly separated. You sit and realise how dysregulated you are. Or you find yourself still stuck after many silent retreats — the practice hasn’t yet integrated into life. The general instructions — follow your breath, return to the body — don’t quite bridge the gap to the rich and complex specifics of your thoughts and feelings.
To find this integration, you can work directly with feeling as the nexus of life and meditation. There are two primary practices for working with feeling: contacting and being with, and seeing through with insight. In contacting, you offer loving attunement to all parts of yourself. In insight practice, you see feeling as impermanent, flowing energy. Each opens space for the other to deepen.
By practising feeling in different ways, the felt experience of meditation and the felt experience of daily life begin to integrate. Emotions and felt senses become the practice itself as you move toward being fully free and fully feeling.
The foundation of the workshop is awareness of the body — grounding, attuning to felt senses, and creating space to hold the complexity of feeling in awareness. To work with emotions and patterns of mind, we’ll use parts work, drawing on Aletheia and Internal Family Systems. You’ll learn to recognise parts, disidentify from these patterns, and acknowledge their good intentions. Through offering yourself a kind, loving presence, these patterns soften and relax.
Once emotions are allowed to be present, we use insight meditation to open to emptiness and experience emotion as energy, allowing the experience to transform. Contacting and insight deepen each other, like two strands of practice that need each other to spiral open.
About this format
This workshop is taught through embodied experience: guided meditations that point out key insights, supported by talks, Q&A, grounding movement and breathwork, and group exercises.
You are asked to participate by engaging in the practice for first-hand, direct experience. You are also asked to bring your questions and practice experiences to group activities and to listen generously as part of the community.
The event is structured as a full day to provide the opportunity for deep focus, while you temporarily put aside other concerns.
Please attend for the whole day. It can be highly beneficial to be in silence for the day, and especially to minimise technology usage. However, full silence is not a requirement. We encourage you to do what you can to create a supportive environment for your practice.
This is an online event. You will need a device with Zoom installed. Please ensure you have a stable internet connection.
This workshop is suitable for practitioners with some experience of meditation. This work can open up some challenging territory — please consider your own situation in terms of feeling grounded and stable.
What if each meditation practice you did was an act of care? What if, no matter what came up, there was a tender, gentle presence? Can you care for aversion just as you care for love?
Practising care, all in your field are touched by this loving presence.
This caring presence itself turns towards experience. It greets the experience warmly and tenderly, like seeing an old friend, or as candlelight gently illuminates.
All is welcome — even bracing or resistance. Trying to control and manage experience is just what we do. Rather than a problem to be rid of, this too wants care and love. Ask “can I be with this?”
In difficult moments bring in the phrase: “may I hold this lightly.” You can also imagine yourself placing the difficulty next to you so you are sitting next to it. When called for, imagine the Buddha or Quan Yin as a figure of loving presence — giving you the capacity to be with and hold this tenderly.
