Sharing my story to encourage others to learn more about IFS Therapy
This is something I believe in. Therapy and getting help isn’t scary (though it can certainly feel like that!), and that’s why I want to share my story. Honestly, I’m scared to do this, I’ll be opening up my past actions to potential ridicule and judgement, but I please ask to keep an open mind when reading my story: I’m not perfect, but I am trying to do better.
Note: I am not a therapist and lot of this is based on my personal experience and things I’ve learned about IFS. If there is anything that I got wrong or isn’t universal, please let me know!
The Key concepts of IFS
The Self
The capital ‘S’ Self is what we are at our core. All of us share the Self in common, which are defined by the 8 C’s and 5 P’s:
Compassion, Creativity, Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, Calm, Connectedness, Clarity, Presence, Persistence, Perspective, Playfulness, Patience
Your Self is the one that is the most important role in helping your parts heal. Self is difficult to describe as a feeling, but it feels good and freeing to be in Self. It’s unfortunately impossible to be in Self at all times, but during those moments, I feel whole.
Your Parts
Think of these as the emotions in Pixar’s Inside Out. These are described as subpersonalities that have been with us for a long time. Our experiences don’t create them, but they do shape their personalities. Our negative experiences can radicalize them, “taking over” in a sense since they don’t trust the Self to lead.
There are three main types of parts: Exiles hold our onto hurt and trauma, protectors try to protect exiles by trying to avoid any triggers, and Firefighters try to keep the system together after an exile is triggered by an event.
The goal of IFS is to meet with your hurt or radicalized parts and heal that hurt, since the Self is capable of healing your parts.
Your Therapist
Finally, your therapist is your guide on your journey, and can sometimes sub in for your Self if a part doesn’t want to talk to Self or if you’re not feeling up to it.
Your therapist will guide you while you work with your parts. They will help you recognize your parts and recognize if you are in Self. They are also there to help if a hurt part is especially triggering and affects the system. this has happened to me a lot of times, and I’m thankful for my therapist for showing a lot of compassion when that happens.
Here are the links to my posts
Feel free to start wherever you’d like! There may be some posts that are similar/connected, but I do try to keep them more contained.
My IFS Story 