Guided Parts Work Exercise: Getting to Know All Parts Of You

A foundational element of many therapeutic modalities, including Gestalt Therapy, Shadow Work, and Internal Family Systems is the understanding of the multiplicity of the mind. Each of us has many different parts or sub-personalities in our minds and psyches. Working with these parts is incredibly helpful for understanding trauma, letting go of negative emotions, and cultivating self-leadership.

This session explains how Parts Work works and includes a guided exercise to get to know your parts.

Transcript

Hello,

Today I'd like to talk to you about parts work,

A foundational element of various therapeutic modalities that I have personally found helpful including gestalt therapy,

Young year shadow work,

NLP parts integration and internal family systems.

It's incredibly helpful for understanding trauma,

Letting go of negative emotions and cultivating self-leadership.

So parts work is a therapeutic lens that assumes that each of us has many different parts of our minds and psyches.

Each of these parts or sub-personalities has unique needs,

Wants and beliefs and may be consciously or unconsciously helping or harming us as we move through our days encountering different situations,

Triggers and scenarios.

Richard Schwartz in the 1980s discovered in his practice as a family therapist that these parts have relationships and complex interactions with each other.

So have you ever felt like a part of you wanted to go to the gym and work out and another part of you wanted to stay on the couch and be comfy?

Or you noticed a part of you that procrastinated getting something done and then another part of you got angry at that part for not being productive enough?

So sometimes it feels like having a little angel and a devil on each shoulder bickering.

These internal dialogues between parts of ourselves are quite common and can run really deep.

Shehzad Chaman's positive intelligence or PQ framework calls them saboteurs because these parts of us often sabotage what would be the best course of action for us.

Like me,

You might have a saboteur part that is a stickler,

Always insisting that everything has to be done perfectly or it won't be good enough.

Or you might have a part that acts like a victim,

Feeling hard done by by everyone.

Or a part that is hypervigilant,

Always seeing danger everywhere.

Jungian shadow work encourages us to confront and integrate these unconscious aspects of our personality,

Also known as the shadow.

These are parts that are often repressed or denied but when recognized and integrated can be transformative.

And this overlaps with the objectives of parts work in IFS.

Both approaches seek to bring harmony and unity to our inner world by acknowledging and embracing all facets of ourselves.

As the title of the book suggests,

Internal Family Systems believes that there are no bad parts.

They all have a role to play and accepting these less desirable parts of ourselves,

Extending compassion to them and seeking to understand what they need,

Why they are here,

Whether they are happy with their role or what they would rather do for us,

Has been really transformative for me personally.

So let's talk about this a little bit.

IFS categorizes these parts into exiles,

Managers and firefighters.

Exiles are the vulnerable parts that carry the burdens of trauma and painful emotions from past experiences.

So often they feel isolated and secluded as they hold on to these distressing memories.

From a neuroscience perspective,

They are neurological firing patterns or thinking habits that we have learned through painful experiences in the past,

Often in childhood.

And that manager parts are also thinking habits that show up as parts working proactively to maintain control and protect us from all the painful experiences and emotions that the exiles harbor.

So they try to keep vulnerability at bay,

Often by influencing personality traits like being overly critical,

Perfectionistic or people-pleasing.

And in moments where the manager parts fail to suppress the exiles,

Firefighters jump in to distract the numbers.

Sometimes that shows up as engaging in impulsive actions or addictive behaviors to avoid the pain that is threatening to come to the surface.

Now how do we work with these parts?

The first step is awareness.

Being aware of the different voices that are going on when we're triggered is important.

We want to acknowledge them and become curious about them without threatening them.

Getting to know these parts is important,

So let's engage in a friendly dialogue and get really curious about who they are,

What their job is,

What they think would happen if they didn't do this job,

And how old they think you are.

It helps to write them down and draw a map of the connections,

Beliefs and goals that these parts have.

And then the next step is to update them on our adult self.

All the psychotherapeutic approaches I've mentioned earlier have this in common.

Underneath all the parts of us,

There is a pure essence of our self.

In positive intelligence or PQ this is described as a specific part of the brain called the sage,

A wise part of us.

Other approaches call it the wise mind,

The adult self,

Buddhism calls this part no-self,

And in IFS it's called the big S self.

From a neuroscience perspective,

This self or sage is often associated with the prefrontal cortex,

A region of the brain responsible for executive functions such as decision making,

Empathy and moderating social behavior.

