The C-Word (No not *that* one!)

Before the New Year started, I was having a discussion about New Year’s Resolutions with a dear friend of mine. My friend was kind enough to share with me what they were wishing to grow more of in the New Year: Calmness, Compassion, Courage and Capability. We spoke about how it was nice that they all began with C, and what these words meant to us. The following day I was doing some general mindfulness reading and by coincidence I came across a wonderful list of 8 ‘C’ Words that included three of my friend’s resolutions! I found the list within the Internal Family Systems Framework led by Dr Richard Schwartz at the IFS institute.

The Internal Family Systems Model is a form of psychotherapy and life outlook that describes humans to be made of multiple ‘Parts’, and when these ‘Parts’ are out of balance we encounter suffering. Describing the IFS framework in detail is beyond the scope of this blog post, but I encourage you to find out more by heading over to the IFS Institute Website or following some of the links at the bottom of this post. At the core of the IFS Model is the idea of everyone containing an inner Self which has the ability to resolve inner conflict and serve as a healer from within. When a person becomes more Self-led (led through their life by their inner Self and not by their conflicting Parts) they begin to harbour the 8 Cs in their everyday lives, allowing them to achieve a more mindful and pleasant inner world.

What are the 8 Cs and how can we define them?

The following definitions I have taken from Julia Sullivan and The Center For Self Leadership and they are my favourite definitions of the words I have found:

Calmness — n. 1. a physiological and mental serenity regardless of the circumstances 2. the ability to react to triggers in your environment in less automatic and extreme ways 3. to be less vulnerable to adopting the common fight-flight-freeze response when threatened

Clarity — n. 1. the ability to perceive situations accurately without distortion from extreme beliefs and emotions 2. the ability to maintain one’s objectivity about a situation in which one has a vested interest 3. the absence of preconception and objection 4. the ability to maintain a “beginner’s mind” in which many possibilities exist

Curiosity — n. 1. a strong desire to know or learn something new about a topic, situation or person 2. to have a sense of wonder about the world and how things work 3. genuinely interested in non-judgmentally understanding something or someone

Compassion — n. 1. to be open heartedly present and appreciative of others without feeling the urge to fix, change or distance from them 2. an intuitive understanding that the suffering of others affects you because of your connectedness to them 3. to simultaneously have empathy for others and a belief that the other has a Self that once released can relieve his or her own suffering

Confidence — n. 1. to maintain a strong belief in one’s ability to stay fully present in a situation and handle or repair anything that happens with the belief that “no matter what, it’s all okay and will all work out the way it should” 2. to have healed from previous traumas and learned from previous failures to such a degree that their effect does not spill into the present 3. to understand that mistakes are only lessons to be learned

Courage — n. 1. strength in the face of threat, challenge or danger 2. the willingness to take action toward a goal that others would find overwhelming 3. the ability to recognize the damage we do to others then take action to make amends 4. the willingness to reflect and “go inside” toward our own pain and shame, carefully examine it and act on what we see

Creativity — n. 1. the use of the imagination to produce original ideas 2. the ability to enter the “flow state” in which expression spontaneously flows out of us and we are immersed in the pleasure of the activity 3. the ability to create generative learning and solutions to problems

Connectedness — n. 1. the state of feeling a part of a larger entity such as a partnership, team, community, or organization 2. a spiritual connection to a meaningful purpose or a higher calling 3. to be in a relationship with someone who truly knows and accepts you for who you really are 4. to be able to relax your defenses with others as you know that you won’t be judged or controlled and are not afraid of getting hurt because you have confidence that you can repair any damage or misunderstandings that may occur

Those who know me, know that my journaling practice is very dear to me and sometimes I like to journal about words — what they mean to the wider world and to me individually. I usually start with the word in the middle of the page and anything that flows out of me comes onto the page with it. I then start to think of the wider context of the word in external society, and after reading some resources around the word I bring that onto my page. This then helps me to begin to either cultivate more of the word in my life or reduce the intensity of it in my surroundings, as well as being able to notice it in others and the world around me.

I have decided to share my exploration of the 8 Cs with you in a mini-series here on the Mindfulness After Cam Blog! Each week I will take one of the 8 Cs and encourage you to think about what the word means to you, explore how I understand it, and bring it into a wider context of the world. The 8 Cs are beautifully interlinked with each other and I hope to highlight that too.

I want to note that I am not using the 8 Cs in accordance with the Internal Family Systems Model (there is so much great literature on the IFS and I have referred you to various sources of information at the end of this post!). Instead, I am simply using the 8 words as a baseline for exploring the qualities I wish to cultivate more of in my everyday life.

I am very much looking forward to going on this journey with you… first up is Calmness!

Written by Harriet Simmons, January 2021

Extra info:

• Evolution of The Internal Family Systems Model By Dr. Richard Schwartz, Ph. D. (Overview of IFS by Dr. Richard Schwartz)
• The Power of Self to Heal Our Parts | Richard Schwartz, Soren Gordhamer | Wisdom 2.0 2017
• An Overview of the Internal Family Systems
• Internal Family Systems Model
• Understanding the 8 Cs Part 1
• Understanding the 8 Cs Part 2
• What is the Self and how can it be released?