How to Unstuck Yourself, Part 1

The foundation of my healed self is based in Internal Family Systems (IFS). When used with fidelity, it is life-fucking-changing. What is IFS exactly? Here’s what the Institute says: 

“It is a transformative tool that conceives every human being as a system of protective and wounded inner parts led by a core Self. We believe the mind is naturally multiple and that is a good thing. Just like members of a family, inner parts are forced from their valuable states into extreme roles within us. Self is in everyone. It can’t be damaged. It knows how to heal.” 

Prior to becoming a Richard Schwartz #fangurl I thought IFS was a synonym for inner child stuff. I was already in process with little Emily so I thought I was working the tool. Thanks to my sage guide, Dara, she showed me that my many different parts are much bigger than a solitary 8 year old me. 

At the end of almost every therapy appointment I ask Dara about what books she’s reading or if there’s anything she recommends I listen to. For at least six months she said “No Bad Parts”, Richard Schwartz’s new book, then she’d proceed to give me a small summary of something she read. It sounded interesting, but again, very similar to the inner child work I was already doing. The day it clicked for me was when, while getting my kids ready for school, a very critical inner voice told me loudly that I was doing an awful job as a parent because my kids weren’t making their own breakfast or cleaning up after themselves. It wasn’t that familiar shit talking voice that brought on the clicking moment though, it was the other one that said wow, that was harsh in response to the shit talker. It was like two separate phone calls coming from inside the same house. Immediately I recognized the critical voice as my internalized step dad part. That was new. I had no idea how powerful his voice was when parenting my own kids. It scared the piss out of me that I was thinking like him even though I didn’t act like him. I made a 911 appointment with Dara for an ASAP session and we processed through it the next day. Upon recognizing my inner critic I learned more about why it was still carrying on after all these years. And how sick she was of doing the same thing that she never wanted to do in the first place. The instant healing that happened upon this one identification and subsequent unburdening with Dara was huge. Like investing $1 in a stock that paid out $100,000 in a one week timeframe. After that session with her I was hooked on discovering more parts of my internal family system. Knowing that what we practice grows stronger, I consistently dedicated one hour of my morning ritual to Schwartz’s book, my journal, and the daily churn of shit that triggered my parts. 

Beginning the IFS work with 2 years of sobriety on board made it easy to locate the drinking part of me–the one who started then could rarely stop–that part protected me from some of my deepest pain by shifting my attention to feeling bad about the symptoms of my drinking versus the root cause of it. Once I was able to get that part in a good place by understanding why it needed to numb, it was my exercise part that came up next. She, similar to the drinking part, kept me on my feet and exhausted me to the bone so that I was too tired to think about anything beyond what my kids needed. Exercising a shitload was a means of suppression. These parts were responsible for so much of my day to day grind but it was easy, in many ways, to quit drinking and not go running for 2 hours several times a week. My drinking part traded beer for books and my over exercising part traded long runs for one big outdoor adventure per week. Check and check! What was much more difficult and more technical was getting closer to the taproot of my over drinking and over exercising behavior. 

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It was my obsessive compulsive part that made herself known next. This part of me is automatic and highly adept, my true work horse that kicks on without needing a conscious thought signaling that it’s GO TIME! She kicks ass on a To Do list and doesn’t have an ounce of quit in her. She knows how to embrace the suck, punch through daily chores and take it on the nose along the way. She jolts me out of bed at 4:50 in the morning to get on top of the day with self care before going into the spin cycle of kid, family and job stuff. At the end of the school day she races to pick up and then tries to be like Sully landing that airplane on the Hudson by bringing the kids back into the home for a much needed dose of co-regulation. Short lived however because, swimming, soccer, music or the other once a month thing will ultimately need a doing too. She flexes, shows off her mental gymnastics and also forgets to breathe. As soon as the muscle fatigue hits and she’s unable to pause–her mind spinning with “just one more thing”–that’s when she knows. When she, meaning I, know that I’m compulsively doing as a means to avoid a hurt that I didn’t let myself fully feel. Just like I used to do by over drinking and over exercising.

Shit. 

