Self love, one part at a time
Can you imagine what it would have been like, if every so often, one of your parents would have…
Come over to you, knelt down at a respectful distance, looked in your eyes gently and lovingly, and simply said, “I just wanted to be close to you for a minute” or,
Stopped themselves in the middle of a chore or task, to glance over at you with warm eye contact that says, “You matter and I see you” or,
Noticed that you seemed to be “fine”, but checked in to calmly ask, “everything ok over here?”
All of the above are subtle yet powerful ways you would have felt seen and valued for simply being you.
And they are simple things you can do, as often as you can remember, in order to make little deposits into your child’s self-worth bank!
But what about making daily deposits into your own self-worth bank?
Here’s one way that I, and many other parents in this community, have used.
It is a very effective way to grow a felt sense of worth, love and trust in ourselves.
I’m talking about Internal Family Systems (IFS), and today I’ll break the model down for you in case you would like to start using it as a part of your healing practice.
Using IFS and the pause
One of the things that happens when you start practicing the pause, is that you start catching yourself in a sort of autopilot mode.
Maybe you'll notice yourself...
Automatically picking up your phone, without really wanting to.
Drowning out your children's voices and responding with an automatic "uh-huh" to a question you didn't even hear.
Getting stuck in certain thought patterns.
But those automatic thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, actually do have pilots behind them.
These little pilots, are our parts (or sub-personalities).
Yes, you read that right.
We all have a bunch of sub-personalities, each with their own beliefs, interests, viewpoints, roles and burdens.
If you have ever thought, "a part of me really wants out of this relationship, and another part really wants to stay," then that is a great example of two of your parts. Each with very good reasons for feeling how they do. And perhaps, with a little too much fear guiding their beliefs.
Getting to understand how our parts work can bring huge insights as to why we do what we do; as well as how to change patterns that no longer serve us well. It can also help us to experience a greater sense of peace in our minds and bodies.
Here's how our parts work...
Protectors: Managers and Firefighters
In Internal Family Systems, the parts of us that seem to work on autopilot are called our managers. These parts try to prevent us from remembering that we carry any wounding or sadness at all. They tend to keep us productive, hard working, distracted, busy, analyzing, ruminating, problem-solving, helping, pleasing others…(to name a few).
If our managers had a motto, it would be “never again”. Meaning, “never again will you feel alone, sad, scared, shameful, etc. I’ll keep you behaving in the right ways so that you don’t ever have to feel the pain of disappointment again.”
There are two things I want you to know today about your manager parts:
Their intentions are good, but their beliefs and behaviors were likely established at a very young time and in an insecure relational environment. And therefore, what they need from you now that you are an adult, is that you pause, turn towards them, and start to bring them some listening, care, and new possibilities.
Even though their intentions are good, they are often motivated by fear. Which can remove the authenticity from the behaviors they cause in you. For example, if you believe you must always be the “helper” friend to everyone, there might be a fear-driven motivation beneath your helping actions. Which means those actions, while well-intentioned, don’t generate a sense of genuine connectedness with yourself, or others. Another example is a perfectionistic or achiever part of you that tries to be a great “gentle parent” by learning and using all the right scripts–and yet, it doesn’t feel as genuine as it could. Because these behaviors are based on fear, they can reduce the level of felt connection that you and those you love will experience in your interactions. A great question to ask yourself when you realize you are on autopilot is (try it in a curious and loving tone, perhaps even with a small smile on your face), “Ok, what am I up to right now?” And whatever the answer is to that question, remember, it makes sense.
Another set of parts within us that help protect us from feeling the pain from our early childhood and/or other life experiences, are called our firefighters. These fiercely loyal parts of us are ready to rise to the occasion as soon as the pain we have been repressing, surfaces. Because sometimes, even our best efforts to prevent our pain from surfacing, will fail.(In fact, the longer we live trying to keep the hurt repressed, the louder and more frequently it tries to surface. Oftentimes in extreme ways). So when the pain does come up, these firefighter parts act instantly and impulsively. And sometimes in very extreme ways. They help us numb, escape, or deny our pain, through the best the ways they know how. They tend to remind us we can pick up our phone and find something to distract ourselves with. Or perhaps binge-watch a show. They might remind us that a nice drink or smoke might take the edge off the ick we are feeling. And they are willing to go to whatever extreme they can think of, to take the pain away. Because they believe we can’t handle it and they are afraid of what will happen if they don't make it go away. If we never stop to notice our firefighter parts and bring them care, healing and help, they will continue to work as they always have. On their own.
Exiles: Your tender inner children
Remember that pain that your protective managers and firefighters don’t want you to feel? Well there are other parts that have been burdened with all of the weight of that pain. And to add insult to injury, they have been pushed away by your protective parts (all with good intention, but little guidance). These wounded parts are your sweet and vulnerable exiles. Your managers and firefighters tend to be very afraid of exiles, because of the pain they carry. You see, when the hard stuff happened to us when we were little, our exiles absorbed all of the excruciating feelings of fear, shame and/or pain that the circumstances or events of our lives caused. In the absence of adults who knew how to help us grieve the hurt from our disappointments and losses, we were unable to heal from them on our own. So we did the best we can. Our managers and firefighters pushed those tender and injured parts of us away. And they have done their best to keep us from feeling the pain again, or to protect those little parts from being hurt again.
Get to know your inner family
Can you experiment with the idea that you have this entire family of inner children of all ages within you? Each doing their best to be okay? To secure love and attachment? To parent well?
What if the times you feel disconnected, dull, anxious, activated, ashamed, angry or overwhelmed are simply your parts stuck in old patterns and needing some help from you?
What if I told you that you can immediately start relating to these parts in a healing way?
You can.
They are waiting for you to start turning towards them. They need your witnessing, guidance and healing.
And you probably already guessed the first step towards being the parent that they need.
The pause!
Any time you can remember to stop and notice yourself–whether you are just going about your day and feeling great, or feeling a bit off, or feeling really upset.
Talk to yourself. Stop and name how you are feeling. Ask if anyone within you wants you to know something. Or needs something from you.
It may sound strange at first.
But through this practice, the world of potential and healing that you carry within will be slowly revealed to you, one pause at a time.