Phil de la Haye IFS, Alveston (2025)

27/08/2025

This is what it’s all about!
Feeling our feelings is the key to mental and physical health.

When you habitually suppress your emotions you suppress the ‘good’ ones too
(spoiler: there are no good or bad emotions, they are all important - just as there are "no bad parts" in IFS).
So if you want to be able to experience happiness and joy, you need to learn to feel the grief, anger, shame and emotional pain too.
They’re only feelings, they can’t hurt you.

The truth is that NOT feeling your feelings – that will hurt you. Literally, in the case of those of us who have suffered with, or who are suffering with chronic pain.

25/08/2025

Q: Is it normal for my pain to get worse when I start journalling or doing deep emotional work in therapy?
A: YES!
It is totally normal to experience an increase in symptoms when you first start engaging with mindbody healing work.
Think about it. If your pain is being produced by your brain (aka your 'parts' in IFS terms) because it believes you’re in danger due to all the emotions you’re repressing, it makes complete sense that symptoms can sometimes dial up when you start turning towards all those feelings you’ve been pushing away for so long.

It’s also quite common for old symptoms to pop up again, or for sensations to move to new parts of the body that haven’t been affected before. Your brain and nervous system can try all sorts of things to create resistance to doing the work if it thinks feeling your feelings is a threat to you.

Q: So what do I do about it?
A: Keep calm and carry on! But slow down and pace yourself if needed. You want it to be uncomfortable, but tolerable. If it's overwhelming then slow down and focus on nervous system regulation alongside the emotional work.
It can also be helpful to explore the fears of any parts that might be dialling up pain and symptoms.

Easier said than done of course, but keep soothing yourself and telling your brain that you’re safe.
They’re only sensations.
They won’t kill you.
They will pass.
Your brain just doesn’t know that yet.

22/08/2025

Pain is an OUTPUT from the brain
Pain is not an input from your body tissues.

Understanding this was such a game-changer for me!

Pain is NOT an accurate indicator of tissue damage.
Pain is the brain’s opinion about how much danger you’re in.

Pain can be created by the brain even when there is no injury or damage to the tissues at all.
Turning down your fear and frustration about the symptoms you are experiencing will help to reduce and even eliminate them.

20/08/2025

Chronic pain is what happens when your brain has learned to be really good at making pain.

All pain is created in the brain.

Pain isn’t made by your body. Pain is created in the brain in response to input from the body (or in response to environmental or emotional stressors). When people have chronic pain that persists for no structural reason, this is because the brain has got “too good” at making that pain. This is often called fibromyalgia, or central sensitivity – and it sucks.

We’ve been teaching Luna (my dog) how to do a trick called “dead bug”, which involved her lying on her back with her paws in the air. To get her to do it we say “lie down” then we say “dead bug”. It took her a while to learn the trick. But now she’s got so good at it that if we just say “lie down” she goes straight to lying on her back with her legs in the air.

This is a lot like how chronic pain works in the brain. The brain learns to produce pain as a response to a stimulus (maybe an injury, but maybe to other factors like emotional pain or stress) and then it gets really good at doing it. Once that pain pathway is learned, it can sometimes remain active for months, or even years. And that pain can be recreated in a heartbeat, even when it’s not useful to us.

From an IFS perspective. Parts know how to use the body for protection, or as a way of getting our attention.

But the good news is that this learned pain can also be unlearned. See my website for links and resources, and check out my other posts for more information on how to rewire your brain.

19/08/2025

IFS and Mindbody Healing: Befriending Your Managers
There is just one spot left on this upcoming workshop!

This workshop is aimed at folk who are already familiar with the concepts of IFS, and who want to deepen their understanding of how to use parts work to support mindbody healing. The focus will be getting to know and appreciate your ‘manager’ parts. These are the protective parts who run our lives, and are usually the first ones we need to befriend and collaborate with in order to pave the way for deeper healing work. �

I keep the group small to allow opportunity for connection and sharing as well as learning, so there are just 8 spots available.
Read the full details and book your place here:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/phildelahayeifs/1751802

Here’s what some of the previous participants have said about my workshops:

“Phil has a calm, authentic and empathic presence. I loved the sense of connection and community from the workshop. I also found the experiential exercise particularly powerful and helpful.”

