James Fitzgerald Therapy PLLC

Internal Family Systems

Self Therapy ~ Parts Work ~ Exploring Your Own System

Journey with Parts (Expanded Version)

Hello, Welcome to this guided meditation “a journey with parts work” by James Fitzgerald. I will be guiding you through this meditation. As we begin, please find a calm, quiet, and most importantly, safe space. As we meditate, you must whole heartedly believe and feel, all statments to be true. What you believe is what you become. The way I conduct this meditation is intentional. After every few statements, I will invite you to stay with your breath as you follow the meditation. You may not be ready to accept some of the statements, but it is important to the process that you hear them.

Allowing our self to be physically still. (pause) Allowing our self to do nothing. (pause) Observing anything that happens within us. (pause) Breathing in peace and tranquility. (pause) Breathing out stress and worry. (pause) Observing thoughts, emotions, sensations, images, and internal experiences. Allow your emotions to be. (pause) Express what you feel. (pause) It is healthy to express emotions. (pause) There is no judgment. (pause) Inhale. (pause) Exhale. (pause) Closing our eyes, if that feels right, or lowering our gaze, if that feels right. (pause) When our sense of sight is stopped and ocular signals don’t flow into our brain, it frees up physical energy the brain does not have to use processing visual stimuli. It can help to slow down the hypervigilant state many of us find ourselves in.

Inhale. (pause) Exhale. (pause) Turning our attention inward toward stillness. Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out. (pause) Inhale. (pause) Exhale. (pause) Bringing your attention to your physical body, (pause) release any tightness, (pause) let your shoulders relax, (pause) let your arms rest loosely, (pause) soften your body, (pause) rest your muscles and melt into relaxation. (pause) Inhale. (pause) Exhale. (pause) Feel time to begin to slow down. 

Asking our self. Am I upset with people and circumstances, with life events and daily living experiences. Do I feel differently and act differently around different people? Do I feel differently and react differently in different circumstances? How do I treat myself, talk to myself? How do others treat me and talk about me? Experiencing criticism and exploring the experience. Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out. Feelings, thoughts, and behaviors can get labeled by others and ourselves. Labels cause harm, labels reinforce and support stigma, labels don’t educate. Labels sound like: “Addict, Bipolar, Crazy, Schizophrenic, Borderline, Narcissist, Controlling, Manipulating, and Anti-social.” Labels don’t tell the whole story. 

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

[ [ DBT Mindfulness ] ]

Allowing our self to integrate our rational mind with our emotional mind. Processing our experiences in a state of wise mind. Our pure conscious self is feels and thinks that, “how we respond to others is entirely up to us, how we show up in the world is our choice.” “Our ultimate happiness is a decision we make in every moment.”

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Knowing that emotion mind occurs when our thoughts are being controlled by our emotions. Logical thinking and planning are difficult, facts may be distorted or made larger or more important. Thoughts and behaviors might be said to be “hot,” and the energy of the behavior tends to match the intensity of the feelings.

Knowing that rational mind is when we are thinking logically and rationally, and are reasonable about what is occurring. Analytical and empirical thinking are predominant. Thoughts and behaviors might be said to be “cool,” that is, not emotional in their approaches to solving problems.

Learning that wise mind is the point of overlap between emotion and reasonable mind, like on the Venn diagram. Wise mind is part reason and part emotion and what makes you know you’re in this mind is often a sense of intuition. It can sometimes be described as that ‘aha’ moment. Marsha Linehan describes wise mind as “that part of each person that can know and experience truth. It is where the person knows something to be true or valid. It is almost always quiet. It has a certain peace. It is where the person knows something in a centered way.”

