David: While out to dinner, Joshua, you told the allegory of the bus. In my hearing of your allegory, I understood that the bus has a driver and also passengers. The bus represents our inner constellation of selves. I'll give some examples from my bus: Some of the passengers are terrified and scream out "stop the bus stop the bus, pull over NOW, we need to HIDE!". Other passengers are impatient and scream out "drive faster you lily lily-livered dweeb, we should have been there AGES AGO!"

What I heard you say, Joshua is that there can be some inner peace gained by understanding that the bus driver can drive wherever they want irregardless of the passengers' cacophony. Let's call this arrangement of the inner selves the "Unperturbed driver". I agree that the Unperturbed Driver is a huge advancement over many of the strategies I've had for getting the bus down the road, and I think there is a further strategy which offers yet greater peace. Let's talk first about why the unperturbed driver is an improvement, then I will present what I feel is the Further Bus beyond the unperturbed driver.

Monica, you spoke of letting the child selves or protectors run the show. Indeed, disastrously un-peaceful experience can result when I go with this way. For example, when I hand over the wheel to that frightened child and I spend the day miserable all alone in my room unwilling to risk reaching out for the love connection and belonging I so desire. Or when I give the reins to that protector who thinks I can earn love by doing what you want lashes out in arguments defending my belief that I really tried so hard if only you could see how much I do you would be loving me now, and I scream my fool head off pushing away whatever you were actually saying. Let's call this the "Underage Driver" and when I have them at the wheel, my bus does not go where we all want, which by the way, is the Journey of Wonder, Joy, Love and Belonging.

Lark, you talked about what can happen when we hand over the wheel to a perfectionist self. This is perhaps another example of the "Underage Driver" but for me feels so different, because my perfectionist self thinks he is so mature. Let's call this strategy the "Fake ID Driver". He thinks he can have it all in control. And as you said, he thinks he can keep all those young passengers safe by avoiding all uncertainty. It would work so beautifully if not for the fact that the world just does not work this way - complete control is not possible, particularly when we are going for belonging with other people. Uncertainty is built in to the very fabric of our universe.

Lark: Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings, David. I, often, feel like life is some kind of puzzle that I have to figure out. I'm constantly trying to find the answer so that I can know how I'm supposed to be. It's a feeling of not ever living up to some hidden standard. The uncertainty creates a worry that I must be doing it all wrong. Like I was saying at dinner, I wonder about the idea of thinking that I could be doing it right. But, of course, there's the possibility that the living, itself, is the answer and that there's no "right way." To let go into the mystery is like taking a deep breath and trusting in myself and life itself, to be held by the universe.

Visual Musings, waiting for the bus.

Joshua*

Good morning David, it sounds like what you're exploring, at least in part, is the essential question of who's driving the bus? There seem to be ways in which the constellation metaphor and ACT bus metaphor overlap and inform one another, and perhaps other ways in which they differ. I've done parts work before and found it to be incredibly useful!

At least within the context of the bus metaphor, the driver isn't so much another part per se as it is the person themself. But alas, that's where the sidewalk ends, where logic and rationality begin to get dreamy eyed, waltz with each other, wander off into the night hand-in-hand, and have little left to say that's even remotely articulate! Where conceptualization yields to experientiality. Maybe it even begs its own metaphor? A still forest pool? A sacred mystery? The uni verse/one song of being? Or we might possibly evoke it by embracing the inherent dialectics - at once both pragmatic and transcendent, both perturbed and unperturbed, unified while also systemic and relational.

But in the end, those are all just more words! Ana-Maria Schweitzer wrote:

• Liquid soul rises: Tears are salty, never sweet. They awaken us.

The awakened heart rejects none of the bus passengers, in fact accepts them, indeed invites the rowdiest among them to continue singing their most bawdy songs, all the while gently steering the bus according to the magic of compassion and deepest realized values. 💛