Phil de la Haye IFS, Alveston (2026)

30/01/2026

“I want to go deep in my journalling, but I can’t feel any emotion. Help!”

If this is true for you, stop, breathe and reassure yourself that it’s okay. You’re not getting it wrong.

Your unconscious is still fearful and doesn't want those feelings to rise just yet even if your conscious mind is desperate to get on with feeling and healing. Don't fight too hard because that will only make you feel more unsafe.

It’s normal for parts of you to block emotion as a protective response. In the past you may have been shamed for your emotions, or they may have drawn negative attention in other ways. Or parts might believe that you will be overwhelmed by the strength of them, or that once you start crying you won’t be able to stop. Or that if you acknowledge your anger it might be dangerous or harmful.

All of these concerns are normal and understandable.

Keep going, but be gentle. Think of it as an archaeological dig. You don't go in with earth moving equipment or you’ll cause damage. It’s better to brush the earth away gently and slowly to reveal the secrets that are hiding there.

If you sense that parts of you are blocking emotion, start by exploring that.
Why do big feelings seem so dangerous?
What might happen if you allow yourself to feel them?

28/01/2026

Pain that sticks around or keeps recurring after the normal healing time (typically 8-12 weeks depending on the injury) is almost always a mindbody issue.

My physio couldn’t explain why my shoulder persisted for months after what was thought to be a minor injury. I did all the exercises diligently, but the pain only got worse. Then it started spreading into my neck and upper back. When it finally settled down, I got the same pain in the other shoulder for no apparent reason. Of course I tried to find explanations. “Maybe I slept on it wrong?” “Maybe I overdid it when I was gardening?” But now I understand that none of that makes sense from a functional perspective.

The piece of the puzzle I was missing, is that chronic stress was keeping my muscles constantly tight. And my oversensitized nervous system was interpreting the feeling of tightness and translating it into pain.

Pain is an output of the brain, not an experience in your body. Our brains create pain when they believe we are in danger. The pain is a signal for us to hide away somewhere and give ourselves time to heal.

These symptoms occurred during a very difficult time in my life, and my brain was trying to protect me by giving me pain to keep me ‘safe’. Once I understood this process and started to address my anxiety and internal stress; and began to allow myself to befriend all the different parts of my personality and feel what they were feeling, my pain started to fade.

28/01/2026

Are you interested in learning about how to use IFS (parts work) with journalling for mindbody healing and emotional wellbeing?

My next workshop is on Saturday 21st February, 4pm - 6pm UK time (11am - 1pm EST)

I keep the group small to allow for connection and sharing as well as learning, so there are just 8 spots available.
Book your place here:
https://buytickets.at/phildelahayeifs/2040270

FULL DETAILS:
Get to know the different parts of yourself, to reduce distress and create more internal harmony.

Join with me (Phil de la Haye) and a small group of participants (maximum 8 people) to learn about the basic principles of Internal Family Systems, and how you can begin to use IFS to support a therapeutic journalling practice for mindbody wellness.

This workshop will offer the opportunity to:
* Learn the fundamental principles of IFS and how it can support a journalling practice
* Learn how parts can impact the body
* Explore your own parts through an experiential exercise
* Connect and share with me and the other folk in the group
�This is a live online workshop held on Zoom. No recording will be provided after the event, but you will receive copies of the slides and a handout based on the content.

I will be starting with the IFS basics, so no prior knowledge of IFS is required.
�This workshop will be focused on the emotional work of self-discovery and self-compassion. It's primarily aimed at folks who are already using journalling to support mindbody healing, so there is an assumption that you are already familiar with the mindbody approach.

Here’s what some of the previous participants had to say about it…

“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!”

“I would thoroughly recommend this workshop to anyone who wants to gain a greater understanding or anyone without any knowledge on IFS. Phil’s calm compassionate approach puts you at ease, and I’m definitely going to be implementing this more into my healing routine.”

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/

26/01/2026

We get so used to our negative patterns of thought and self-talk, that often we are unaware of how much internal stress we are unwittingly piling on ourselves. Understanding these negative internal voices as parts can be really helpful.

If you have a strong inner critic, or other parts in your system who are prone to beating you up, judging you, comparing you negatively to others etc… this will be causing internal stress, because other parts in you are hurt by that because they hear it and believe it’s true.

Mindfulness, meditation, journalling and self-awareness can help us to notice these different parts of us and the way they talk on the inside. When we become aware of these parts and get curious about them we can understand why they do what they do. They are trying to keep us safe by berating us and making us show up in the world in a certain way. They learned these ways of coping when we were young. As we get to know these parts we can build some trust with them and their voices will become softer and they will allow more space for our core, compassionate Self.