Allowing our self to stop and take a breath, we can observe our inner reactions, observe our reality and other people’s reality, what is really happening, then proceeding with wise mind, with the self in a leading role.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Realizing that mindfulness skills are the foundation of all Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) skills training. We seek to solve the problems addressed by core mindfulness skills. The problems of mindlessness are not knowing who we are, where we are going in life, and the inability to control what goes on in our mind. Mindfulness encourages us to live in the moment by focusing on the present. The “What” skills refer to ways of practicing thinking or “what” we do to take control of our mind. Observing and Describing are most useful when new behavior is being learned, there is some sort of problem, or a change is necessary. Participating helps us live in the moment.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Observing is sensing or experiencing without describing or labeling the experience. This is difficult at first but the benefit of this practice is that the mind becomes quiet. Eventually, we are able to observe things without a running commentary of a talkative mind. It can be hard to just watch our thoughts come into our mind and leave our mind. The temptation for us, is to get caught in the experience. Getting caught takes many forms like rumination, preoccupation and obsession. Step back a little, but stay within yourself – the goal is to be slightly detached, not to shut down completely. Imagining thoughts to be like leaves on a stream, vehicles on a highway, or train cars on a track. Simply observing them as they pass us by. It is also tempting to react to the thoughts we have when we’re observing. Unpleasant emotions motivate us to terminate the experience or leave the situation. We also react to pleasant events by wanting to prolong them. The challenge of observing is just to experience the moment without judging it good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, just letting those thoughts go by.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

DBT describes the goal of observing as having a “Teflon Mind.” Teflon is a substance which creates a non-stick surface when applied to various materials like cookware. Teflon Mind is letting experiences, feelings, and thoughts come into your mind and slip right out. Many have found that this is a way to cope with intense feelings. Distressing events and emotions easily become stuck in consciousness. Teflon Mind is a way to attend to painful thoughts without getting stuck. Let thoughts slide off your mind like a fried egg off a non-stick frying pan.

We may encounter thoughts that lead to painful emotions when we practice observing. Thoughts can easily bring up guilt, shame, anxiety, and sadness. This is natural. Practicing this skill can actually help us overcome those emotions.

Learning that mindfulness is an example of the psychological technique of exposure. Exposure is a way for people who have fears or phobias to overcome their aversion. By exposing yourself gradually to what you fear, you overcome your fear little by little. Mindfulness to naturally arising thoughts, feelings, and sensations works like exposure gradually helping you overcome the grip of certain thoughts, feelings, and sensations. By observing thoughts, feelings, and sensations come and go, one learns that thoughts, feelings, and sensations do, indeed, come and go. This experience reduces the intensity of emotions.

Learning the often used expression “The Only Way Out is Through.” We practice observing formally in several ways. Imagine you’re a palace guard at the gate, watching everyone who comes and goes. The people are your thoughts. You don’t stop each person, you just watch. Imagine your thoughts are like clouds going by in the sky. Lie in the grass and watch them come and go. Imagine your thoughts are like leaves on a river. Sit on the bank and watch them float by but don’t reach in and grab them. Observe what you can feel through your five senses. Do the dishes, noticing how the hot water and suds feel on your hands. Feel each dish as you wash and rinse it. Place one hand on a cool surface and one hand on a warm surface (not hot, maybe a part of a table warmed by the sun). Notice the difference. Note how long you can observe for. It is common to have to start and restart the clock many times.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning our internal conscious mind, our Psyche and our personalities ares made up of many parts, or subpersonalities, much like a family or an organization of different people with different jobs. Every part having their own sensations, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, expectations, perceptions, behaviors. Parts sometimes do very distorted things to protect us from harm and keep us functioning in daily life.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning that some parts are protecting us (the self) from people, experiences, circumstances, and other protector parts. Some are protecting the wounded, extreme, and vulnerable young (inner child) parts of us. These parts take over our conscious mind sometimes and become blended with our self; kicking us out of wise mind and into emotional mind or rational mind. It becomes difficult to know what part is actively in control of our seat of consciousness at any given moment.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning that some of these parts are tired from protecting us (our self); some are tired from protecting the wounded vulnerable parts of us. The vulnerable parts that were hurt, and suffering in pain, shame, guilt, and sadness. The parts that are hidden from the outside world, exiled so they don’t overwhelm our system. It is overwhelming to be taken over by an exile, uncomfortable, painful, unwanted, and distressing.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Protector parts that are proactive, can be seen as aggressive, assertive, controlling, manipulating, leading, influencing, persuading, critical, judgmental, and perfectionistic. These proactive parts act as managers in our internal system. They are primarily concerned with actively suppressing exiled parts.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Protector parts that are reactive, can be seen as overreacting, emotional, angry, anxious, depressed, self-sabotaging, self-harm, dissociating, addiction, numbing, and acting out. These reactive parts act as firefighters in our internal system. They are primarily concerned with soothing escaped exile parts.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Managers and firefighters are just doing their job of protecting us and the wounded vulnerable parts of us. With no thanks and no reward, with contempt and criticism from other parts of us. If the protector parts didn’t do their job, the wounded vulnerable parts feelings and physical sensations would overwhelm us (the self).

