Parts Work: Integration Of The Fragmented Mind

Multiplicity of mind is real. We are made of many parts. At times there are parts that splinter away from our highest Self that cause self sabotaging behaviors. Addictions, co dependency, toxic environments, and trauma bonds. How can we come back into wholeness and find internal health?

Transcript

Alright, So as we begin this talk and this meditation, The subject here that I'll be speaking to is the highly fragmented mind and how we heal fragmented parts of ourselves and come into deeper integration. And this isn't something that is going to be deeply embedded into our psychological systems and into our nervous system after only 30 minutes. But the desire here for you is to at least, You know, Create a curiosity of depth and a curiosity of self leadership, The higher self leadership within yourself. And that this talk in this space that we hold here together, Be something that enlivens you and inspires you into deeper relationship with all parts of yourself. And something that is spoken to here is internal family systems. And if you've never worked with internal family systems, This therapy has been life changing for me. It's been very monumental in my own healing. Internal family systems, Which was a system created by Richard Schwartz is a system of not seeing the human being as one, But seeing a multiplicity of the mind, Meaning that psychologically, We are not just one person. I'm not just echo, But there are so many different parts of echo and my name goes very well with this, But there are echoes of echo. And there inside of me lives my inner child and the inner adolescent and the inner young woman and the inner father and the inner mother. And they all are there together. And what can happen in the fragmentation of the mind is when we suppress or repress certain parts because we favor others. And if you think of internal family systems as a family, This means that if there are parts of ourselves that have been called shadow or have been called the inner child, If these parts or the exile, If these parts are pushed away so that the inner parts of us to protect and manage are leading us in our daily lives, Then at some point, Those repressed parts will come forward. They will surface. And so the desire here is that we give space to each of the family members and show them there's importance in their experiences. There's respect for what they've been through and what they're going through and that there is love there for them and acceptance. So what I want to speak to is that are some common patterns that can happen in a highly fragmented individual. And I speak a lot to this in my own experience because I have worked very hard to come into more wholeness with my own internal family. Because at some point, I was a highly fragmented individual. And it's not something that's presently taking me, But it is something that disrupted my life for a very long time and really wrecked my nervous system, Caused a lot of problems for my nervous system. So as you listen to this talk, I encourage you, If anything gets triggered for you, If anything comes up, Any anger, Any frustration that you speak to that, That you can write that in as well. And that after this, You take time to integrate what's come up for you to speak to somebody, To have a support system, To hold yourself if you need to, And to love the parts of you that do get triggered by this conversation. Because when we're talking about fragmentation, And if you had a draw towards this talk, More than likely you have felt it or you are feeling it right now. And it's very challenging to feel inconsistent. When I speak to fragmentation, This is, In essence, Being highly inconsistent in our daily lives. Meaning, Maybe I show up one day and I'm super joyful, And I'm playful, And I'm innocent, And this is very appealing and attractive to my community and my friends and my family. And in other days, I might be very embodied in my anger. I might be very embodied in my depression and in my grief. And these parts in my external system might be pushed away. People might not find these so appealing. They might find it really difficult to be in relationship to me when these emotions, These states of being are in place. And when that happens, And I'm not receiving love and acceptance when I'm in my anger, When I'm in my grief, Or when I'm in my pain, Then inside, I'm going to reflect that. There is a part in my mind that will say, It's not safe to be sad. It's not safe to be angry. It's not safe to be in my grief. So what I see is the joy is accepted and gets me love and allows me to be seen. I need to be more of that. And so we begin to, Over years, Suppress and suppress these parts of ourselves that aren't externally welcomed in and very much our our internal systems mimic our external systems. Meaning, In your family of origin, Whoever you grew up with, Your mom and dad, Your siblings, Those that were closest to you, If there were certain patterns in your relationships with your mother and with your father, The parts of you that were celebrated and the parts of you that were kind of pushed down, More than likely you've created survival strategies around that because you learn from a very young age that this is what's accepted of me and this is what's unacceptable. So this is who I'm going to curate myself to be. This is the picture that I'm going to paint for the external world. And this is dangerous. Because what happens, You know, No matter what, And something that I think is so beautiful that Dick Schwartz says in many of his writings is, Inside each of us is the higher self. Is that connection to source, The Godhead truth, Whatever you want to call it. And it cannot be occluded by anything. So no matter how much we hide and whatever masks we put on, The higher self exists there. There is, And it's good. It's pure. It's truth. And so when people say, Well, That person's a bad person, That person is evil. You know, They do these things. The reality is what I believe, There is no evil person. There are people that make bad choices and do things that are really painful. But behind that exterior, It's like an eclipse of the sun. The sun is the self. It is there no matter what. And sometimes our darkness, You know, The moon comes in front of the sun and we're not able to