Introductory Lecture On What Is Internal Family Systems

Introduction to Internal Family Systems (IFS): Meet Your Inner Parts
In this gentle introduction to the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, you'll learn how our inner world is made up of many different "parts"—like the inner critic, the people-pleaser, or the avoider—and how each one is trying to help us in its own way. You'll be invited to notice how these parts show up in your daily life, relationships, work, and emotions.

Bring a journal if you'd like to reflect as you listen. This session is an invitation to connect with your inner world through curiosity, not judgment, and to begin discovering the healing presence of your True Self.

Transcript

Welcome.

I wanted to introduce you to the model of internal family systems.

As you'll notice on my page I have a number of exercises that helps you connect with parts of yourself.

You may have heard of internal family systems or you might be new to it.

So through this small lecture exercise I'm going to invite you to maybe take out a journal or a piece of paper or maybe you just want to sit and listen and reflect on these words and just notice what comes up inside of you as I kind of speak a little bit about what IFS is and how it might help you.

At the core of internal family systems is the idea that our mind is made up of multiple parts that we're not just one mind.

And you'll probably notice this a lot in your life that a part of you wants to do something and a part of you wants to do something else.

You know you have parts that want to go out and hang out with your friends on the weekend and you've got other parts that just would rather some downtime.

You know you've got parts that want to accomplish a lot,

Get ahead of things and then you're hit with parts that you know procrastinate and kind of shut down and maybe even freeze.

You know in your relationships you might have parts that really like somebody and then other parts that question maybe their intentions.

You might have parts of you that are kind and compassionate inside and you might have parts that are really critical and quite mean.

You know we have these different parts and you can notice them by kind of looking at your inner voice or your inner dialogue.

These polarizations or inner conflicts are really common and for some reason in our culture there's this idea that we have this like one mind.

Yet if you start to look at your thoughts and how you problem-solve,

The pros and cons,

How you approach life and your relationships,

Your career,

Even yourself,

You'll notice these conflicting kind of feelings inside.

Take a moment even just reflect how that resonates with you.

Noticing the inner polarizations that you might experience.

Maybe there's a critical voice that shows up.

Maybe you have a part that carries a lot of worries.

We have a to-do list part that kind of keeps you on track for the day of what needs to happen.

Maybe you notice a people-pleasing part.

It's really struggles to kind of set boundaries or express what you want or what you need at a fear of other people being disappointed or getting angry.

In IFS we normalize this multitude of parts that exists inside of us and it sees that every part of us has a positive intention and this is really different than a lot of other models that sometimes teach us to get rid of or that we have bad parts.

You know the parts that we want to hide away,

The parts that we're ashamed of.

Maybe you've seen the movie,

The Disney movie,

Inside Out.

Actually I don't know if Disney did it but Inside Out.

There's one and there's two.

This girl,

This young girl,

You get to kind of look at her different parts.

You get her disgust.

You know later on she develops anxiety that starts to run the system.

You know boredom and so noticing how we have this inner system.

Maybe you want to pause the recording here and just notice some of the parts that show up regularly in your life.

As you notice this you might even have parts that are kind of curious.

There might be skeptical parts.

Just notice.

Everybody is welcome in IFS.

We don't see any part as being bad even if there's really negative consequences to how it protects us.

So in IFS the goal isn't to silence control or get rid of parts.

We want to seek to understand.

You want to bring a lot of curiosity.

If you know that every part of you has a positive intention is trying to help you.

Aren't you curious why?

Are you curious why that inner critic is so mean if it actually really cares and loves you?

Are you curious why that procrastination part kind of shuts you down if it's from a place of care and love?

You know what would it be like if instead of we tried to get rid of parts of us we got really curious about them to seek to understand.

See these parts they want to help us survive and they often pick up these different strategies to help us navigate our family and our culture from a really young age.

And when we grow up in families where our caregivers might be run by very young parts that maybe when they were growing up didn't get attuned to properly.

You know in our families there can be different beliefs around vulnerability.

You know seeing that as being weak.

There can be different ideas around emotions.

You know anger isn't welcome here.

You know so it's not about blaming our parents but rather looking at the systems that they had inside of them and then that would impact our development.

And if we can even look larger at like the cultural beliefs or our family's history of what they've lived through and what they've had to survive.