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Although the protector’s intent is to keep us safe, the roles they play and the way they do their job isn’t always healthy, graceful, or with a clear, curious, and calm state of mind. It isn’t always compassionate, connected, creative, confident, or courageous. It can sometimes appear as manipulation, control, criticism, judgment, avoidance, isolation, perfectionism, people pleasing, and care taking. It can sometimes appear as anxiety, anger, fear, sadness, procrastination, distraction, numbing, and dissociating, to name a few.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning about this new type of therapy and a theory of human consciousness (theory of mind) that lets us talk to our parts (from self and in a wise state of mind). Engaging in self therapy and parts work, we can start having conversations with our parts. We already do it subconsciously anyway, speaking from our parts and about our parts, has been normalized. For example, “A part of us wants to eat a slice of this delicious chocolate cake. Another part is trying to remind us of our nutrition plan and health goals and wants us to have an avacado, salad, apple, or banana instead.” And so, embarking on a long and difficult journey can begin anytime we are ready, willing, and able.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out. 

Learning about mindfulness, about a formal practice and an informal practice. Learning that to be mindful, we learn to experience the present moment by observing, describing, and participating in the present moment one-mindfully, non-judgmentally, and effectively. Learning that these 6 skills are best practiced when we are in a state of wise mind, the synthesis between our rational mind (where managers may live), and our emotional mind (where firefighters may live). Learning that when we have developed mindfulness practice, we can better identify thoughts, emotions, sensations, images, and memories. Which leads to an ability to associate those experiences with our parts.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning why practicing meditation is important, we need this formal practice to develop mindfulness. Meditating has many health benefits that have been rigorously researched and scientifically validated. Meditation has hundreds of variations, finding the medtation that works for you doesn’t have to be difficult. Meditation is not about eliminating racing thoughts or anxiety, it is about learning how to not let those thoughts and feelings control you, or ruin your day.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning distress tolerance skills to help distract us and get us through difficult emotional situations one moment at a time. Learning to focus our attention on a task we need to get done. Learning to distract ourselves with pleasurable activities. Contributing to the greater good, and/or making a difference in someone else’s life. Learning to compare how you are feeling now to a time when you felt different.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning how to just be with your emotions. Reading emotional books or stories, reading old letters. Watching emotional TV shows; going to emotional movies. Listening to emotional music. (Making sure the event creates different emotions.) Learning to put the situation away by leaving it alone for a while. Leaving the situation mentally. Building an imaginary wall between ourself and the situation.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning how to observe thoughts, and switching your thoughts. Counting to 100; counting colors in a painting or poster or out the window; counting anything. Repeating words to a song in your mind. Working puzzles. Watching TV or reading. Playing the alphabet game, where you try to think of as many things in one subject or topic as you can that start with the chosen letters, A through Z.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning how to soothe with your senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and interoception. Squeezing a rubber ball very hard. Listening to very loud music. Holding ice in your hand or mouth. Going out in the rain or snow. Taking a hot or cold shower. Submerging your face in cold while holding your breath. Practicing a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 exercise with our senses. Exercising or engaging in a vigorous activity, in order to release anxious, angry, or upset emotions. Learning paced breathing techniques through your diaphragm and belly, slowly, inhaling shorter and exhaling longer.