see the sun anymore. We're so wrapped in our darkness and we lose the light of day. But the reality is, Is that the sun is always there. It's not destroyed by the shadow. So our ability to touch self, Our true self, The capital self is always available. And it's right behind the shadow. You know, It's right behind the shadow. And so my desire for myself, And for those of you that are listening in, Is that no matter how deep you are in to your fragmentation, Into states of being that have turned into behaviors, That you understand at your core, You are nothing but good. You are nothing but self. You are nothing but truth. You are the Godhead. And so no matter how far you veered off the path, There is a way for you to get back. And this is important for you to understand. I'm also going to just let you know my computer might run out of battery soon. So I'm going to charge it and put it into the wall. So we'll have to change locations. But this analogy is really important for us to understand. Because many times we get very lost in this idea that we are bad people. You know, When we make choices that are painful for ourselves and others, We paint ourselves to be bad. We tell ourselves that we're no longer good. And in order to heal the fragmentation of the mind, We need to understand that there is always this truth in this ability to come back to self-leadership. And at the end of this talk, When we do our meditation, This is the desire. This is what we will sit with is connecting with that self. So something else that I want to speak to in patterns with fragmentation is just like a true family. If you have brothers and sisters, Mother and father, And you're coming together for the holidays, Just the way that you speak to yourself internally, If there is a member of the family, Say you are the black sheep of the family, Or your sister is the black sheep of the family. If day after day, Month after month, Year after year, That black sheep of the family is constantly criticized for their choices, Constantly shown that they're not enough, That they're not accepted, That they're not seen, That part will almost dissociate with the family. So meaning that member of your family will want to leave the ecosystem of the family because it's not healthy for them anymore. They're not being supported in that space. So what happens internally when we do this, Say it's the inner child, Say it's in internal family systems, What they speak to as exiles, When they are so highly repressed and unseen, We have these parts in ourselves called firefighters, As we say in internal family systems, Which wreak havoc on the system. And this is when we get into addictions, This is when we get into toxic trauma bonds, This is when we mirror in our external world the toxicity that we feel in our internal world. And so we can distract ourselves, We can become very busy, We can dive into our work, We can become very successful in the external world so that we don't have to look at that suppression, And we don't have to sit and connect with that exile. But at some point, There's a time when we can be able to connect with that exile, But at some point those firefighters, Those parts in us that want to wreak havoc will really yell to be heard. And I'm sure many of you have felt this. I'm sure many of you have those parts of yourselves that are screaming to be loved, To be heard, To be accepted. And what I want you to know is that, And what I want myself to know, Is that it doesn't matter on the outside who's accepting you, You know, It doesn't matter. And I know it feels like it does, It feels like I want my mother to love me, I want my father to accept me, I want my sister to get this, You know, I want my partner to get this. But until you accept yourself internally, Until you cradle the inner child, Until you get curious about your anger and your grief, Until you let yourself feel fully that grief, These internal states that you feel, They will become behaviors. And this is the danger. It's okay to feel angry, It's okay to feel grief, It's okay to feel sadness, And it's okay to feel rupture and ecstasy and all of these things. But if over and over and over, You identify with this internal state, As if it were a part of you, Like, I am an angry person, I am a sad person, I am grieving constantly, I am this or that, Then this is what you basically bring into a behavior. And that behavior becomes a big part of how you're reflected into the external world. So the reason that I want to speak to this is because states of being aren't dangerous until they become behaviors. When they become behaviors, The behaviors become habits, The habits become moods, The moods become attitudes, And the attitudes become personality. And so what we need to do with fragmentation is to sit with our anger, Because behind the anger is a need. So when we're in fragmentation, We're like, I don't like this part, I don't like this angry part or this sad part or this part. But if we can sit with that anger, And we could say, Okay, Where do I feel anger in my body? Anger lives for me in my throat, In my in my heart. Okay, Why? Why does that live here? For me, Specifically, I feel that anger in my throat and in my heart, Because there are serious wounds around abandonment, Around being left around not being chosen. Okay, So I'm angry because I felt left, I feel I felt abandoned. What's the need underneath that? Okay, When I investigate deeper, The need behind that is my need to feel connected to my external world, My need to feel seen, My need to feel accepted and loved. Huh? Wow. So this anger is actually really beautiful. It's a tender part of me. It's a very young part of me that didn't feel seen and didn't feel loved and didn't feel connected. Wow. I can have empathy for that part. And then I could sit with it. And I can be in that anger, You know, Maybe my body gets rigid, And there might be a dissociation, I'm having this somatic expression to it. But in that moment, I know, Because I traced it back to my younger child, That I just need to be held, I need to be held in that moment. And I'm giving you a personal experience and whatever your state of being that you're sitting with that fragments you from being to be in your wholeness, It's your mission. It's your initiation to sit with that state of being before it becomes a