23/01/2026

Remember: When your nervous system thinks you're safe, it doesn't need to create symptoms to protect you. Learning to settle your nervous system by creating moments of safety, peace, and stillness in your day can be a game changer when healing from mindbody aka neuroplastic symptoms.

Some of my top ways of finding a moment or two of calm are:
Taking three (or more) gentle, conscious breaths. Put your hands over your heart, inhale through the nose, then exhale slowly through pursed lips.
Getting outdoors and looking at the sky, or looking out of a window for a couple of minutes. Let your eyes scan the horizon and notice what you see.
A short round of EFT tapping (I love the Tapping Solution App for this, or Tapping with Brad on YouTube). But once you know how to tap you can do it anytime/anywhere.

What are your favourite ways of giving your nervous system a little boost of calm as you go about your day?

21/01/2026

Do I have to believe this is mindbody pain in order to heal?
The short answer: Belief is a process. Let it grow!
Those of us trying to heal from chronic pain tend to get very hung up on belief. We are often told that belief is essential, and that we won't heal if we don't believe 100%
I believe that developing your belief is part of the process of healing, and it doesn't matter if you are still struggling with this. There are levels of belief along the way, and you need to work your way through them.

>The belief that chronic pain can be caused by psychological factors
>The belief that it's possible to heal from chronic pain
>The belief that your issues are caused by psychological factors
>The belief that YOU can heal from chronic pain

For some people, it may take some time to develop all of these beliefs, and that's okay. Your belief will get stronger as you do the work.

My tips for belief:

ONE: Affirmations
Start with what you're willing to believe, that can be a lot easier. Try saying it out loud for yourself and see if you can feel the truth in the statement. For example:
"I am willing to believe that my pain is a mindbody issue."
"I am willing to believe that I can be pain free."
Find an affirmation that sits right for you now, and repeat it to yourself several times a day.

TWO: Keep an evidence sheet
Look at the connection between stressful events and symptoms in your past and present. Be a detective. Look for the clues. Notice what tends to dial your symptoms up or down and focus on the psychological, not the physical. Once you start to see the patterns, this can really help you believe that you're dealing with a mindbody issue.

19/01/2026

Although it's usually a distressing experience when we are triggered, our triggers can be clues that help us unravel what’s going on inside our mindbody system.

Perceived rejection - even as mild as disinterest - is a huge trigger for me. It can flip me from a calm grounded state into a state of rage and distress in a matter of milliseconds.

Coming to understand that those feelings came from a part of me that was very young, and being curious about why I felt that way, helped me to be more self-compassionate about it, and less ashamed of that strong emotional reaction. It was the emotional reaction of a toddler, and was rooted in childhood wounds – the rage was protecting a part that felt unloved.

Now I take better care of the young wounded parts of myself and am more understanding of the parts that protect them, I get triggered less often. And when I do? I know it’s only a feeling and it will pass.

I am safe. I am loved. I am enough.

What clues are your triggers giving you about your internal world?

16/01/2026

ALL PAIN IS REAL, but all pain is also an output of the brain, not an input from the body.

The brain filters all incoming information from our body (and from our external environment) and decides how to respond to it. Imagine there is a dial in your brain that can be turned up, or down, depending on the filters we use.

Pain occurs when the brain believes we need to protect our body tissues, but the brain isn’t always right. Sometimes the incoming danger signal won’t be related to our body tissues at all, but will be an emotional threat.

In chronic pain our danger transmission system becomes oversensitive, which can lead to more danger messages being sent to the brain.

Also in chronic pain, we are more likely to perceive threat, to anticipate a bad outcome (more pain), to be stressed and fearful, and to have lost confidence in our body and our ability to cope.
All of these things increase our symptoms and keep us locked in the pain-fear cycle.

The good news is that nearly all of these filters can be changed with mindbody healing and brain retraining. We can learn to increase our sense of safety, to change our limiting beliefs, to stop expecting pain, and to become more confident in our ability to heal.

14/01/2026

Pain is communication – and it’s often a warning, but not in the way you think.

Chronic pain is a communication from your mindbody system that something is badly wrong, but it is rarely a physical problem. Parts of us can use the body to try and get our attention in a variety of ways.

What are your symptoms trying to tell you?

My body was shouting at me because I’d spent years abandoning myself, suppressing my authentic self, losing myself in other people, in my work, in anything I could find to numb out (alcohol, drugs, video games, the Internet etc).

Over a twenty year period I went from occasional bouts of lower back pain to all over musculoskeletal pain, nerve pain, numbness, tingling, and muscle weakness (all the symptoms of fibromyalgia).