We see these parts may have picked up these little pieces to help us through.

If you ask an inner critic what is your positive intention for me?

It often says I want to motivate you.

You ask what are you afraid would happen if you couldn't motivate me?

Well then you'd fail.

What would be so bad about me failing?

Well then you wouldn't feel worthy or good and you'd be alone.

It doesn't that make sense?

Often if you ask a procrastination part what are you afraid would happen if you didn't do your job if you couldn't procrastinate?

Well then you might do something and you might fail.

Okay well what would be so bad about that?

Well then you would feel not good enough.

So you start to see that these protectors are protecting us from even deeper wounds.

And if you look at it oftentimes protectors accidentally create the very thing that they don't want us to feel.

At one moment in our life it must it would have been really really helpful but as we become adults it can really get in our way of being able to feel confident in life,

Being able to connect to our true self,

Our desires,

Our emotions,

Our needs.

If we grew up in a home where we were made to feel like our emotions were too much or we were punished for having certain feelings and emotions.

And so IFS is about getting really curious about these parts.

You know how old they are,

Learning their histories,

How they learn to protect us the way that they do.

And through this curiosity,

Through this witnessing,

Parts are able to get updated.

A lot of times parts still think that we're really young.

You ask an inner critic how old do you think I am?

Sounds like oh I think you're five or six and you might really be like 30 or 40 or 60.

Parts can stay stuck in time in the past and so you might be moving through the world in the present but your system,

Your beliefs,

Your reactions,

Your behaviors,

Your thoughts,

Your feelings might actually be quite young.

And maybe you've even noticed this,

That when you get triggered,

When something feels really painful you start to feel quite young.

And when we're young and we start to feel like we are being abandoned,

Rejected,

Or we're not good enough,

That is extremely painful and it threatens our survival.

So the emotion feels very overwhelming.

But have you held space for a three-year-old before?

When they're in overwhelm or they're having a tantrum,

It can be scary for them but you're able to hold that space for them.

You're able to see that it will end.

You know that they are still just this beautiful child that's experiencing really big emotions.

But when we're in it,

When we're an adult and we're blended with a part who's feeling overwhelmed by abandonment or not feeling good enough or rejection,

It can feel really scary and so our protectors are still responding to a very young system.

They don't know that you now have the ability to be there for yourself in a way that you never had.

In IFS,

We see that we don't just have parts.

We also have what's called a true self and it's at the center of every human being.

In IFS,

The true self is defined by kind of like the eight Cs,

Which is things like curiosity,

Compassion,

Calmness,

Creativity,

Connection,

Clarity,

Which is also like understanding.

And this is inside of us.

When we are younger,

We have to have our parts to help us navigate.

We are dependent upon other people for our survival.

When we become adults,

We're not.

And so we can find our way back to our own self energy,

Back to our center.

And this energy that's inside of us,

That can heal anything.

And what I love about IFS is it's not just telling you this.

I've read so many books that talk about your true self or living in alignment with your soul or all of these things,

Self-love,

Self-compassion,

But it all seems so intellectual.

How do I get into that place?

How do I live from that space?

And IFS allows us to do this.

It isn't just kind of talk therapy.

It isn't just a talk model.

It actually can embody it.

You can experience healing.

You can experience self-energy.

You can experience self-regulation.

You can sit with these parts who hold pain from the past and you can help them heal it.

For so long,

I thought healing was so complex.

And the more work I do,

The more simple it is,

Which is frustrating to parts because they have worked so hard.

I became a counselor because I needed to heal my own complex trauma.

And I have done therapy for years.

I studied psychology for over 10 years formally,

And I couldn't find anything that talked about healing that got me in that space.

Now,

I do believe healing is always available.

It is an inner resource,

But I needed to find theories and teachers sometimes to help me access it,

Or even just that belief that I could,

That I simply could heal.

It doesn't have to cost a lot of money.

It doesn't have to be really complex.

It is always there.

And I have parts that if you told 10,

Like me 10 years ago,

Would get kind of frustrated at that.

It felt so far away.

And so,

I'm hoping to share a lot of these resources and these tools and these guided exercises on Insight Timer here to help you access that,

To access your self-energy,

To access this inner healing resource,

You know,

To be able to turn towards yourself with curiosity and compassion rather than trying to get rid of or fight parts of you.

