{"id":34117,"date":"2023-11-14T15:41:47","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T23:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=34117"},"modified":"2023-11-14T15:41:47","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T23:41:47","slug":"sleep-on-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/sleep-on-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleep on It"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cNow, go to bed and let your brain work on it while you\u2019re asleep.\u201d My mom frequently said this to me when I was a child practicing a new song on the piano. I would roll my eyes, believing she was just trying to get me to go to bed for the night, but she would insist that my brain would continue to work on the music while I was asleep making the song much easier to play in the morning. I never wanted to admit it, but she was usually right. The song was<\/em><\/strong> easier to play after a good night of sleep.<\/p>\n

As an adult I continue to employ this method to my sermon writing. Once I\u2019ve read the scripture and done a fair amount of research and exegesis, I leave the task alone. I listen to novels or music while I run, I do the dishes, take a shower, go to bed. In other words, I quit consciously thinking about how to craft the sermon and let my unconscious take a turn. A few days later I sit down to write. At this point I usually write a terrible first draft. I then leave that first draft and a day or two later return to the sermon to write what is (hopefully) a final draft.<\/p>\n

In his book, Spell Bound<\/em>, Daniel Lieberman reveals how to partner your ego or conscious mind with your unconscious to better make decisions, learn tasks, or, in my case, write sermons.\u00a0 He writes, \u201cThe ego and the unconscious are good at different types of mental processing, and humans function most effectively when there is an optimal division of labor.\u201d[1]<\/a> One of the ways we can partner the ego with the unconscious is to go to sleep, or to do anything other than actively thinking or focusing on the problem at hand. When we do this, the unconscious is able to \u201cventure into the dark corners of the mind where the ego doesn\u2019t go, scanning through an extensive collection of options for the most viable ones and in the process, often arriving at a solution the conscious mind never would have considered.\u201d[2]<\/a> This, Lieberman claims, \u201cis the source of creativity.\u201d[3]<\/a>During a sermon writing week, or in the case of this doctoral work, every single week, I find myself waking up in the night with a new idea of how to better make a claim or tell a story, my unconscious working overtime to get through the semester.<\/p>\n

Internal Family Systems and Lieberman<\/strong><\/p>\n

What kept coming to mind while reading Lieberman\u2019s book was how similar it seems to the psychological model, Internal Family Systems (IFS). Having worked with a therapist using this model, I know just enough about IFS to be dangerous. The idea of IFS is that no person is a single, integrated, unified human being. Instead, we all have many different \u2018parts,\u2019 and they don\u2019t all see eye-to-eye.\u201d[4]<\/a> All \u2018parts\u2019 of a person genuinely believe they are working toward the good of the individual, even those that are actually sabotaging our best intentions. The work of IFS is to get to know these parts, listen to them, acknowledge their work, understand where they are coming from, and in doing so, calm them so that the Self can lead. The goal of IFS, if I understand it correctly, is to get to a place where the Self leads without getting derailed by the other parts. (To any IFS therapists out there: I told you, I know just enough to be dangerous!)<\/p>\n

Lieberman writes, \u201cThe purpose of life is to become your true self.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0To become your true self, one must integrate the conscious with the unconscious.\u00a0It\u2019s only the combination of consciousness with the unconscious that leads to individuality.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

I believe IFS would say the purpose of life is to let the Self lead. Simon Walker would say the purpose of life is to become undefended while Friedman would argue it is to become self-differentiated. All of these are ways of saying, knowing who you are and leading from that place best done when you are able to integrate your conscious and unconscious, all of your parts, your identity in Christ, your own belovedness.<\/p>\n

In this book, Lieberman talks about SO MUCH MORE, so much, in fact, I couldn\u2019t begin to process all of it. Perhaps as I continue working to integrate my conscious ego with my unconscious, I will be able to also integrate some of what he taught into my leadership, but to do so, I am going to need to go to bed. Goodnight.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Lieberman, Daniel Z,\u00a0Spellbound: Modern Science, Ancient Magic, and the Hidden Potential of the Unconscious Mind<\/em>, BenBella Books. Kindle Edition, 62.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> https:\/\/matthewharwood.uk\/ifs\/<\/a> (accessed November 14, 2023)<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Lieberman, Daniel Z,\u00a0Spellbound: Modern Science, Ancient Magic, and the Hidden Potential of the Unconscious Mind,<\/em> \u00a0BenBella Books. Kindle Edition, 99.<\/p>\n

[6] Ibid, 97.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cNow, go to bed and let your brain work on it while you\u2019re asleep.\u201d My mom frequently said this to me when I was a child practicing a new song on the piano. I would roll my eyes, believing she was just trying to get me to go to bed for the night, but she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2489,2156],"class_list":["post-34117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp02","tag-lieberman","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/170"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34118,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34117\/revisions\/34118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}