“The class was informative AND restorative, very nice combination that left me feeling more connected to myself. Thank you!”

If you go to book and it's already full, there will be the opportunity to join a wait list in case any spots become available. If you'd like to be sure of hearing about any future offerings from me as soon as they become available, please sign up for my newsletter:
https://phildelahaye.com/e-book-email-signup/

18/08/2025

GOOD NEWS! It’s never too late to heal

At any time in our lives we can take action to activate and learn new pathways in our brains. We can literally rewire our brains into having healthier, happier, chronic pain-free pathways. We can also have a huge impact on our mental health, improving symptoms such as anxiety and depression and increasing our sense of wellbeing.

It might take a little time and it definitely takes some concentrated effort, but we can do it.

This is available to every single one of us.
And our brains are able to form new neural pathways throughout the life span. Literally until the day we day our brains are capable of change and new learning. How does it make you feel to hear that? It always gives me so much hope when I remind myself of this.

And yes – it sucks that these symptoms are often due to things happened to us in the past that we had no control over. We can’t change the past, but we can make some choices that will help us to have a better, healthier future.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably already doing it. If you’re not, check out some of the resources linked on my website www.phildelahaye.com

15/08/2025

Dr John Sarno talked about the concept of the rage to soothe ratio, and why it’s important in recovery from chronic pain or other stress related symptoms.

It can also be helpful to think of it as a stress to soothe ratio, because not everyone finds it easy to identify with the concept of being full of rage. For me overwhelm and stress often make my levels of irritation and impatience rise, so Dr Sarno’s version fit in my case!

If you think of a typical day, there will always be things that happen that cause you stress (and/or rage). Not necessarily huge ‘important’ things. But lots of little stressors can stack up and up until we are like a pressure cooker that’s ready to explode.

When that pressure builds up it often comes out as pain or other symptoms such as anxiety, brain fog, fatigue, irritability etc. Soothing ourselves is the antidote to this build-up of rage/stress. When we take time out for self-care it helps to neutralise some of the crap that’s stacked up during the day.

Things you could try:
Mindful breathing
Walking in nature
Dancing/shaking it off
Emotional journalling
Hugging someone
Hugging yourself (or a pillow) and listening to a self-compassion meditation
Yoga or other mindful movement
Playing with a pet
Doing something creative

Whatever works for you is great.

What are some of your favourite ways to soothe yourself?

13/08/2025

My teaching/planning manager parts are busy today, working on the slides for my upcoming workshop 'IFS and Mindbody Healing: Befriending your Managers', which is coming up on Aug 23rd.

Our manager parts are the ones who run our lives, and unfortunately some of them work in ways that directly contribute to chronic symptoms like pain and fatigue.

This slide shows how those 6Fs we try not to do in mindbody recovery (Dr Schubiner) are all behaviours from parts of us who are trying desperately to help... but that intensity and urgency ends up having the opposite effect.

The way to reduce these behaviours is to befriend and build trust with the parts who are stuck in these patterns. When they start to trust in us, they can start to loosen their grip and are more open to trying a new way out. Because they usually realise that what they're doing isn't actually working - but it's all they know.

There is just one place left on this workshop now. If you'd like to read the full details and book, here's the link:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/phildelahayeifs/1751802

13/08/2025

REMINDER: Sometimes the brain creates pain when there is nothing structurally wrong in the body.
No tissue damage. No injury.
The brain can create pain or other symptoms literally ANYWHERE in the body.