behavior. Look for its root cause, Find the need there, Associate that need with a strategy to come back into fullness with it and heal yourself. So for me, When that anger comes up, And that little girl is feeling abandoned, And she's feeling left, I take my stuffed animal, I have a little stuffed giraffe, And I put my third eye to my giraffe's third eye. And I speak to it. And I'm just like, I need support right now. I need, I need you to help me co-regulate. I know you don't have a nervous system. But in this moment, In this moment, I'm going to project one on two. And I just need to be held and supported. And as silly as it may sound, It is so healing for me, Because I've developed a way to deal with that state of being that exists within me, Which is my anger, Which stems from that fear of abandonment, And which I've, You know, Identified the root cause. And I get to that need of feeling connected and seen. And I find a way to work with it through holding myself or doing affirmations or speaking to that little giraffe. And so for you, It's beautiful to really be on this journey and to see the multiplicity of your experience. And know that you are not just a joyful being that you are not just a grieving being or an angry being that you have so much sentience to experience. And it could take you on a journey every day when you wake up with a different state of being and you go, Huh, Interesting. What is this state of being about? And how do I identify it? And I will answer questions just in a few minutes and lead us into a meditation. But I just want to say maybe one or two more things about this before I get tensioned to you, Which can happen very often for me. It's important for us each to know in our journey and for you to know in your journey that you are not broken. You can have gone through the most traumatizing experiences in your life. You could have gone through the most gut wrenching and heartbreaking experiences. I'm sure many of you are going through them right now. And still the truth, The higher self of you inside cannot be touched by any of that, No matter how dark it is or how deep it is. Maybe the eclipse over your sun in that moment is so dark and it lasts for quite a long time, But the sun is always shining behind it. It exists there with radiance and with warmth and with truth. And it's just going to take a bit of research and a bit of being with yourself and spaciousness to find out how you move that darkness aside. You don't destroy it. You don't get rid of your inner shadow. You love it and you learn to dance with it. So all of these teachings that we hear about destroying the shadow and coming into the light, I want you to know that there is a divinity in the darkness. You know, We speak a lot about love and light and the divinity of light, But in reality, All of us know that it's in the darkest chapters of our life that we find depth and a profundity that gives us wisdom and it gives us embodiment going through those things. It's the trials and tribulations and our ability to surpass them that take us into a wealth of understanding what we're doing here and why we're even on this journey. So that being said, I will look at a few of these questions and lead us into a short meditation. I know there are exiled parts, But I have difficulty finding them. Yes, This is a beautiful reflection. So exiled parts that you have that you're unable to identify where they're located. I really encourage you to find an internal family systems therapist or read some of the books by Dick Schwartz, Which have his audio books actually have some led meditations where you can go through these as well. But an actual therapist is going to be really helpful in this instance. Sometimes we're not able to find the exiled parts of us because there has been so much trauma and so much darkness that to go to that exiled part would bring up too much emotion. And what happens when we speak in internal family systems is that these parts of ourselves that are protectors and managers, They will actually hide our exiled parts from us because they don't trust that we could even handle being in relationship to them. So it's important that we don't run to our shadow and run to our inner children and to our exiles until we have a capacity to actually hold space for them. Meaning that we actually talk to those protective parts. And when I speak about protective parts, This a lot of times looks like and the firefighters, It looks like addictions. It looks like being really busy. It looks like distraction. It looks like getting super involved in constantly dating and being surrounded by people all the time so that we don't have to be alone. And so maybe the first step is spaciousness and taking time to sit with yourself and looking at those parts of yourself that protect what are your strategies for life? You know, What things trigger you in your daily life? What can bring up energy for you? And how do you sometimes suppress that with your protectors and managers? And why are you protecting those parts? And when you could sit down and sit with your protectors and say, Huh, Why do I work so hard? Why do I not go home to see my family for the holidays? Why do I not enter relationships? Why do I keep my friends at a certain distance? Why do I do this? When you ask those protectors why they are doing the things that they are doing, You will get closer and closer to the exiled parts. But it's important that you understand that this is not a rush. It's a marathon. You know, When we're working with traumatized parts that are highly fragmented, It's really important that we don't run to get to the deepest of our darkness, But we take our time. We really take our time to speak to our protectors and say, Ah, Why do you do that behavior? What is that habit that you've created? How can I support you? How can I, How can I truly see you and your efforts? You're trying to protect me. Wow, It might be a bit of a self sabotaging state that's become a behavior that's become part of my identity. But I see that you're working for me. You don't want me to be hurt by that exiled part. So how can I support you so that instead of protecting me, You could do something else in my life. I don't want to get rid of you. But maybe I give you a different role. Aren't you exhausted from constantly protecting