Bites & Body Love (v)

Understanding Your Inner Parts: Transforming Self-Sabotage into Self-Healing Through Internal Family Systems (IFS)

• Jamie Magdic

Share episode

What if the parts of your mind that you thought were sabotaging you were actually trying to help? Uncover the transformative potential of Internal Family Systems (IFS) in our latest episode, where we break down this pioneering model developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz. You’ll learn how recognizing and understanding the distinct sub-personalities within your psyche, each with unique roles and histories, can reduce internal conflicts and allow your 'self' part to lead with compassion and effectiveness. We promise you’ll walk away with a fresh perspective that challenges the notion of "bad parts" and sheds light on the purposeful roles even the most destructive behaviors play.

We dive into the complex interplay between exiled and protector parts, especially in relation to psychological trauma and disordered eating. Exiled parts, burdened with painful early experiences, and protector parts—managers and firefighters—emerge to shield us from these deep-seated emotions. Through understanding the proactive control of managers and the reactive coping mechanisms of firefighters, this episode sheds light on how these internal roles operate and how curiosity and compassion can initiate healing. The knowledge shared here is essential for anyone struggling with their relationship with food and their body, providing a pathway to integrative self-awareness.

Finally, we explore the empowering concept of the "self part" and the seven C's that define a balanced and harmonious internal system. Calm, curious, compassionate, confident, courageous, clear, connected, and creative—these attributes are crucial for leading your internal parts effectively. Practical steps for engaging and understanding these parts are shared, emphasizing the importance of support systems, like our program and community, to guide you on this profound journey of healing. Tune in and be inspired by the hope and encouragement we offer for your continued path towards self-liberation and a healthier, more freeing relationship with food and body.

Apply to work with us inside of the program and dive into all the work to fully transform your life!
https://www.jamiethedietitian.com/application-page

Speaker 1:

Hello everyone. I'm very excited, per usual, to chat about this. I think this is going to be very, very helpful for you to have to work on your relationship with food and body. Wherever you may be, whether you are binging restriction, whether there is a lot of body image discomfort, wherever you may be. Doing parts work in your recovery has been proven to be extremely beneficial to people's journey. So I'm really excited to dive in on in this subject and so, without further ado, let's go ahead and start to dive in Now.

Speaker 1:

When I am saying parts work, we can use that interchangeably with internal family systems, parts work or internal family systems, ifs I'll probably call it. Ifs is a model that was developed by Dr Shorts and he has formerly served as a family therapist and he's recognized just as a significant person and he noticed a significant resemblance between interpersonal dynamics and the relationships with family members when he was doing this work and our relationships that we have with ourselves. So I'm going to say that again, dr Shorts, as a family therapist, what he recognized as he was doing the work, that there was a significant resemblance between the interpersonal dynamics in the relationships of the family members he worked with and then with our own relationship with ourselves, and we all have these relationships with ourselves that are it's dynamic, and we have all these personal internal personality parts of ourselves, and that's what we're going to talk about today, because by getting to know those parts of yourself, you get to learn about each of them individually, what their purpose is, why they are there, get you know, be able to, to give them space and time and hear them out, because these parts are all working together and so, as a system, we want to be listening to each other, respecting each other, understanding each other, showing each other compassion, so that we all have space to work together when it comes to the larger unit, ourself. So Dr Shorts describes the nature of the mind to be subdivided into a number of sub personalities or parts, each part having different interests, fears, desires and gifts. Every day, the parts collaborate to play different roles for our whole self. Everyone has a self part and the self can and should lead the individual internal system. Okay, so we should be navigated by our self part and as we develop, as we grow and develop, our parts also develop and form a system that is reorganized and changes, and we all have these parts.

Speaker 1:

Throughout our life, these parts get wounded or burdened and these parts can become polarized. So it's really important to name that. Okay, so we want our self part to be leading. It is not the one that is always doing the leading by any means, but we do want to get to a place where it is leading, and we'll talk a little bit more about why and what that self part is and why we want it to lead. But as we grow and develop, other parts pop up and form our internal self to take care of us. There's a reason we have all of these different parts that pop up.

