Parts Work For Overcoming Procrastination (20-Minute Version)

In this practice, we explore which parts of you are activated during procrastination. We learn to listen to them with curiosity and meet their needs. Through this practice, we can more through procrastination in a peaceful way and begin to heal the parts (and relationships between parts) that are activated when procrastination arises. This is a relatively brief practice. I recommend spending additional time with each part of this process when procrastination arises and in your formal practice.

Transcript

Welcome to the Deep Mindfulness Collective.

For more information and meditation resources,

Visit deepmindfulness.

Io.

This meditation is designed to support you to move through procrastination using meditation.

Let's begin by settling into a meditation posture.

If you're sitting on a chair or cushion,

Arrange the body so that the hips are higher than the knees.

If you're sitting in a chair,

This may require scooching to the front of the chair.

Lift tall through the spine and allow the muscles of the arms and torso to relax and release.

Ground for a moment and the sensations of the feet or legs touching the ground.

And allow the legs to relax as well.

Now together,

Let's move through the four steps that I use to flow through procrastination.

Just by being here in this practice,

You have already begun to implement step one,

Pause.

Take a moment to thank yourself,

Congratulate yourself for taking this moment to step outside of the struggle of procrastination.

Support yourself through it instead.

You can say something to yourself in your mind like,

Great job,

Awesome.

And now let's shift into stage two,

Where we get curious.

Let's first take a quick inventory of your current mental state.

Notice,

Does the mind feel like there's a problem that it's trying to solve?

Does it feel frenetic or peaceful?

Busy with thoughts,

Clear.

Knowing that none of these states is good or bad,

We're just practicing noticing what is happening in the mind in the present moment.

What the quality of the mind is.

And now see if you can notice or intentionally cultivate a sense of curiosity about the mind.

This may have already begun to arise as you began to investigate the mind to watch what was going on there.

If you touch into a sense of curiosity,

It may begin to feel like the mind is asking a question.

There's a sense of wonder,

Of interest.

And if it feels difficult to contact this sense of curiosity,

That's absolutely fine.

It can take a lot of practice to learn to contact or cultivate particular mental states.

If you like,

You can help this process along by saying something in the mind like,

Huh,

Or I wonder,

What's going on right now?

The sense of question or wonder,

Curiosity may be really subtle.

That's absolutely fine.

Even if it's just the slightest taste of that wondering,

That curiosity,

Tune into that state of mind.

Even if it only represents a small portion of the mind states that are arising right now.

And now let's shift into step three.

Once you've made even just the slightest contact with this sense of curiosity.

So now we're going to take this state of mind,

This curious awareness,

This watching from a place of wondering.

And we're going to turn that towards the contents of the mind.

Up until now,

We've been watching qualities of the mind.

And now we're going to start to listen to thinking.

This is step three,

Listen.

If you're in the middle of a moment of procrastination,

A period of procrastination,

And just go ahead and tune your attention to the space between the ears in the head where mental audio generally takes place.

If you're not currently experiencing the sensations of procrastination,

The patterns of procrastination.

And you can bring to mind something in your life that tends to elicit procrastination.

Imagine yourself beginning to approach that task,

That goal.

That tends to elicit procrastination in your life.

And now let's just listen to what mental audio naturally arises in the mind.

It's very common for mental audio to go quiet when you first begin to listen to it,

To tune into it.

If that happens,

Just enjoy the moments of silence.

If it feels difficult to detect mental audio,

You can do a sort of mic check,

Or you intentionally generate audio in the mind.

You can try saying,

Hello,

Hello,

In the mind,

Silently.

Notice where this mental audio arises.

You can try this mic check again and again until you feel confident about the location where mental audio arises and your ability to observe it.

So continuing to hold attention in the location where mental audio arises,

Generally the space between the ears,

Inside the head.

And really just allow whatever words arise in the mind to arise,

To flow through,

To pass.

And as you listen,

You may notice that distinct characters or voices arise.

Perhaps a critical voice,

A fearful voice,

A protective voice,

Maybe a childlike voice.

This too can take some practice,

But as you give yourself space and time to notice the mental audio that arises,

Often these distinct voices or personalities or characters in the mind will begin to emerge.

Keep watching,

Listening from this place of a curious mind,

Curious awareness that we've cultivated.

You may notice that sometimes these voices argue with each other,

Disagree with each other.

Also allow this curious awareness to observe the relationships between the voices or characters or personalities that you identify arising in the mind.

And this brings us to step four,

Where we allow awareness to lead.

Up until now,

We've been using this curious awareness just to observe what's happening in the mind.

So now we're going to allow this awareness to become more of an active participant in the mind.

As you listen to the voices that arise in the mind,

You may notice that each of them has certain fears,

Certain desires,

Certain needs.

Curious awareness can listen to these needs,

Desires,

Fears.

This curious awareness can begin to ask each of the voices that have been identified in the mind,

What do you need?

So here we're not aiming to eliminate any of the voices.

Instead,

We're aiming to understand them deeply.

Knowing that once each of these voices,

Each of these personalities within us feel safe,

You'll be able to come into a more harmonious relationship with the other characters in the mind and allow us to move forward out of stuckness.

Really allow awareness to ask each of these voices what it needs and listen to the response.

And to negotiate a solution that works for all the voices.

Often procrastination is built out of one part of us wanting to move forward and one part of us wanting to stay still.

When it's just these two embattled voices,

We end up feeling stuck.

But here in this practice,

We're bringing in curious awareness.

To listen to each of these parts.

To deeply understand what each of these parts needs.

And to find a natural smooth feeling solution that can meet the needs of both parties.

Again,

This can take some time and practice.

Patience.

And in a moment,

We're going to end the formal practice.

See if you can stay in this place of curious awareness,

Even after the formal practice ends.

Knowing that whenever frustration arises around procrastination,

It's possible to shift into this place of curiosity.

It's possible to listen in to the mind,

To see which parts are activated.

To ask these parts what they need and to find a way to meet those needs that allows you to move forward in a feeling of compassion and gentle flow.

Take a moment to thank yourself for taking the time to do this practice.

For having the courage to pause,

Even in the midst of what might feel like an urgent situation or an impending deadline.

And honor yourself for recognizing that procrastination does not fade through brute force,

Using willpower to charge forward.

But from taking compassionate pauses like this.

Thank you.

Reviews

Yes to pause. Awareness.

This practice was very grounding and encouraging, which in itself is great, but it also had practical instructions that I will try to use daily. Rakhel’s style is seasoned and practical but with a sense of self-compassion and lightness that is unique. A little bit of humor helped make this one of the best meditations I’ve encountered on IT.

Thank you,this was very helpful

Thanks for this good and useful moment

Thanks Rakhel I am sure Iwill be coming back to this many times

What a beautiful guide to our inner parts and way to understand our multifaceted reasons for getting stuck. We are given a felt guide on what we can do to move forward in a way that addresses our multiple barriers in a compassionate way. Thank you for this powerful practice. I plan to revisit this meditation often.

So interesting. Definitely found out something I didn't know. I really loved your gentle guidance and your refrain from using background music. It allowed me to plug into myself deeply. Thank you. 🙏📿

Just what I need right now. A fresh guilt-free perspective. Worth a repeat listen.

I will need to revise this one.

An interesting twist on dealing with procrastination; will play with this for awhile. Thanks 🙏🙏🙏😊