These symptoms can be anything from a mild ni**le to horrific roll-on-the-floor agony.
They can include pain, numbness, tingling, muscle weakness, fatigue, skin conditions, GI problems.
They can masquerade as an infection, or that feeling you get when you think you’re coming down with something.

The brain and nervous system are amazing.
But remember that their one goal is to keep you safe!
If the brain thinks that symptoms are going to protect you, then it will give you symptoms. And the more you fear and fight those symptoms, the more ramped up your nervous system gets, and the worse the symptoms will get.

Break the cycle by:�
Educating yourself about pain science� to break the pain-fear cycle
Understanding the stressors past and present that are keeping your nervous system on high alert
Learning to feel and process your emotions
Noticing your negative self-talk and changing the inner dialogue
Prioritising self-care and having boundaries

11/08/2025

Should I push through the pain?
I get asked this a lot, usually in relation to physical activity/exercise, but it can apply to any trigger. My answer is that you want to try and find the sweet spot between pushing too hard, and not challenging yourself at all.

Pain is a warning signal. So when you get pain around exercise there is a part of you that perceives exercise as dangerous to you in some way. This danger may be due to a physical injury. But in the case of chronic pain, there is no injury. So the symptoms are more likely to be due to one of two things (or a combination of the two)

Neuroplastic pain – conditioned pain because the brain has come to associate exercise with symptoms, kept going by fear of movement which becomes self-fulfilling.
And/or
A part in your system that is creating pain for protection. For example, the symptoms may be your body saying NO in response to a shaming critic that forces you to exercise hard, and has caused burnout in the past - if this is the case, you will need to do some emotional work around this issue alongside graded exposure to reduce your fear of exercise

If you push through intense pain, you’re likely to just make yourself feel even more fearful, and any part creating pain is only going to try harder to stop you from exercising. This is more likely to cause you a setback than help you make progress.

But if you always let any pain stop you from doing things that expand your comfort zone, then you will stay stuck. Your brain needs to learn that the sensations in your body are safe, and it won’t learn this unless you let yourself do things that bring on those sensations.

So, what you want is gradual exposure. Start small, give yourself lots of reassurance that the pain isn’t due to an injury – it’s just being created by your brain.

08/08/2025

You don’t need to have experienced significant trauma or abuse in order to have mindbody symptoms.

Chronic stress, especially emotional stress can be enough to put our nervous system into a constant state of high alert. This can then cause our brains to produce pain (or other unusual symptoms).

Sometimes this stress is external (work, life, family, or other social factors).

But sometimes it can be internal: personality traits or ‘parts’ of us keep us trapped with limiting beliefs and patterns of thought or behaviour that keep us stuck in negative cycles.

The good news is that the internal stuff can be changed. And when we work on the internal stress it puts us in a better position to address some of the external stressors too - or at least to be able to cope with them better.

06/08/2025

Dreams are a gateway to our unconscious mind...
Do you remember your dreams? If so, what messages do they have for you?
I often use my dreams as journalling prompts in my mindbody healing process, and they can lead me to tap into things that want to come into my awareness.

Our dreams are often strange and metaphorical, but the emotional content of our dreams can tell us a lot.
Dreams are one of the ways that our brains process emotion. When we dream, our brain is providing a safe container to feel and process emotion.

During times of stress I have recurring dreams about trying to climb steep cliffs and struggling to get to the top.
At times when I feel out of control and afraid, I have dreams about riding bicycles that are too tall so my feet won’t reach the ground and I have to keep cycling otherwise the bike topples over and I fall.

I feel as if these are very clear messages from my unconscious mind about how I’m feeling at the time. When I have these dreams I take time to reassure myself that I’m safe, and do what I can to relax and create time for myself.

What emotions are coming out in your dreams? What might your unconscious be trying to tell you?

Phil de la Haye IFS

27/08/2025

25/08/2025

22/08/2025

20/08/2025

19/08/2025

18/08/2025

15/08/2025

13/08/2025

13/08/2025

11/08/2025

08/08/2025

06/08/2025

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