Speaker 1:

So as we go through different experiences in our life, different parts come up and there are and this is what I wanted to name as very important it's very important to name that there are no bad parts. I want you to sit with that as I start to explain what these different parts are. This is going to be really important. There are no bad parts of self. Some parts, when they lead, they feel bad, but there are no bad intentions and there are no bad parts. It's really important to remember this because it's going to be important to the work, to observing parts, to getting back to the self part leading. This is all very important. So there are no bad parts. Now I'm going to go through the categories of different parts and their purpose, but first I'm going to explain a little bit of something else. Okay, so just if you're wondering, what are these different parts? How do we know these different parts? How do we categorize these different parts? I just want to let you know. I'm going to I'm going to get to that in a second. So there are no bad parts.

Speaker 1:

And even the worst impulses and feelings that we have spring from parts of a person that themselves have a story to tell and the capacity to become something positive and helpful in our lives. The point of IFS therapy is not to get rid of anything, to get rid of any parts, but to help it transform. So that was a quote by Dr Richard Schwartz. So even the worst impulses and feelings that we have spring from parts of us that have a story and need to. Really that we struggle with, like the urge to restrict, to purge, to binge, to shame our bodies, to hide our bodies. They're all they're. They're even these worst, these behaviors that drive us crazy, that we really want to get rid of, that are not helpful.

Speaker 1:

They're there for a reason, and part of the work in your recovery is getting to know those parts and to understand why they are there. Why are they there? What are they doing for us? Let's hear their story, let's get to really know them, let's give them space and compassion, and what this allows is for us to start working together to reduce the shame, to get curious and to allow those parts to ease up, because they are getting compassion, they are getting heard, they are understood. They're not being shunned, but they're able to still stay and maybe share some things with us. They don't feel like they're not being shunned, but they're able to still stay and maybe share some things with us. They don't feel like they're not going to be heard or be able to come and take care of us, and so that allows them to step aside and for the self part to jump in and be able to guide us more, which is what we want.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so, getting ahead of myself, hopefully I'm not confusing you we're going to dive more into these different aspects that I have been explaining. So what are the goals of understanding and working with our parts of ourself? What are the goals the goal of exploring the different parts of us are to achieve balance and harmony within the internal system, right? So if we think about it from family work, we want to achieve balance and harmony between all the members of the family. The same goes with our internal system. We want to be able to differentiate and elevate the self so it can be the leader of the system. When the self leads, the parts will provide input to the self, but the self can observe the parts separately and make the decisions. And we want the self part making the decisions because this is the healthy, grounded part. So the self part we're going to go into at the end, but before we go into the self part, we're going to talk about the other parts that pop up for us. So we're going to start diving into the different types of parts in internal family systems.

Speaker 1:

There are several basic parts. The first one I want to talk about are the exiles. So we have these parts called the exiled parts and you can have many exiled parts and when you explore this in treatment, in counseling, in your work and recovery, you can find you have many different exiled parts. Okay, everyone is different. So these are usually young parts of us that often hold old burdens, old feelings, old beliefs and often represent psychological trauma. So this is something these exiled parts, are something to work on with your therapist in a safe space.

Speaker 1:

Examples of this is those struggling with eating disorders. They may have these comments about food and body from their family or friends, or they saw family restricting types of foods or chronically dieting or poverty causing a shortage of food, and these lead to the development of beliefs like obesity. All these things lead to the development of beliefs like there will never be enough, I don't deserve food, my body is not good enough, my body is bad, etc. So that belief I am not good enough, my body is bad, I don't deserve food. Those are all exiled parts. It is those, it is the exiles that hold those beliefs. It is those, it is the exiles that hold those beliefs.

Speaker 1:

Many exiles are not food and body related, but they affect our relationship with food and body. Exiles can become more and more isolated. I'm going to say that again. So these exiles we have these. It may affect our relationship with food and body, but those exiles might be the belief I am not good enough. That might be an exile belief that is very, very hard to sit with and is exiled and can really affect how we interact with food in our body. And exiles tend to overwhelm and really absorb us, are past-oriented and easily repressed by other parts. So exiles very, very often are unconscious or they're so overwhelming that they are like exiled to a place where they're buried deep. They impact us greatly but they're buried deep because they're very overwhelming.

Speaker 1:

The protector parts are the next set of parts that I want to talk about, and there are two types of protector parts the managers and the firefighters. In order to survive the difficult feelings, emotions and experience, protective parts then develop and they are trying to protect those exiles from coming up as well. We're trying to protect our system from the exiles coming up. They're trying to just protect us and help us feel better. And that's where I'm, where I say there are no bad parts. These protectors are often extremely unhelpful, which we'll get to in a second, but they are not bad. They're something we want to get curious about. So the first category of protectors are called managers.

