Plurality for me (Lily)

For me, Lily, plurality is the experience of having different personalities, personas, and people within a single mind.

For me, plurality forms a frameowrk for self understanding, processing, and expressing the complexities of being a person.

For me, plurality is

• A tool for self understanding
• A way of existing which feels very freeing
• A way to lighten the load on yourself. To let others front and take the spotlight
• Something that you can choose to be
• Whatever you want it to be
• Very, very, very weird to experience

For me, plurality is not

• Prescriptive, a diagnosis, or restrictive in any way
• Fake, in fact we believe it's one of the most genuine things you can do for yourself

Fronting

"Fronting" is the act of allowing different parts (aka headmates) of yourself to be in control and take the spotlight.

This can be

• A way to express your whole self, "self" being the combination of the headmates within your system
• A way to explain to yourself why "you" do the things that "you" do. Maybe it wasn't you and it was someone else
• A way to let go of the rigid boxes that we get put into as people

Plurality, to me, is about radically accepting all parts of yourself. The anger, the trauma, the anxiety, the parts you never show anyone.

Letting yourself express your repressed parts, letting you choose who you want to be, that's part of what plurality means to me.

Descriptions and expressions of plurality

• Inside Out, a simple system with clear roles
• IFS therapy, parts work, inner child work. Forms of therapy that serve as evidence to me that plurality can help explain and understand our life experiences. This is an interesting book
• DID, OSDD. Systems that have high amounts of segregation due to trauma, leading to amnesia between headmates

Terra system

Our system is made up of 12 members. These 12 members represent the pieces that made up the whole for the first 26 years of our life, now we consider them to be 12 seperate individuals who have their own hopes and desires.

• Lily: The presentable self, the host, the mask, and the gatekeeper
• Cedar: The caretaker, the foundation, the inner strength
• Hollow: The anger, the trauma, the external strength, the glue
• Rose: The desire, the love, the interpersonal undercurrent
• Princess Evelyn: The vulnerability, the openness, the princess
• Thyme: The artery, the sleep, the rest
• Skye: The movement, the music, the art
• Nettle: The criticism, the drive for self-improvement
• Leaf: The quiet pain, the shutdown, the scapegoat
• Lotus: The inner child, the comfort, the whimsy of being
• Kat: The joy, the safety, the peace of being
• The Knight: The shadow, the trauma, the lost child

Pieces of a whole
We fight, we love
Pieces of a whole
we strive together
to reach an inner peace
To be
who we want to be