When I learned about the link between stress, emotional suppression, and chronic pain, everything started to change.

12/01/2026

Self-compassion is a key ingredient in healing from chronic symptoms.

If I had to pick one meditation that’s been the most helpful for me on my healing journey, it’s Loving and Listening to Yourself by Sarah Blondin on Insight Timer (now re-named: Becoming Your Own Beloved).

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve listened to this, and I’ve lost count of how many times it’s made me cry (in a good way).

This meditation touches on the emptiness inside me that my symptoms were trying to mask. It reminds me how I abandoned myself over and over again for so many years by losing myself in other people, or in unhealthy habits that didn’t serve me, or by using substances that numbed me. These were different maladaptive strategies used by protective parts, trying to keep me away from the emotional pain of my exiles.

This meditation reminds me that having kindness, compassion, and love for all the different parts of myself is ultimately how I set myself free.
Learning to love and value ourselves is a huge and crucial part of healing. But it’s one that can feel almost impossible sometimes.

If the idea of loving yourself seems out of reach, start with self-compassion.

Imagine you are talking to a friend who is suffering and think what you’d say to comfort them. Then say those words to yourself. It might feel weird, or crazy. But you need to hear it.

You need to show the sad, angry, wounded parts of yourself that they are understood, and forgiven. Because those parts of you that have been left behind are hurting, and they are causing your suffering by reminding you that they need your love and compassion.
When you learn to love them and listen to them, they won’t need to use symptoms to try and get your attention anymore.

https://insighttimer.com/sarahblondin/guided-meditations/loving-and-listening-to-yourself

09/01/2026

This has absolutely been my experience.
One of my chronic issues started during a difficult time in my life with an 'overtraining' injury (which I suspect was more down to chronic muscle tension than too many press ups). The pain persisted long after any injury should have healed.

A few months later the pain mysteriously moved to my other shoulder. Now I know that this is very common with chronic pain. It often moves around your body, and it tricks you into thinking there is something structurally wrong with you. But with that second shoulder, there is no way that there could have been any tissue damage, because I hadn't done anything strenuous.

Spoiler alert: You can't injure yourself by "sleeping on it funny".

I was locked in a downward spiral of "What the hell is wrong with my body this time?" because I'd already been through years of unexplained back pain, hip pain, ankle pain, neck pain, wrist pain....

The more I feared the pain in my neck and shoulders, and the more I focused on it, the worse it got. It spread down my arms, and I started to get nerve pain, and weird sensations of numbness and tingling, and muscle weakness.

Now I understand that none of this was due to tissue damage, it was all neuroplastic pain. Neuroplastic pain is still VERY REAL PAIN, but the sensations were being created by my brain (or by protective ‘parts’ of me in IFS language) in response to ongoing stress in my life, and exacerbated by my fear of the symptoms.

My way out:

Learning about the neuroscience of chronic pain to break the pain-fear cycle with knowledge
Learning how to unwind my nervous system
Addressing my past trauma

07/01/2026

Are you addicted to being busy?
Do you find it hard to relax?

Hyperfocus on being productive, filling our time with doing 'useful' things, and not allowing ourselves time to rest and play are ways that we (unintentionally) abandon ourselves. This addiction to "busyness" can be a trauma response, and one that is hard to identify, because most of us live in a culture where productivity is valued and self-care is not.

Confession time...
I am absolutely one of these people. I have spent years losing myself in to do lists, working long hours, and constantly seeking out things to focus on externally. This is a protective strategy of some of my parts to stop me feeling bored or lonely, or noticing emotions that might feel scary/threatening.

I’ve learned to notice the signs that these parts are pushing me too hard. I feel anxious, irritable, stressed, jittery and get increasingly obsessed with doing All The Things.

At that point I don't want to stop working. "I have so much to do, if I just keep going then I'll feel better once I've done this thing, or that thing, and maybe those things too..."

But now I know that when I feel that resistance to rest and self-care, that is a sign that I really need it ASAP! And when it happens I give myself permission to stop and take some time for myself – even half an hour can help my nervous system to settle.

Things that help me to reset are: journalling, going for a walk, doing some gentle yoga, meditating.

It's not easy to change old our habits and programming, but it's totally possible - and totally worth it.

Do you have parts who are addicted to being busy?
Are you resistant to self care?
You're not alone, and you can change!
If this is something you're working on changing, what has helped you to change your habits?

Phil de la Haye IFS

30/01/2026

28/01/2026

28/01/2026

26/01/2026

23/01/2026

21/01/2026

19/01/2026

16/01/2026

14/01/2026

12/01/2026

09/01/2026

07/01/2026

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