me? What energy can we realive in you with that supports us in a different way so that you're not having to protect me or firefight all the time? Because because believe me, Those parts in you that are protecting and that are firefighting and managing, They're tired. They're exhausted. You know, They're exhausted with those states of beings that have become behaviors that aren't allowing you to be in your whole fullness. But also, It's like workers that have been at their job for 30 years, They don't want to give up that job. There's a safety to it, There's a knowing. And when you come in, And you try to take them out of that role of protecting you, Or being the firefighter, It's scary for them. They want to they want to keep their position, They don't want to be thrown out of the system. So a big part of this fragmentation is that we let all parts know, You are welcome here. And I accept you and I see you. But I want to use the energy that you're using within our system to do something towards our wholeness more than fragmentation. How do we all work together? So that being said, It's a lot. And feel free again, To write in any questions that you have. And I want to lead us through a short meditation, Just a little space to sit. And after that, I will answer some more questions. And, And then I'll see you again in the future. But that being said, Let's just take a moment to shut the eyes down. And you might want to shake the body out. This is a lot of information. So I encourage you to, To just breathe deeply through the nostrils, Finding that ocean-like sound, Shutting the eyes down, Relaxing the shoulders. And soften it in your body here. Really relax the shoulders, Relax the muscles that surround the eyes, Surround the mouth. And I want you to just check in today with your state of being. What are you feeling today? Maybe it's just joy. Maybe today you are content, You are calm, You are relaxed. Maybe there's some anger coming up, Maybe some grief, Maybe a loneliness or tiredness. And this isn't something to fear to sit with. I want you to allow yourself to feel what you feel. And I want you to run through the body here somatically. So meaning feeling into your body. Where does this state of being exist in your body, Whatever you're feeling today? If it's joy, If it's anger, If it's grief, If it's sadness, Where does it live? Is it in your chest? Is it in your hips? Is it in your throat? Is it in your jaw? Sometimes lots of tension lives in the jaw. Is it in your shoulders or maybe even in your hands or feet? Is it in your chest? Is it in your chest? Is it in your chest? Is it in your throat? Is it in your throat? Is it in your throat? Is it in your throat? Is it in your throat? Is it in your throat? I want you to send your exhalation there. So deep inhalations and exhalations through the nostrils. And as you exhale visualize white light or just soothing energy traveling to that part of the body and grounding. So just allowing yourself to feel really calm and grounded even if that energy is angry. It's big and chaotic. Each exhale just allowing it to arrive to be here. Allowing yourself to be with it. This allowing it to overwhelm you. And as you sit with that emotion encourage you to think about and feel really what's at the root of this feeling. So maybe you feel angry today, Sad or joyful. But maybe it's not about what's happening right now in this moment or today. Maybe it's about something deeper. Maybe through the mind flashes all the instances where you felt this feeling throughout your life. All the various times that you felt this in your body. And what need do you think exists beneath this? Do you feel angry or grief or sadness? What's the need beneath that? Have a tenderness, A softness. Allow that need to come through. Maybe something pops up into the mind as a way for you to support that need for yourself. Whether it's connection, To be seen, To be held, To be loved, To be recognized. What can you do today? What choices can you make in order to keep this state of being from becoming a behavior and an attitude and a personality? Especially these challenging states of being? How can you be with it? How can you recognize its root? How can you give to your needs, Fully accept and welcome this part? Provide it with understanding. Take a deep breath in, Deep sigh out. Take a deep breath in, Deep sigh out. And know that each day if you do a meditation of this sorts on your own, Just identifying your state of being, Welcoming it in. Maybe for days, Maybe for weeks, Maybe for months, You have to sit with the same challenging state of being. But recognize in your life if as you accept that state of being and you breathe into it and you give it acceptance and you find strategies to balance it, To welcome it in, You may begin to softly notice that the state of being becomes softer and softer and softer and that your capacity to hold space for it becomes more patient, More loving, More welcoming. And as you do that, You might also find in your external world that you find more space for those challenging parts of the people that you connect with each day. That you don't take it personally so much when anger is directed towards you or grief or sadness, For you understand that we are multiple. And that when someone projects this energy outside of themselves, It's a reflection of their own internal state of being and it has nothing to do with you. Wherever you've identified this state of being to be in the body, Place a hand there and the other hand somewhere else on your body that might feel tender and loving. I have one hand on my heart, One hand on my belly. Stick it in your body. Hands to heart, Bowing head to heart. Ahhhhhh. Hands to heart, Bowing head to heart. All the parts of me that sometimes get confused and lose their way and forget their truth, Their connection to the higher self. They honor the parts of you that also forget their true nature, The Godhead, Pure, Vast nature, That solar energy that is always burning bright and radiant. They honor you on your journey from fragmentation into more wholeness and invite you to stay patient for it is a long journey. It can be arduous, But it is so very important. And with that invitation is a beautiful unfolding of a path of depth and a deeper understanding of self and other. Namaste, May Transmission.

