Constellation

I've been doing a lot of IFS (internal family systems) work over the past year. The idea of IFS is that we are all made up of parts that are basically like sub-personalities. You work with those parts, help them resolve their emotions/memory and help them step out of the roles they've been playing.

There is a kind of relationship between parts that I've identified within myself that is tricky: sometimes a part will behave in a way that puts me in a situation where another part gets triggered. Then that new part is in the forefront and it has its own behavior that similarly leads to another trigger.

These chains of triggers result in larger behavior that no single part of the chain is aware of. There isn't any crosstalk between the parts in the chain. I only became aware of and was able to take responsibility for the larger behavior by noticing there was a chain, being present as I moved through it and wondering afterward about the larger behavior. I was now seeing the forest instead of the trees. And that's what this song is about.

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Verse 1:

             C   
A star don't know
            G 
All that it is
                Am    
How it makes us wonder

             C   
A star don't know
            G 
All that it is
            Am     
What it's a part of

Chorus:

           F  
Only from afar
             G   
Can we see a star
           C   
As being a part
     G     Am     
Of a constellation
         F      
Oh constellation
      G               C  
How I wonder what you are

Verse 2:

        C   
I don't know
           G 
All that I am
           Am     
What I'm a part of

        C   
I don't know
           G 
All that I am
            Am      
Someone who hurt you

Chorus:

           F  
Only from afar
             G   
Can we see a star
           C   
As being a part
     G     Am     
Of a constellation
         F      
Oh constellation
      G               C  
How I wonder what you are

Bridge:

         F    
We are a story
       G     
I am a moment
         E7     
We are a picture
           Am  
And I am a line
         F     
We are behavior
      G     
I am emotion
         E7    
We are a person
             Am  
And I am his eyes
       F    G 
We are I... 
       C    Am 
We are I... 
    Dm   G 
And I... 
   Am   
Am sorry

Verse 3:

             C   
A star don't know
            G 
All that it is
            Am     
What it's a part of

             C   
A star don't know
            G 
All that it is
              Am 
What it could be

Chorus:

           F  
Only from afar
             G   
Can we see a star
           C   
As being a part
     G     Am     
Of a constellation
         F      
Oh constellation
      G               Am 
How I wonder what you are
          F   
Oh little star
  E7                   Am 
I wonder what else you are