Speaker 1:

Managers are protective. Managers fear the escape of the exiles, those strong beliefs and emotions that we just chatted about. So they work to make sure to do everything they can to avoid those exiles from being activated. Managers feel essentially, although they may not enjoy their role, managers feel essential and so the different examples of how they show up in our lives and the behaviors they show up as feel very necessary to the system. We feel they're very necessary so they're very hard to get rid of. An example of how a manager shows up is in the formation of a perfectionistic part right that tries to do everything correct, or right that may look like people pleasing in order to avoid feelings or of maybe feeling unloved or abandonment. And if hurt, this normal, natural perfectionist part can become strong if hurt, in order to avoid the situation from happening again, to not feel hurt. So managers, overall they're very high functioning, they're future oriented and they're proactive. And how they might show up in disordered eating is they're going to be those parts that over exercise, that restrict and try to control on high function, planning out all the meals, planning out all the calories, making sure we have control of our day with what kind of exercise we do, what kind of food we're going to eat, what kind of diet we're going to be on, and it's very proactive.

Speaker 1:

Now the other type of protectors are called firefighters. Firefighters are reactive whereas managers are proactive. So when exiles break out, those firefighters jump in to take care of this hard emotion. And firefighters are distracting. They're present oriented, they're reactive, they're easily judged by other parts. An example of this may be when we are feeling an exile part, like shame or anxiety come up. Someone may use any sort of behavior like purging or restricting, without thinking about the consequences of this or, you know, going to or binging, yes, or binging or over exercise, right. So firefighters are reactive. It can also and I'm sorry that wouldn't be binging the purging after the binge or the shame after the binge would be the firefighters that are trying to be reactive so it can take care of what just happened, so it doesn't feel those strong emotions. So it can.

Speaker 1:

Also. Firefighters can also look like numbing out or dissociating, which can lead us to not be mindful of our needs and sensations, to not be mindful of our needs and sensations. So, as you can see, these protector parts they are, they are causing a lot of pain for us, but we also, you know, when you are struggling with those behaviors, you also, for sure, feel like they are protecting you. They're protecting you of things. They're protecting your feelings, strong emotions, and it's again, it's different for everyone, and that's for you to find out and be curious about. What is this manager trying to do? What is this firefighter trying to do? How is it trying to protect me? Let's get curious about it. Let's let's uh learn about it, let's journal about it, let's listen to it, let's give it space, and let's also look at what the results of this are from listening to these managers and firefighters and letting them lead rather than having our self part lead.

Speaker 1:

Ok, so let's see here, if I really want to, I'm going to give some examples here. I have an infographic in front of me that obviously you cannot see, but I'm going to give you some a little bit more examples. I have just three circles here around the self part, and the three circles are the three different categories the exiles, the firefighters and the managers. And I'm going to tell you, just give you, in those different categories that we just went over, before we go into the self part a little bit, a couple more examples of it, because I think it'd be helpful. So I want you to close your eyes or just picture your self part, which we'll talk about, and then these three bubbles above the self part that make up the whole, um, the whole, our group, our internal system, those exiles. Some examples of that would be fear, guilt, shame, loneliness and grief. And then we have the firefighters. Firefighters would be obsession, distraction, compulsion, self-harm, dissociation. Managers would be self-critical, planner, judge, controller, caretaker and striver All right. So I'm going to paint that picture before we dove a little bit deeper, just to give you a few more examples.

Speaker 1:

All right, so let's talk about these unbalanced parts Now. We want to get to a balanced place with these systems, but many people and many people who struggle through coping with food and body and having a relationship with food and body that's confusing and that causes us to struggle and hurt. We have unbalanced parts, we have an unbalanced system and in a less balanced system, these polarized parts can become very extreme. So firefighters might become very extreme, managers might become very extreme. In IFS, an image of a sailboat can be used to demonstrate this system. If the sailboat starts tipping because some of the sailors are leaning to one side too much, you may envision these other sailors leaning to the other side to help get the boat back in balance.