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning how to improve the moment with imagery. Creating a situation or a scene that is different from the one that you are in now. Leaving the situation mentally even if you can’t physically. Escaping to a safe place or imagine the situation going the way you want it to. To create our safe space, we envision in our mind a place that we would like to be – a safe place, a relaxing place, a beautiful place. Focusing on this place. Relaxing, and letting ourselves feel that we are in this place. It usually helps to notice details of the place that you imagine. See that safe place, maybe a room, that is fixed up just the way you want it. Maybe imagine a spot along the ocean, or being with a good, safe friend.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning how to improve the moment with Meaning and Purpose. Find purpose or meaning in your daily activities. You don’t have to believe that there is a purpose to your suffering. If you have religious or spiritual beliefs, you may feel this way. But if you don’t, you can still create meaning in other ways. There are other forms of spirituality. Some people find it in nature. You may be comforted by seeing that the natural world keeps right on going, no matter what happens. Creating Meaning can sometimes be the same as finding inspiration. For example, are you seeing something more clearly? Are you learning something? Are you letting go of painful memories or feelings? Has this brought you closer to friends or family members? Are you preparing for a change in your life? Are you closer to nature? Have you discovered a book or a poem that helped you? Find something happening that you can change to something positive.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning how to improve the moment with prayer, quiet reflection, or mdeitation. Asking for strength, courage, and wisdom from a higher power of our own understanding. Learning to use prayer for acceptance or learning radical acceptance. Opening ourselves to what is, whether we are praying to a God or higher power or to our own wise mind. Thinking of prayer as a way of being present with our distress, of not fighting it, while at the same time not saying it is okay. If you don’t pray to a higher power or God, try praying to or opening yourself to your own Wise Mind, that centered part of yourself, the source of self, with a felt sense of what’s right.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning how to improve the moment with relaxation exercises. Breathing deeply, taking a hot bath, massaging your neck. Practicing a progressive muscle relaxtion activity, somatic experiencing, or activating our Vagus nerve. Using relaxation and stress reduction exercises are excellent ways to help us feel better in the moment. Many of us are tense, and become more tense when we are in distress. Relaxing changes that response. The goal is to accept reality with the body, not to fight against it or try to push it away. The body and the mind are closely linked. Relaxing the body also relaxes the mind.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning how to improve the moment with one thing in the moment. Focusing your attention on this moment without judgment, mindfully, and effectively. Focusing on the one thing that you are doing right now, in the present moment. This can be very helpful if you are in a distressing situation or a crisis. It can give you some time to settle down and calm down. Often our suffering is made more intense by remembering past suffering and worrying about future suffering. If we can stay in the moment and focus on what is happening in the here and now, our suffering will be greatly reduced. Mindfulness exercises can help you attend to the moment. Practicing them often prepares you to use them automatically when you are having distress.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning how to improve our lives by taking a vacation. A brief break from the current situation can alleviate your distress. It doesn’t have to be a literal vacation, we don’t have to book a flight and a hotel and pack our bags. If that’s possible, go for it. But there are ways of practicing a Vacation that are far more accessible. A mini-vacation like closing the door to get a moment to our self. Lying on the couch with a pillow or a mask over our eyes. If possible, change the environment and surroundings. Taking a walk to a park. Taking a walk around the block. Making some space between us and the situation.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning how to improve the moment by reciting encouraging words to ourselves, with affirmations, self-talk, and mantras. Our moods are deeply affected by the way we talk to ourselves. We easily slip into negative self-talk when feeling distressed. It’s important to have some encouraging statements prepared to combat those negative thoughts. What would you say to a friend in distress? Maybe “How can I be there for you?” “This situation and experience will not last forever.” “Your self has the capacity and strength to get us through this experience.” Or “Your internal system is strong enough to survive this.”