I tried a lot of my life to get rid of a numbing part that showed up when I was quite young that helped me feel held,

That it almost like hugged all of my parts.

I'll experience pretty,

Some extreme trauma.

And throughout my life,

Then I couldn't really get out of that kind of state.

I wanted to be able to feel all of life's emotions,

But I felt rather stuck in just feeling good.

I couldn't feel joy or excitement,

And I couldn't feel sadness or grief.

I just stayed good,

Which is,

You know,

I am grateful for that.

But I tried to get rid of it through a lot of my life,

And it wasn't until I found IFS that I got really curious about why that part was working so hard to keep me just in this good place,

Why it saw all other emotions and experiences as so dangerous.

And when I started getting curious with that part and listening to it,

I developed so much gratitude and appreciation for how hard it had worked,

How I would have not gotten to where I was in my life if it had not.

It really showed up like an inner parent for me.

And our relationship has changed.

I now can feel a lot more excitement and joy in my life.

But it wasn't against this part.

It was with it.

It was in partnership.

It was in respect and honor and this reconnection that this part was able to relax and actually get back in touch with its inner gifts as well.

So our parts,

The anxiety,

The depression,

The freeze,

The people-pleasing,

The fawn,

That isn't who those parts actually are.

They are in a burden state.

They picked up survival strategies to keep you safe and help you move through your life.

But as you get curious about your inner system,

About your protectors and the younger ones that carry the burdens of feeling unworthy or not good enough or alone,

They get to transform.

As they feel witnessed and understood,

They are able to naturally start to unburden,

To let go of the things they needed to carry.

Because the truth is you are never alone.

We have a whole system inside of us.

These parts that work so hard to keep us alive,

To survive,

That's all from a place of love.

And then we're always surrounded by our ancestors and our guides and then the other people in the world.

But we are never,

Ever alone.

That is a feeling and that is a belief that our parts hold.

Same with feeling unworthy or unlovable.

It's just not true.

Every human being is worthy of love,

Is good enough,

Is good.

Even if you've done really bad things,

It cannot take away your goodness at your core.

You know,

There's no feeling or emotion that you can feel or experience that will never mean anything about you.

Nothing bad about your worth,

Your core.

You can feel anything in the whole world and it'll never mean anything bad about you.

Feelings have no moral meaning.

When we grow up,

We accidentally start to feel like I'm bad.

We get criticized.

Our culture uses a lot of shame to motivate and we feel bad and then we think I must be bad.

You know,

And so we associate feelings with meaning.

And all of this is a big misunderstanding.

When we're younger though,

We can't see the bigger perspective.

And so with IFS,

We're going back,

Not to try to fix or change,

But to witness and to honor so that things can be healed and released and we can come back to ourselves so that we can get back our gifts and our innate qualities.

This is what IFS offers.

It is a path to deep self-understanding and compassion.

And it's something that you can start right away.

You can start to get curious about yourself.

You can start to notice different parts that you have,

Your thoughts,

Behaviors,

Emotions.

You can start getting curious with them and then you can start to dialogue with them.

These parts will talk back to you.

Instead of just staying in this intellectual understanding space,

You want to go right to the core.

You want to go talk to your anxiety.

You want to go talk to your depression.

You want to ask it,

What's your positive intention for me?

What are you afraid would happen if you couldn't do your job?

Now,

I know I've just shared a lot of information about IFS with you,

But I'm hoping that's making it a little bit more clear.

And I'm hoping that this kind of lecture on what IFS is will help you through the other guided exercises available on my page.

If you have any questions or you would like any particular guided exercises on here,

Please feel free to leave that in the reviews.

I'd love to know just what came up for you as you listened to this.

And maybe you just want to sit down for a moment now with your journal and just notice what's coming up inside right now.

Maybe even asking the question,

Are there any parts of me that would like to be seen by me,

That would like to be heard by me?

Maybe just noticing the parts that really run your day to day.

What are the common themes and beliefs?

Do you feel energized?

Are you struggling with burnout parts?

How much excitement and joy?

Just starting to notice there is a whole inner world inside of you,

Just waiting for you,

Just loving you.

Thanks for listening.

I hope you enjoy IFS.

Reviews

Very similar to schematherapy but with a more gentle approach? Liked the explanation, thank you for that😊