So when we operate from the big S self perspective,

It indicates that the prefrontal cortex is actively engaged,

Facilitating a state of mindfulness,

Calm and rational decision making.

So when we're able to communicate with our manager and firefighter parts from the perspective of our adult self,

We can begin to harmonize the internal system,

Which means that these parts are unburdened and free to take on new roles that are in service of our true nature.

Sounds good,

Doesn't it?

So it's important to approach this work gently and compassionately.

We all have these parts of ourselves,

And once you get to know them,

You will also recognize them in others.

You may notice that often,

When we have a difficult interaction with someone else,

It's actually just our parts fighting with their parts.

So learning to recognize our parts,

And then letting our self take the lead instead of our protector or subter parts,

Will create more happiness and satisfaction in life.

If you're up for it,

I will now lead you through an exercise to get to know your parts.

So please find a comfortable position and make sure that you are completely undisturbed for the next 20 minutes or so.

So take a second and get comfortable.

Set up like you would if you were going to meditate.

If it helps you to take deep breaths,

Then do that.

Now I invite you to do a scan of your body and your mind,

Noting in particular any thoughts,

Emotions,

Sensations or impulses that stand out.

So far it's not unlike mindfulness practice,

Where you're just noticing what's there and separating from it a little bit.

As you do that,

See if one of those emotions,

Thoughts,

Sensations or impulses is calling to you,

Seems to want your attention.

If so,

Then try to focus on it exclusively for a minute and see if you can notice where it seems to be located in your body or around your body.

As you notice it,

Notice how you feel toward it.

By that I mean,

Do you dislike it?

Does it annoy you?

Are you afraid of it?

Do you want to get rid of it?

Do you depend on it?

So we're just noticing that you have a relationship with this thought or emotion or sensation or impulse.

If you feel anything besides a kind of openness and curiosity toward it,

Then ask the parts of you that might not like it or are afraid of it or have any other extreme feeling about it to just relax inside and give you a little bit of space to get to know it without an attitude.

If you can't get to that curious place,

That's okay.

You could spend the time talking to the parts of you that don't want to relax about their fears about letting you actually interact with the target emotion,

Thought,

Sensation or impulse.

But if you can get into that mindfully curious place relative to the target,

Then it is safe to begin to interact with it.

That might feel a bit odd to you at this point,

But just give it a try.

And by that I mean,

As you focus on this emotion or impulse or thought or sensation and you notice it in this place in your body,

Ask it if there's something it wants you to know and then wait for an answer.

Don't think of the answer,

So any thinking parts can relax too.

Just wait silently with your focus on that place in your body until an answer comes.

And if nothing comes,

That's okay too.

If you get an answer,

Then as you follow up,

You can ask what it's afraid would happen if it didn't do this inside of you.

What's it afraid would happen if it didn't do what it does?

And if it answers that question,

Then you probably learned something about how it's trying to protect you.

If that's true,

Then see if it's possible to extend some appreciation to it for at least trying to keep you safe and see how it reacts to your appreciation.

Then ask this part of you what it needs from you in the future.

When the time feels right,

Shift your focus back to the outside world and notice more of your surroundings.

But also thank your parts for whatever they allowed you to do and let them know that this isn't their last chance to have a conversation with you because you plan to get to know them even more.

Thank you so much for making the time to get to know your parts.

Remember,

This is a process,

So please make this a regular practice and you will see the benefits.

I have found this work life-changing and I trust that your experience will be similarly impactful.

Once again,

I highly recommend reading this book No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz.

Thank you and be well.

Reviews

Incredible in its compact teaching and guided work.
I've worked with parts in different guises: The higher self; the spirits, guides and characters of shemanic journeying; and the Ego States of Transactional Analysis, as a student and practitioner of psychotherapy.
This piece has helped me recognise how important Parts work is to me and crystallise my intention to broaden my knowledge and practice of it in my work.

Through the guidance I had a profound encounter with a sad, hulking, monster Part, which dwells in darkness. Taking up huge amounts of room inside so there isn't enough for happiness and laughter.
Monster is frightened of being hated. But was necessary, once upon a time, to fill the space where those things were lacking; to fill the void to stop me collapsing.
Monster would like me to come back and visit. Profoundly moved I said, 'l'll come back all the time!', and opened my arms to lay against it (a hug for something so huge.)
I witnessed Monster was shocked, perhaps overwhelmed by my response. But in a good way.

Thank you for the gift of this guidance!