Unleashing Your Inner Self with Internal Family Systems Therapy

You know the movie Inside Out?

Where we are inside the head of Riley (the main character) and get to witness the exchanges between: Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger, and Fear?

That’s how I describe Internal Family Systems (IFS) to people.

Internal Family Systems developed by, Richard Schwartz, is a psychotherapy modality that identifies and addresses multiple subpersonalities or families within each person’s mind.

IFS can treat individuals, couples, and families. My therapist specifically uses it to help treat my depression and anxiety.

In the book, “Parts Work: An Illustrated Guide to Your Inner Life” the author, Tom Homes, Ph.D. describes IFS as an inner world of subpersonalities or “parts”. Some of our “parts” are ready and available at all times and others hang out in the storage closet and only come out when something calls them out.

“Most of us have a primary cast of characters, which could number a dozen or more, a handful of which are the main players in our systems.”

For the most part the subpersonalitites consist of wounded parts of ourselves and painful emotions such as fear, anger, shame and are often in conflict with Self- the real individual that we are. This real individual is compassionate, confident, and whole and is that the core of every single one of us (psychologytoday.com)

This methodology along with Human Design completely transformed me. They both helped me understand my limiting beliefs and where they came from, my core operating system, and how to manage when my parts are in the drivers seat.

Do you know your inner characters?

If you follow me on instagram you may have read one of my posts about my parts. I introduced this topic a few months back.

Self, Scout, & Grinder.

Cartoons drawn by me describing what my parts look like in my head.

First, there is Grinder, next is Scout, and my favorite of them all is, Self. I’m sure I have more but these are the three I access the most.

A good way to understand how this works is to try it on right now. What are you feeling right now while you are reading my blog entry? Interested? Bored? If you’re interested perhaps there is a part of you that is a life long learner and enjoys connecting the dots. Or on the other hand if you are feeling bored with my writing and skimming through it perhaps you’ve activated your critical part of you.

When I met my therapist, let's call her, Heart*, my life changed.

Heart taught me about IFS and introduced me to where these parts came from.

We labeled them together and from there I was able to distinguish who was driving my brain.

This work helped me find, Self.

Self, is your real self. Think the compassionate, uplifting, encouraging, supportive, loving, side of you. The grown up who’s been through it and knows in the end it will all be ok.

My therapist taught me techniques that helped me be identify these parts in order to disrupt Scout & my other brain counterparts. She taught me about my different emotions and feelings.

You'd think being the only child of two therapists that I'd be able to accurately identify emotions and feelings.

But no, I've been blocked.

Masked.

Building a concrete wall.

I haven't felt and processed like an unconditioned person since I was in Elementary school.

Although I cognitively can explain how I’m feeling I don’t always actually FEEL it.

With the help of heart and identifying my parts I discovered that I'd been living by other people's labels pretty much since I was born...

Strong willed 2 year old, hyperactive 6 year old, bad at math 12 year old, slutty 16 year old, black out nikki 22 year old, and it continues on as I've aged.

At 35 I FINALLY wrote my own labels...crossing out the words weighing so heavily on the shell of my being.

I didn’t realize how many I had adopted over the years…

"Bad at math"

"ADHD"

"Lack of follow through"

"Stupid"

"Can't sit still"

"Distracted and a distractor"

"Loud"

"impulsive"

None of these were titles that I actually gave myself. I grew up believing I was a deficit. I mean it's in the name of my diagnosis. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

I realized that I don't have an identity because I haven't chosen one, that I haven't picked words and skills that actually define me. What about the words besides attention deficit disorder?

What about:

Creative

Kind

Entreprenural

Driven

Loyal

passionate

great communicator

in tune with emotions

good friend

compassionate

empathetic

good listener

natural leader

artistic

I am finally ridding myself of others' expectations and judgments.

Off they go... one by one...

And from this exercised emerged Self.

Let’s do a deep dive into these sub personalities of mine.

Internal conflict between Self & Scout.

In this drawing Self is excited that her friends want to do something nice for her and Scout is on alert due to painful past experiences and reminds her to not get too close.

First up is Scout- aka the girl scout. She's physically tiny, bossy, and LOUD and she is hyperactively on alert for danger and pain.  She takes her job very seriously and has achieved so many safety patches over the years she needs a new sash. Scout also carries binoculars so she can watch out for danger, because according to her it's everywhere. Scout is a leader...a leader who operates in fear. She is anxiety. Scout doesn't like happiness. Scout worries that when happiness occurs it means tragedy is coming. She wants to be as prepared as possible so I don't get hurt.