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning that willingness is essential to the process of healing and changing. Willingness is accepting that we are part of a world greater than ourselves. Having a sense of our connection to the universe. Practicing willingness is bringing an openness to the world, a promise that we will take on whatever comes, with grace and humility. Willingness encourages us to focus on effectivenessor doing what is needed according to our self and wise mind.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning that willfullness is the enemy of healing and change. Sitting on your hands or throwing a tantrum when action is needed. Saying “No, no, no, I’m not even going to try.” Giving up but but also working too hard to ‘fix’ an unfixable situation. Refusing to try new coping skills and instead returning to less effective, potentially harmful, methods. Giving in to self-pity. Getting stuck in a self-pitying spiral of wondering ‘why me?’ It’s not effective to spend more than a moment there. Denying reality, denying the truth of life. All of us have experienced willfulness. It is nothing to be ashamed of. We just need to focus on cultivating willingness instead.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning to accept reality with our body. Relaxing by letting go or by just tensing and relaxing our face, neck, and shoulder muscles and half-smile with our lips. Studies on human emotions and facial expressions conclude that humans can feel an emotion if they display the facial expression associated with the emotion. The connection is so strong and not visual, that even people with vision disabilities can display emotions with their facial expressions. A half-smile is just slightly upturning the lips with a relaxed face. Trying to adopt a serene facial expression. Our body communicates to our mind so this position will genuinely bring contentment to our mind. A full, false smile might tell our brain we are hiding or faking the emotion. Practicing half smiles when we are in distress and when we are not in distress builds a distress tolerance habit that becomes automatic.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning that radical acceptance is one of the most effective and most difficult distress tolerance skills there is. Accepting your entire situation as it is, with no judgment. Stopping fighting against the reality. Given the severity of many situations, this can be quite challenging. If asked to radically accept something, we might offer resistance thinking there has to be an easier option. Let’s examine our choices. When faced with a painful problem, we always have a choice from four paths to take: we can try to solve the problem; we can potentially change how we feel about the problem; we can accept our situation; or we can do nothing and keep suffering and staying miserable.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Radical Acceptance is most often applied to large life-changing events such as trauma. These circumstances are the most challenging to accept. They are also some of the most important because they affect our lives in such a profound way. It’s important to accept that what happened to us happened and we cannot change that reality. There is no benefit to living in the past or living in denial. What happened was very likely not our fault, but it is unfortunately our responsibility to live with it. Once we feel safe, in our body and in our mind, we can open our mind to accept that the event happened to us. Another part of radically accepting trauma is accepting that we can still have a life worth living not despite, but including what happened to us. It is part of our story. Just a part, though it affects much more than that. We can still build and live a life that we value even though that thing happened to us. It did not ruin our lives. Radically accepting trauma is the hardest level of radical acceptance. It may take years for us to get to this point. The effects of trauma can be debilitating so we need to make sure we feel safe before attempting this kind of radical acceptance practice.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning emotion regulation skills; why we have emotions, how we have emotions, and why they are necessary for our survival. Learning that suppressing, avoiding, numbing, or dissociating from emotions causes additional harm and damage. Emotion Regulation skills build on each other. As we learn each little piece and practice it, we place another building block into the structure of our own Emotion Regulation. Our firefighter parts are learning little by little how to handle negative emotions from triggered exiles, and self is learning how to build positive emotions with the reintegrated parts. As we learn each new skill or awareness in our life, we should be congratulating our self. We are doing potentially the hardest work we will ever do, and the outcome of all the struggle and practice will be worth it.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning about primary and secondary emotions and how they correlate to managers, exiles, and firefighters. We all experience primary and secondary emotions. A secondary emotion is one that follows the primary or first emotion, for example, feeling shame because you got angry. Anger is the primary emotion, and shame is the secondary emotion. It’s really important to be able to tell which emotions are the primary emotions and which are the secondary emotions. In order to manage the emotion, you have to get to the root of the problem, meaning the primary emotion. Sometimes the secondary emotion can be the same as the first. A person can get angry for being angry, or depressed for being depressed. In these two cases, anger and depression are both the primary and the secondary emotions. Look for shame in particular as a secondary emotion. It is common to feel shame in response to the primary emotion or the behaviors you used in response to the primary emotion. For example, you may feel shame about lashing out in anger.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning how emotion regulation corresonds to parts work. Imagine that the primary emotion is being felt by a triggered exile. Emotions like fear, terror, sadness, loneliness, rejection, and neglect can be associated with exiled parts of us. Imagine that the secondary emotions are being felt by protectors. Emotions like like disappointment, guilt, shame, anger, and frustration. When we experience strong emotions and physical sensations, we also tend to have negative automatic thoughts that accompany them, which are expressed by our parts. Our parts experience the emotions and sensations, and then think about them, applying previous experiences to current experiences, perceiving them through the lens of past decisions, reactions, and behaviors, then repeat them, even if they are not helpful, and may even make the situation worse.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