Here’s the inner narrative that plays in my head right after my shit moment: 

What now? I thought we were rocking and rolling?! This is the same protective workhorse who is getting defensive, she tries to run roughshod over whatever IT is. No matter how much therapizing, book reading, friend talking, or playing with my kids; I will forever be trying to move away from my pain. Trying to be like the matrix guy dodging the memory bullet that’s hurling its way through my conscious mind. Recognizing how strong my workhorse is and all that she’s trying to do naturally softens her and gives space for the core Self, that Schwartz talks about being in all of us, to come forward.

Sorry I was acting like an asshole and trying to ignore whatever is going on. This sentence from my workhorse part shifts something in my body. A tight spot between my shoulder blades relaxes. Now, we’re feeling like we can engage with what’s up.

My core Self, who I truly am, will help the workhorse stay with whatever IT is no matter how bad. It’s nothing but unconditional love and support from her. She implores the workhorse… What do you have to tell me that I haven’t been hearing? We can slow down. What’s on your heart? What’s going on back there? 

Noticing that there is some thing that needs attention inside me, I take a deep breath and get curious about what the thing is. The curiosity is uncomfortable but I promise myself that I will stay in the discomfort for however long it takes until I understand what’s going on. I learned this from Schwartz’s most poignant example of Self love. He was swimming in the ocean and was pulled far out to sea by a powerful rip current. His parts started panicking but then his core Self comforted those parts by providing a felt sense of it’s okay, I’m with you–if we die, we die together. His panicked parts shifted into peace and then he was able to remember what to do in rip current conditions and it ended up saving his (and his parts) life. 

Due to the demands of parenting I often can’t sit with my inner parts in real time. It’s usually when the day is done and I’m in bed where I can then pay attention to my internal landscape. I do this by consciously trying to turn the thinking part of my brain off and, alternatively, bringing my awareness to the hurt thing inside to find out what it needs to tell me now that I’m in a place to receive it’s message.

In the specific instance of noticing my workhorse a memory from a couple days ago flashes and that’s where my compulsive wiping of windows, inbox emptying, drawer sorting, kid running around and trying to endlessly prep for the next day without any feeling of satisfactory accomplishment all makes perfect sense. The memory was chatting with a good mom friend and learning she and a few others had gotten together without inviting my kids or I even though we usually do activities together. 

OHHHHH! I did not connect the dots. It stung at the moment but I didn’t say anything. I’m annoyed with myself for it having bothered me so much. So what? People can do what they want. This stuff isn’t a big deal, Emily. 

Ouch. That protective voice again. Man, she is quick! Self has something to say too: it always hurts to be left out no matter your age. Next time say something. 

Like fucking what?? It will all make me sound pathetic.  

Self responds faster than I can even fully think the word “pathetic”. What about something like that “How fun! We would have loved to join you all!”  

With that simple acknowledgement AND insight for how to move forward the next time this happens the situation is done and my workhorse finally takes a full breath. At the end of my exhale my forehead relaxes and a vast sense of tiredness washes over me. Before I surrender to my exhaustion, though, Self has one more message for me. 

Remember, Emily, your first reaction is not always your intuition. 

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It may seem granular, insignificant, and maybe even indulgent to expend this amount of energy on alllll the little shit that grates on my nerves and heart. But it’s exactly that judgment of my emotions being insignificant that keeps me stuck in a loop and unable to let go of the pettiness that I wish with all my might didn’t bother me. It’s the recognizing, allowing, investigating and then nurturing that moves me out of my obsessive compulsive doing. Inviting forward what’s festering in my different parts allows me to downshift or, more specifically, down regulate my emotions so that I can then be free to do what I actually want to do from a place of core Self. Maybe my workhorse doesn’t want to bleed sweat every damn day? Maybe her mission is greater than an endless To Do list? By emotionally validating my parts it breaks the pattern I learned from my caregivers that my feelings didn’t matter which directly contributed to my lifelong negative belief of “I don’t matter”. And perhaps, most importantly, me doing this work is one less thing my kids will inherit since day by day I’m actively changing my old ways of being in this world. After all, my greatest wish is for their problems to be their own. 

I would love to hear about how any of this resonated with you and your parts and/or if it was confusing AF. 💛