Reviews

Thank you 🙏
great steps to know the self. Deeper. ♥️

Everytime. I learn and apply something new that I want to dive into! Thank you.

I’m new to IFS but this is exactly what I needed right now. The teacher’s voice is so soft and calming and she speaks quickly enough to not get bored but not too quickly that you’ll miss something. She gives a very thorough explanation of the Internal Family System and even ends the class with a guided mediation that’s very easy and calming. I’m so glad I found this app!! Thank you all so much!
Namaste 🫶🏼

Everyone of these is so insightful, I have to have my notebook and listen more than once. Definitely listening to it again today. Some points that resonated with me: The importance of taking time and not rushing through self-discovery, we have to listen and respect our parts and Self, showing each part patience and care.

Echo also spoke about the concept of reassigning roles to our protectors—those internal parts that have shielded us from emotional pain. This idea resonated deeply with me, as I realized my protectors were exhausted and in need of reassignment. The talk emphasized understanding these protectors, acknowledging their past roles, and finding new, healthier ways for them to coexist within our family system. I have some work to do there.

The whole talk was electric, and caused me to feel a lot of sensations in my body like tingling and pulsing waves of sensations. It was in another talk of Echo's where she said that the human experience is magical, and I'm stating to see that.

One of the most powerful aspects of the talk was the emphasis on meditation and speaking to our internal parts. Echo suggested that through meditation, these parts would soften and feel heard. I've experienced this firsthand; during moments of near panic attacks, I've been able to self-soothe by acknowledging and talking to those parts of myself. This practice of mindful listening and compassionate dialogue has been transformative, helping me to calm my anxiety and foster a deeper sense of inner peace.

Overall, this meditation talk has provided valuable insights into self-exploration and the importance of patience, compassion, and understanding in our journey toward personal growth.

Thank you for this deep and beautiful understanding.