How Our Inner Parts Shape and Shield Us

When we are born, our parts are in their natural state. In most cases, they are not burdened. They can express the full nature of who they are: playful, curious, calm, free, loving, to name a few.

However, as children, when our needs for attention, affection, acceptance, and nurturance go unmet, are made fun of, or are denied, our natural ways of being become exiled. We learn that it isn’t safe to be fully who we are. We learn that parts of us are unlovable, not good enough, shameful, and should be hidden.

Parts take on roles to protect us from feeling these strong feelings of worthlessness. They do this in one of two ways: They keep us from experiencing the strong feelings by controlling everything they can, keeping us too busy, focused on other things, or distracted to feel our unmet needs. Or, when something in our life triggers our feelings of not-good-enough or shame, parts swoop in to douse the severity of these feelings with intense distractions to take the attention off the emotional pain.

We call both these types of parts “protectors.” Some protectors protect in a proactive way to keep us feeling secure and from feeling pain and vulnerability. These are called managers because their role is to manage our lives so as to protect us from pain. These parts make a vow to work relentlessly so we never experience the hurt we felt before they took on the job of protecting us.

Parts may have learned to protect by being high-achieving, depressed, or perfect. The high-achieving part may believe that the only way to have value is to out-achieve everyone else, and if the person receives praise for the strategies of this part, the part’s beliefs and behaviors are rewarded. A part that is depressed may remain in a state of hopelessness to protect the system from feeling something worse, like shame. A part that is a perfectionist may believe that if it does everything perfectly, we will always feel good enough and we won’t have to experience the pain connected to feelings of worthlessness. These parts use these strategies as an attempt to protect us by managing and controlling the external environment, people, and situations to ensure that the wounded parts of us are not hurt again.

We call parts that protect in a reactive manner by extinguishing the pain once we are already experiencing it “firefighters.” When vulnerability is expressed, a firefighter part may employ reactive and destructive behaviors to take us away from feeling exposed. In the part’s mind, it is more desirable to be mentally whisked away from a situation than to risk emotional exposure or harm. Although this sounds counterintuitive, these parts remind us that if the pain becomes unbearable, we have a way out.

IFS CONCEPT 2: GO INSIDE (FIND, FOCUS, FEEL TOWARD)

The overall goal of IFS therapy is to release parts from the roles they were forced into to protect us. We accomplish this by first noticing their presence. To notice them, we need to move our attention from the external world to our internal one. We can do this by quietly closing our eyes, softening our gaze, or looking downward. Upon entering our internal world, we pause to notice who is present. Parts may present themselves as sensations, emotions, images, words, thoughts, memories, an inner voice, physical symptoms, or a felt sense. Once we turn our awareness inside, we may notice a sensation like tingling in the stomach. We want to pause and focus on that sensation. As we focus, we want to see what else is present. Often when we bring our attention to a part, it may expand, express other sides of itself, or remain the same. We might even experience another part expressing itself too. Whatever comes up is okay. We are simply noticing and focusing. Next, we want to ask, “How do I feel toward what I’m noticing?” We may feel uneasy, scared, calm, curious—a number of different feelings can surface.

IFS CONCEPT 3: FIREFIGHTERS INTENT VS. IMPACT

One of the reasons for coming into a relationship with your parts is to understand their positive intentions, not just their impact. Remember one of the assumptions of IFS is that all parts are well-intentioned, regardless of how they express themselves.

The intention of our firefighters is to protect us from pain and vulnerability. They are highly reactive to the experience or near experience of feelings that they view as harmful to us. They employ behaviors that are unacceptable in society and to parts within our internal systems. Firefighters get the message that what they do (rage, self-harm, use drugs, gamble, cheat on their partner, etc.) is objectionable. Managers within the system try to control and shut down their behavior, and people and systems in society attempt to shut them down too. However, they cannot cease their behavior until what they protect is healed.