Speaker 1:

Polarization can happen in this way, with the back and forth of managers and firefighter parts, where we have managers coming in strong and then we have firefighters coming in strong to balance, and then we have managers and firefighters and going back and forth and most polarization and eating disorders happen between these managers and these firefighters. So, for example, something happens in life like a comment that's made about food or body which then triggers an exile. Okay, so I'm going to say that again, something happens in life like a comment about what you're eating or your body which can trigger an exile, which again we have been suppressing for a while, maybe unconscious. That triggers a moment in childhood that brings up extreme shame that felt intolerable when receiving a similar comment from a family member. So when initially experiencing this as a child, it may have not been consciously experienced, or could it even been. It may have not been consciously experienced or could it even been. It could have even been forgotten due to a protector part taking over like a firefighter and taking care of that emotion through a release that was not helpful, like a purge or a binge to take over that emotion. Then maybe over the next couple of hours, the manager comes in, usually pretty critical or judgmental, and and restricts to the and starts to restrict to get the system back in balance. So I went through that quickly but I'm going to give that example again with a little bit more detail.

Speaker 1:

Ok, so a lot of times, with disordered eating, chronic dieting, just control over food and body, a stressful relationship with food and body, this can be anyone, this is a spectrum, right. But this polarization with this disordered eating and body shame. So let's say a coworker that you're eating lunch with comments on your food and maybe says wow, that's a lot of food, are you going to eat all that? That may trigger this deep feeling of shame that maybe that you are unaware of and it's an exile we are purposely put. We purposely have pushed that down rather than process through it, and those exiles need to be processed through. That's a big part of the work that needs to be done in therapy. We need to bring those up in a careful, healthy environment where we can learn about them and take care of them and so they're not ruling our life. So we're not trying to avoid feeling that, but we felt it, we've dealt with it.

Speaker 1:

So, anyways, that comment by that coworker maybe triggered this moment that was so shameful in our childhood where a family member commented on our food and it made us feel extremely alone and we might be unconscious that that's what's being triggered. But when that coworker says that, then what happens is a protector part might take over let's say a firefighter and it starts taking care of that emotion of shame from that comment being made by your co-worker. And so what we do is we might use a behavior like purging or maybe binging, to both cope with that emotion of shame, or maybe binging to both cope with that emotion of shame. And then maybe after that a manager comes in, and this is where the polarization happens. Manager comes in and it starts criticizing or being judgmental. A manager can absolutely just be talk, it doesn't have to be behavior, both can be conversations internally. It doesn't have to be behavior. But it comes in judgmentally and critically and maybe it also acts as a behavior and it starts to. It says I'm going, we're going to restrict tomorrow, we're not going to, we're only going to eat X amount of calories, okay, and the reason it does that is to try and bring the system back into balance, because we just had a firefighter going all the way the other direction. So then a manager comes in and the cycle continues.

Speaker 1:

Okay, now let's go into the self part, now the self part. So the IFS model has a part that is not actually a part, but it's it's the self. So that's why I said imagine the self and then these other parts around it. It is also known as the healthy self, the core self, the higher self, it's you there's different words to describe this, but our self is never damaged, but it does get hidden or quieted by activated, polarized protective parts that try to protect us and end up running our system. So then our self part is not actually leading, it's our protective parts that are leading and guiding, which we do not want, because that's when, um, that's when it yeah, it's, it's stressful and it's it just is unhelpful. The self part guiding is going to always guide you in the in the right direction, um, but there again, there are reasons for those other parts. So we have to give them space, time, understanding, and that will really help us to get back to our grounded self part. So when the self is present and active, oh, let me back up for a second.

Speaker 1:

I also want to say that the self part can still lead at times, even though the managers of fighter fighters may be leading most of the time, managers and firefighters may be leading. Most of the time. You, you might be aware, if you, if you kind of think on it right now, um, even though you're having maybe strong behaviors with disordered eating, you might notice that your self part comes up often. Maybe it, maybe it says daily when you're struggling, we don't feel good here, um, this isn't good for us and I think we need to get some. I think we need to be courageous and get some help and get some support. That's that self part leading.

Speaker 1:

So when the self is present and active, it still allows all parts and listens to them and honors them. Okay, so it doesn't shun them, it doesn't ignore them, it doesn't shame them. The self part, when it's present and active, it allows to still listen to these other parts, understanding that they're an important part of the system. They have something to say and something we need to listen to. And the self part is we describe it as like the seven C's, so seven C words that describe the self part. So it's a good way to remember it the self and this is a good way too to ask yourself am I in the self part? And you can ask yourself if you're being these following adjectives that describe the self part, which is calm, curious, compassionate, confident, courageous, clear, connected and creative. Okay, the self part are are all of those things. So it's.

