I’m not really someone who re-reads my journals, because I assume that if anything in them were of value, I would have typed it up. But every October I get an email from a journaling service called Penzu that I signed up for and used exactly one time. The subject of the email is always “[insert number here] years ago, you wrote…” inviting me to log back into Penzu and take a trip down memory lane.
This journal entry, the only one I re-read annually, is titled “Day Before Halloween” and it is an absolute roast of Spooky Season. The first sentence says “My least favorite holiday is tomorrow and I'm doing everything I can to starve myself before the festivities.” I then lament all the pressures of this time of year: costumes, candy, and constipation being my top three concerns. I also express my desire to listen to the new Taylor swift album, which was 1989, which was released on October 27th, 2014. Raging body dysmorphia and deep depression aside (I slept on a Taylor swift album for three days after it was released???), the journal entry is full of rage. I’ve re-read it before, and experienced the heat in my face and tense jaw that tell me my fight response has entered the chat, my sympathetic nervous system is revving up for battle. But this year, I opened it and felt… calm? Warm?
October has been good. I have spent time alone with myself, worked hard, stayed up late to meet my own deadlines. I went to New York and hugged half of my best friends and ate lunch next to Pharrell. I went to the beach by myself, the chiropractor, the local public pool to swim laps. I spent an entire weekend at a work retreat with my colleagues and found new depth in my work relationships. My nephew turned two.
But the shift doesn’t just feel external. What I feel is a softening, a holding of myself. I’ve been highly sensitive lately, like my heart is ready crack open with the slightest sign of growth — a boundary respected, a need met, a conflict navigated — like tears are always waiting behind my eyes, ready to spring forth at the smallest provocation. A couple weeks ago at a party, a close friend gave me a heartfelt compliment, and as I took it in I found myself sobbing in front of a group of strangers. Similarly, the other day I was puttering around my home just casually crying to myself about *the meaning of it all* after our New York trip and my husband came in and asked what was wrong. “Nothing. We’ll just never have any of these moments back,” I told him, smiling but also full of snot. “I’m glad we’re having so much fun.”
I’ve been calling it my Soft October.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy takes the position that we are all engaging with multiple versions of our “selves” at all times. That alongside our wise, compassionate, “capital S” Self, we are each carrying around myriad parts — young parts, traumatized parts, angry parts, performative parts, managerial parts — that make up our internal family.
“All of us are born with many sub-minds that are constantly interacting inside of us. This is in general what we call thinking, because the parts are talking to each other and to you... In our attempts to control... disturbing thoughts and emotions, we just end up fighting, ignoring, disciplining, hiding, or feeling ashamed of those impulses that keep us from doing what we want to do in our lives. And then we shame ourselves for not being able to control them.” - Richard Schwartz, No Bad Parts
Other theoretical orientations integrate fairly well with IFS — one could conceive of the ego and id as parts, of the inner child as a part, or of the externalized problem (Addiction, Anxiety, Depression) as a burden that one part carries for the rest of the system to function. The therapeutic goal of IFS, also referred to as “parts work,” is to let parts come out and converse with Self — to tell us how old they are, what purpose they fulfill, whether they like their jobs, and what they fear might happen if they were to stop interfering with the system. “Like children in external families, we each have parts that want things that aren’t good for them or for the rest of the system,” Richard Schwartz, the creator of IFS, writes in No Bad Parts. When held up to the light and given a moment to be heard, then soothed, these parts can unburden themselves of their need to show up. They can take a seat in the back of the house, our nervous systems can rest, and our minds can find clarity. “The simple act of focusing on a part, approaching it with curiosity, allows you to step back or ‘unblend’ from it. In other words, there is a ‘you’ who is observing and an ‘it’ that is being observed.”
Looking at Soft October through an IFS lens, one might conceptualize my month as a compassionate, extended dialogue with this 20-something, Angry Part I find in the journal entry. I am holding her up to the light, giving her a moment (whole essay) to say her piece, and welcoming it in with compassion. In my mind she has chapped lips and her eyeliner is starting to run, like she slept in her makeup. I’m reminded of her in context: between spending my childhood *obsessed* with ballet and then going to college at a school where every event was a different themed costume party demanding new shiny American Apparel leggings in an impractical color (you know the ones), dressing up began to feel like stepping into a pressure cooker. So the Angry Part took over and did the adaptive thing to do when you don’t feel safe admitting that you feel vulnerable and alone: she rebelled. She took a hard anti-costume, anti-spooky season stance and dug her heels in. If I check in and ask the Angry Part what would happen if she surrendered this stance, she tells me: you will embarrass yourself.
It is only when we are able to meet parts with compassion that they feel seen, held, and able to recede. Rather than scold or discipline them, we aim for self parenting: “the Self says no to impulsive parts firmly but from a place of love and patience, just in the same way an ideal parent would.” It becomes my Self’s job, then, to turn toward the Angry Part and say: hey babe, I see you and I love you, but I’m 33 now. Taylor Swift has released seven more albums. When I walk in the room, I can still make the whole place shimmer.
I’m still not crazy about Halloween. I don’t enjoy feeling scared, cannot abide a black and orange color combination, and think fake cobwebs are tacky and probably made of micro-plastics. But in setting the Angry Part free to find another job within my Internal Family System, I’m delighted to report that I’ve reconnected with the month of October, and it feels like a much-needed exhale. I have set myself free to enjoy the inevitable passing of time, delight in a pumpkin spiced beverage, and take comfort in the fact that no matter how old I get, Taylor Swift will be exactly the same age.
If you made it this far, here are seven things (one for each Taylor Swift album released since 1989) I’ve consumed and delighted in this Soft October:
Midnights, obviously.
Bo Burnham’s The Inside Outtakes (you have to really love Inside to enjoy this, but I really loved Inside)
The Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibit King Pleasure in New York, which was curated by his family, making it accessible, personal, and local. Particularly loved the maps of all his local places and the recreation of his art studio.
Two amazing, 100% gluten free meals at Tiger Lily Kitchen and Nami Nori, also in New York. Take your GF friends!
Four even more amazing, also 100% gluten free bagels at Modern Bread and Bagel in Chelsea (there is also a Woodland Hills location). Yes, I did come back here every morning of the whole trip.
Gucci’s new FW22 Pet collection, featuring a Roo lookalike who captured my heart.
The Knock LA progressive voter guide, which you should also consume and then make sure to vote, preferably for Karen Bass.
Thanks for reading. Back in your inbox in two Sundays! <3 Grace
Can't believe you missed the opportunity to call it "Softober" Grace.