03/03/2024
Today I’d love to share another important aspect of the framework that I use in my educational courses and coaching, how it’s impacted my life, and how it impacts the work I do.
When I was 24, I found a type of therapy called Internal Family Systems (IFS), also referred to as ‘parts work’, in a book about how to tame your inner ‘middle child’ and stop self-sabotaging your life. The beauty of parts work it that it approaches our emotions as their own unique, fully formed identities that all exist within our psyche. It suggests that for every emotion you have, there is a part of you that personifies that emotion - happiness, rage, fear, loneliness, disgust, compassion, criticism, abandonment, etc. We can use parts work to change the way we interact without our emotions so that we can interface with them directly, and bypass the rational mind that wants to avoid emotions as a way of protecting us. We actually have many ‘Protector Parts’, and it has been found that often the parts of us that tell us to stay small or do the things that actually hurt us, are the same ones stuck in experiences from our past, where that part was needed in order to keep us safe, keep us accepted and at all costs, loved by others.
Parts work also helps us to create some separation between us and our emotions, so we do not merge completely with the part and allow it to become our entire personality. For example, instead of saying to ourselves, “I am so ashamed of myself for binging on sweets last night”, we can instead say “Wow, part of me feels really ashamed of the decisions I made last night”.
Can you feel a difference between these two statements? Do you sense the self-compassion that is present when we stop ourselves from fully identifying ourselves with our emotions, so we can actually process the emotion?
My story:
For me, the part of myself I used to merge with the most was my unworthy part. Feeling so unworthy of the life I was living when I was attending university in Toronto made me seek a lot of external validation. I was not confident in my talents, skills or abilities (even though it was so hard to get accepted to the program I was in), nor did I feel truly worthy of even being seen in the same group as many of my peers, who were outwardly much more fashionable and “beautiful” than I was.
I remember living in downtown Toronto going to fashion school, I found the people and the city so captivating. The first thing that blew my mind was seeing people literally TRYING to stand out, to have their own unique personal style, trying to have a look NO ONE else had! Coming from the prairies where standing out was basically social su***de, I remember how much excitement it sparked inside me to see these people living their best lives in the big city, giving zero f**ks.
Maybe a year later I found myself walking around the city, just on my way to class (or likely to the mall), and my eyes were searching through the crowds seeking something specific that I could just never find… I was looking for myself. I wanted to see another girl out there in the world who was my age, my height, my weight, my body type, my hair, my skin tone, everything - so that I could look at her and objectively see if I thought she was beautiful. I wanted to see what other people saw when they looked at me, so I could determine whether I looked good enough to accept myself.
Looking back now I am pretty sure this counts as some kind of social anxiety, but at that time, it felt so normal to seek representation so I could judge myself properly. Being around people who cared so much about how they were keeping up with others sparked this habit of ‘performative worthiness’ within me. Yet, as hard as I tried to show others I belonged outside, the more I felt lost on the inside. Everytime I left the house I had a harder time feeling confident that my cheap H&M outfits were good enough to make me feel good enough. It was actually no different than how I felt growing up, but instead of everyone wearing the same low rise billabong jeans and roxy tees, people were wearing whatever they thought would make them look the most interesting. The fashion may have been more interesting, but people were doing the exact same thing here as they were everywhere else, the same thing I was trying to do as well - trying to fit in, to be seen as successful, to be desired by others so they could have some sense of feeling worthy within ourselves. But, that feeling of acceptance and worthiness never lasted.
How it relates to my work:
Have you ever found yourself fixating on what everyone else looks like around you? Maybe at the office, or on your sports team, or in your group of friends? Maybe in a fitting room, or at a wedding? Let’s learn how to take this skill of noticing differences and use it to our advantage, instead!
Next time you find yourself looking around and feeling too different to be in the room, can you imagine living in a world where you are proud of that? Can you imagine celebrating others for how divinely different they are from you? Can you ask yourself, what is the part of you that wants you to look the same as everyone in this room - where does it come from? And, in your heart of hearts, does your true self really believe that everyone should look the same? When were you taught to believe this? How did you learn this belief? Many people would say they do not actually identify with these limiting beliefs when asked to apply them to others, especially the people we love and care about, yet we are quick to admit that we often apply these rules to our internal selves.
If you’d like to learn more about Parts Work, I would recommend the book “No Bad Parts - Healing Trauma & Restoring Wholeness with The Internal Family Systems Model”, by Richard C. Schwartz, PHD. This is the person who discovered and developed the model, and the story of his work is remarkable. If you are interested in learning more about trauma and the body, The Body Keeps Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. is essentially considered a required text for those accrediting themselves as ‘trauma-informed, which I am. If you choose to work with me, you can trust you are putting yourself in safe, educated, well-resourced hands.
To work with me, please send me a message or book a free 30 minute session with me through my website, www.jfahlman.ca