Speaker 1:

It could be very helpful to ask yourself what's leading me. What part is this? Let's examine it, um, and you'll notice. It's the self part. If it, if you are feeling calm, if you're getting curious rather than judgmental and shameful, if you're showing yourself compassion, if you're doing something brave and courageous, if you feel connected and clear, okay, then you are acting from the self part.

Speaker 1:

So where can we begin exploring these different parts of us? Number one stay curious. Get really curious. Starting now, I want you to get curious when you go to restrict, when you want to restrict, when you're starting a new diet, when a binge happens, when you start to shame yourself, when you're weighing yourself five times a day. Okay, get curious, try and take away that shame and just be present with yourself and say, hmm, I wonder why this is happening. Okay, that's number one. Number two start observing these parts non-judgmentally.

Speaker 1:

Lean in, learn about the parts, talk to your team about those parts, journal about the parts, give it space, even talk back and forth with the self part to those manager parts. That's been super helpful for me personally. It helps provide a lot of clarity and also gives space to those parts to be able to speak while the self part still is able to lead. So number three explore how these parts may be eating disorder behaviors. What eating disorder behavior? These eating disorder behaviors, how do they show up and they could show up as both firefighters and managers, by the way Protecting something and what is it trying to protect? And you might get into those exiled parts which be careful. Explore that with a therapist.

Speaker 1:

Number four ask the parts why they are here, what they need and what they are trying to protect the system from. Right, so if a, if you wake up and you have a, you make a plan to restrict that day or start a new diet. Getting curious, ask hey, what are you here? What are you doing? What do you need? What are you trying to protect us from? How are you trying to protect our system? This is very helpful.

Speaker 1:

I'm trying to think of an example maybe non-disordered eating wise, um, let's say you just I don't know, maybe maybe someone on someone that you don't know comments on your hair and it's in a like passive, aggressive way or like a way that they are like clearly communicating to you that they don't like your hair, right? Let's say that you get into your car after you see this person. This is kind of a bad example. Let's say, you get into a car after you see this person and you're like you start to get out your phone and you're going to call hair salons to go change your hair. This is a reactive part, this is a firefighter part, because maybe you feel shame and you're trying to push it down, so you're trying to take action and call and make a hair appointment, ask what are you trying to do here? Why are you here? What do you need? What are you trying to protect the system from? And it could just, it could be, you know, trying to protect the system from, and it could be trying to protect the system from those feelings of maybe not feeling good enough or not feeling accepted. Okay, so get curious about those parts. Sorry for the poor example. Hopefully it makes sense, though.

Speaker 1:

And then the next thing and the final, the fifth thing that to do is go deeper in IFS. Go deeper in IFS. Get support around these parts. We talk so much about IFS, and we have a therapist too, um, as well, who so amazingly talks about these, the, the shame part when it comes to our body image and the shameful part with body image, that and why it's there and what it's doing and how to navigate it. It's fantastic.

Speaker 1:

So, and this is all sorry I didn't say this, this is all in our, in our program, um, we talk so much with our clients about this and it's so helpful for them to navigate through because it really helps them get to know themselves and awareness around all these parts and the whys and giving it space. It just moves mountains for us in our journey. This is, this is why IFS is so. You is used so much, um in this, in the field and in people's recovery. So, um, explore it deeper, get support, join our program, join our community of of folks who are navigating this and making huge strides. We would love to have you, um, okay. So with that, I will leave it be. I'm going to go through it one more time just to say to so you can start navigating it, remember.

Speaker 1:

So how can you begin exploring these different parts? Stay curious, observe non-judgmentally, lean in to learn more about the parts, explore how the parts may be eating disorder behaviors. Ask the parts and the behaviors and the thoughts that come up. That are these parts. Why are you here? What do you need? How are you trying to protect our system and what are you trying to protect our system from? And then explore with support, explore deeper IFS, join our community.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I'm so proud of you all. This is really hard work. It is not easy to have these exiled parts. It is not easy to have these managers and firefighters leading us or to have the self part buried. But just by listening to this podcast, you are getting further in your journey and I have so much hope for you, so much hope for you. This is why I do what I do. I would not be doing this if I didn't totally believe you can go all of the way to just such a better relationship with food and body that you just feel free with. So until next time. I hope you enjoyed this, I hope it was helpful and I am super proud of all of you.