From Self-Sabotage to Self-Compassion
Parts Work #2: Harmonize Your Inner Monkeys 🐒 with Internal Family Systems (IFS)
When you say, “A part of me wants…” I smile. Working with inner Parts (what I lovingly call my Monkeys) helps me show up for what really matters. If people-pleasing, perfectionism, or procrastination block your heart’s desire (e.g. to write, share, or connect more deeply) Internal Family Systems offers a solid pathway to healing. Subscribe for more posts on how Parts Work can benefit your creative life.
What if we’re all actually ‘we/they?’
What if everybody’s got multiple parts (including gender expressions), and it’s natural and normal? One part of you gets excited about that new thing, while another is anxious and leery of the whole adventure. One part wants to eat healthy, but another snarfs an entire box of cookies. What if you met your divergent selves with loving kindness and understanding, rather than beating yourself up?
You’ve heard of the inner critic and the inner child. But there’s more! Every major school of psychology recognizes different sub-personalities. Carl Jung noted that our complexes “behave like an animated foreign body in the sphere of consciousness.”1
Richard C. Schwarz’ Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a brilliant, evidence-based model to identify and heal these parts through connecting with the Core Self (what I call the Soul).
“ALL OF US ARE BORN WITH MANY SUB-MINDS—OR PARTS… individuals who exist as an internal family within us — and the key to health and happiness is to honor, understand, and love every part.”
—Richard C. Schwarz2
How Internal Family Systems Works
In IFS, everybody’s got parts, and they are naturally good - until trauma or toxicity freezes them into roles that aren’t so great. The IFS therapeutic paradigm invites our parts to speak and share their burdens and experiences. At the same time, we deepen our connection to Self, the soothing, unconditionally loving presence inside each of us. The Self can ask, “What’s up with this feeling?” (see an IFS-style inner conversation in this post, “Moving with Monkeys.”) With understanding comes compassion.
You can do this process with an IFS-trained therapist, or coach, or potentially on your own, as I did. Many practitioners expand on the IFS model. There’s even an app for that (I’ve not tried it yet.)
The goal of IFS is to liberate parts from roles they have been forced into, freeing them to be who they were designed to be. To restore faith in the Self, so it can lead us. And to re-harmonize the inner system.
Three clusters of inner parts that mess with your Mind
In IFS, all our parts, even annoying ones, exist to protect us in different ways:
Managers: Protective parts that keep us organized and safe, running our day-to-day lives. They can be perfectionists and inflict harm in their pursuit of safety.
Exiles: Exiles are injured parts that typically experienced trauma. Exiled by Managers, they can become extreme in expressing their withheld emotions.
Firefighters: a form of protector who “put out the emotional fire at any cost,” including unhelpful behaviors such as alcohol, drug abuse, and eating disorders.
Just like in a family, these Protectors often get into conflict over style. Do we buck up and get busy? Crumble into emotion? Or distract ourselves with a plethora of numbing options? Until these protectors are seen and heard, it feels like an endless game of hot potato, recycling emotional energy leftover from painful experiences.
How IFS Supports Creative Healing
Hallelujah! Validation! I worked with my inner parts for years before discovering Internal Family Systems (see “How I Met My Monkeys”). Still, I worried how people would respond to my ‘weird’ notion of separate inner identities. Did I have Multiple Personalities (rebranded as Dissociative Identity Disorder)? IFS’ basis in research endorsed my intuitive knowing. I’m NOT alone with my parts, and neither are you.
The IFS model gave me the courage to deepen my practice and share Parts Work with others. Because my sister’s therapist uses IFS, we could use the shared language of our reactive inner parts to explore our conflicts. This heart-opening bond has been very healing for our relationship.
As we form relationships with our Parts, we uncover the creative gifts they carry. Many child parts are natural Makers, who want to write, dance, sing, make art - to realize our creative visions. Sadly, our Manager parts work hard to protect us from the risks of sharing our truth and our hearts. With IFS practices, you can free your creator parts from the domineering Managers that insist on being productive, the sad, abandoned Exiles who use big emotions to get your attention, or the Distractor Monkeys that tempt you away from your Hearts’ desire.
If Knowledge is Power, Self-knowledge is Rocket Fuel.
To understand and recognize your inner Monkeys, or mini-personalities, is truly game-changing. You can be less reactive in relationships. You can follow the whispers of your mature, core Self, who can guide your daily life with less Monkey business, or self-sabotage. You can experience more joy and less fear as you tackle your creative projects!
To explore your inner parts with IFS, check out these free worksheets. A trained IFS therapist (search the IFS member directory) will guide you through the process and hold space for you to uncover and accept your parts with compassion. IFS publishes several resources and videos here. I highly recommend Schwarz’ book, “No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model.”
Tell me: does the idea of harmonizing your inner Parts resonate? Do you want to explore IFS? Next week, we unpack the power of archetypes with Carl Jung, Carolyn Myss, and The Seven Dwarfs. Thanks for clicking that heart and commenting. Please share this post with friends whose Monkey parts make things extra hard. Bless your hearts and all your parts!
Carl Jung’s Collected Works. Quoted by Stephen Johnson, Big Think Sept 8, 2023
Schwartz, Richard C. No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. Sounds True, 2021.
Information provided in Heart, Soul, & Monkeys is for informational purposes only and is not intended to substitute for professional mental health counseling.