Internal conflict between Self & Grinder

In this cartoon drawing Self identities her love of writing and begins to dream about a reality of a writing career. Grinder makes sure to both let her know how hard the road is along with the fact that she’s just not good enough to accomplish it.

Oh, Grinder. She's like those characters who play the orphanage director or like in Miss Trunchbull. Think of her as an angry mean lady who points her figure tisking you. But she only has a hard shell. Grinder has had to work really really hard to be seen, loved, and recognized. She had to be tough. Grinder is rarely shown compassion and love. When Grinder hangs out with me I feel like a little girl who could never do it right. Never good enough, imperfect. Grinder was in the driver's seat for most of my life. Scout came in later. Grinder has come up multiple times as I’ve been writing this…So critical.

“You’re a terrible writer”

“No one is going to read this”

“All your grammar is wrong

Grinder was built on the idea that I had to be perfect in order to be loved.

And Scout was created to protect me from pain of rejection.

Grinder was built to push me.

I was told I was a nothing, a problem, a deficient by my friends, teachers, and I always just knew I stuck out.

So Grinder helped me mask, fit in, work harder, be energetic, say the right things, be the good friend, learn to not interrupt in conversation.

Grinder told me I needed more degrees, that I wasn’t making enough money, and that my job as a yoga teacher was a joke. She told me that I needed to be serious. That creative work like graphic design, writing, photography (all of my interests) were a fools game.

Little Nikki was weak. Grinder was strong.

Grinder wasn’t always bad. She was actually super necessary. She helped me adapt to physical, psychological, and social needs at a specific time in my life.

And what I learned in therapy is that I’ve outgrown her and yet I’m still letting her drive the car.

She use to be there because I needed her. But, now Self is beyond capable.

It’s time for Grinder to take a back seat and let Self drive.

This doesn’t mean she doesn’t come back — both of these parts visit me on the daily — but I now have tools to relabel & speak to them both.

All this is great Nikki but I want to know how to find my own parts!

Ok, so let’s walk through this together.

I’ve done years of personal development work- but nothing stuck. The reason it didn’t stick is because I hadn’t done the true core work of recognizing these limiting parts and relabeling them.

In order to get into contact with your parts you must first lean in and listen to who is speaking in you mind and what are they saying…is it loving? Is it critical?

Listening in taps into your intuition.

And in order to listen to your intuition we must practice mindfulness.

In her book, Untamed, Glenn Doyle shares about her experience of hearing the inner knowing. She began listening in while she sat in her closet for 10 minutes a day to drop in to hearing what she was thinking or feeling.

We are constantly bombarded with outside and external information we often forget to check back in with ourselves. What do WE think?

If you’ve ever tried to meditate you may be able to relate to the itch that shows up just as you’ve gotten comfortable or the zillion thoughts zooming in your head.

It can be hard to sit and listen.

But this is how we discover who is holding us back from living our true Self.

It’s not comfortable but it’s quite awakening.

Peace out limiting beliefs!

Understanding your parts is a big piece of the puzzle.

I’ve learned now that when I start to spiral whether that be into depression or anxiety it’s because I have the wrong part in the driver seat.

Because I now know when Self is driving I feel connected and congruent.

It’s important to remember that these parts of us were designed to be here and came to us at a time we really needed them.

Within the Marie Kondo methodology on keeping yourself tidy she offers 6 rules. The 3rd rule of her method is about discarding and practicing gratitude. Although discarding is not he point it is important part of the process because it gives an opportunities to learn from our experiences and clear away what is no longer desired.

This then provides a pathway to focusing on what we do want to bring attention to. Marie encourages individuals to express gratitude for whatever item they are letting go of and to share what it has taught her.

We can look at labels and parts exactly the same.

Just like any software in a computer or cell phone it needs an upgrade once and awhile to meet the new operating systems that are now present.

This is the same.

We are meant to grow, change, and evolve.

Many of the times we are in a negative head space is because we are 1) letting the external world dictate how we view ourself and 2) we have the wrong part in the main chair… grinder or scout only causes me anxiety and stress.

I’ve met Self just recently and I don’t always put her in the game, sometimes I resort back to my familiar parts and that’s ok it’s all part of the process.

So when you’re in that “off” state ask yourself, Who’s driving right now?

And if it’s not Self - kindly thank them for their hard work and let them know that you’ve got it from here.

Because you do.

You’re more capable than you have ever thought.

Remember that you’ve gone through everything you’ve gone through and look at how it’s manifested in you… a whole, empathetic, kind, embracing human being.

And that my friends is What Nik Knows…about Internal Family Systems Therapy.