Our Internal Operating system – there’s an app for that!

Conflict Matters: Our Internal Operating system – there’s an app for that!

Most of us have smart phones and recently I was part of a group who got to spend a day with a family mediator from Harvard¹ who uses apps as metaphors for the various parts we all have.

His phone looked like any fairly new smart phone, with about 20 apps per screen. Looking closely, it became obvious there were some slightly unusual apps, including: Dad, Musician, Manager, Self, Child, Anger, Shame, Playful, Lover, Workaholic, Brother…..His theory was that we all have these, and many other parts and these parts really are like apps – when we click on one, it takes over the whole screen; all the other ones just fade into the background while that one is active. He talked about a few of them, suggesting that the Anger app is all about protection – we click on that when we feel threatened. The shame app is particularly interesting. I have learned through my studies of the brain that all normal humans have this app, and he says we click on this to activate the part of ourselves that is thinking: “I am not …………. enough”. This app exiles us from those we want to be close to.

By far the most interesting app he had a few names for: “Self”, “Spirit”, “Soul” or “Energy”. None of those quite work for me, I rather like “Flame” (as in a candle flame) but it’s just a label so feel free to come up with a better name for that part of you that is all about the “Cs”: Calm, Curious, Compassionate, Centred, Clear, Confident, Courageous and Creative. Like David, I don’t have any doubt about the existence of this app. Like those built in apps that come with any phone, we all have this one. Sometimes life (or school) can push it back so far it’s hard to remember it’s still there – like one of those apps you put away in a subfolder on the last screen. Just like those other almost forgotten ones, it is waiting to leap into life and fill the whole screen when you remember to click on it.

So David uses this metaphor when talking to people in dispute, helping them to become aware of which apps they have running, and then asking them to be quite deliberate about shutting down any apps which are not going to help them resolve the dispute. Having done that, he helps them identify and activate that magic app – the one that makes us hit the high Cs: Calm, Curious, Compassionate, Centred, Clear, Confident, Courageous and Creative. Try it!

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