We reflect and consider: what circumstances, people, experiences, or trailheads, point us to parts we can work with? Finding the parts and learning how to access and identify the parts. We can identify and access parts through sensations, images, thoughts, memories, beliefs, perceptions, emotions, inner sense, behaviors, shapes, colors, and even elements. 

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning how to access the parts, and focusing our attention inward on the parts, learning about the parts and their qualities. Flushing out the parts, learning more about the parts in a way that supports the separation between the parts and Self. Speaking directly to the parts, and for the parts, not from the parts, and determining how we feel about the parts.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Learning how to test for the presence of Self, and unblended from the parts if necessary to establish a strong connection between Self and parts. Becoming friends with the parts, learning even more about them, establishing a trusting relationship between Self and the parts. Asking about the part’s fears, being curious and asking them about their concerns, their deepest fears, what makes them act the way they do. This is how we locate exiled parts.  

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

In silent, safe, meditative, and mindful self therapy sessions operating with Self in the lead from wise mind. Expressing our gratitude to our protective parts: “Thank you so much” “Your job is very important” “I appreciate what you do for me” And meaning it with integrity and fidelity, being honest, sincere, genuine, authentic, and trusting.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Asking the protective parts: “Can you, will you, soften?” “Can you, will you, step aside?” “Can I help you with your job?” “Can you trust me?” Asking the protective parts: “What is wrong?” “What is happening?” “What are you afraid of, what would happen if you didn’t do your job?” Asking the protective parts: “What are you trying to do for me?” “What are you hoping to accomplish?” “What do you think we need at this moment?” 

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Parts of us may be feeling: neglected, rejected, disrespected, alone, shame, guilt, harmed, defensive, angry. Parts of us may believe: “we will be all alone and afraid” “we will never be loved because we are unlovable” Parts of us may think: “we are not able to love others” “we can’t trust anyone” “we should not try because we will fail” “if we look perfect and do everything perfect, we will not look incompetent” “we are not good enough and will never be good enough,” and “we are not living up to our fullest potential”

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Parts are not “bad” because they just are parts; always keeping in mind, they have a positive intent. They are protective and they all have roles to play, and jobs to do, sometimes they are proactive, and sometimes they are reactive. They watch over wounded parts of us holding burdens: vulnerability, suffering, memory, harm, trauma, loneliness, shame, and guilt. Wounded parts holding neediness, insecurity, inadequacy, worthlessness, hopelessness, and helplessness. So many stories; it gets so overwhelming sometimes, it seems unbearable

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Asking the protectors, “Are you willing to let me meet the other parts and maybe help them?” “Can I talk to the younger parts?” Speaking to the protectors, “If I talk to them and find out what they need, we can work together to help them heal, and care for them” “Together, we can integrate them into the family, and live with those returned exile parts in harmony” Different concerned parts of us may react, “we’re not so sure about this.” Asking the concerned parts, “What are you concerned about?” They may feel like, “It won’t work. It will make it worse. We will feel terrible. We will feel overwhelmed. We never want to feel those feelings again.” Reassuring the concerned parts, we say “Let’s try it, I am ready, I have found my Self strengths and capacities” “You can help and monitor the process, and take over if needed” Agreement is required, assurances are made, they monitor the process closely.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Mindful and pure conscious self says, mindfulness and meditation brings us into wise mind, and a flow state. In a wise mind, in self, we speak to all the parts, “do I have your permission to meet the exiles?” Asking them, “Can I help you so you are not so tired?” “Can I help the parts who are hurting?” “Do you trust me?” Letting all the parts know, “I truly appreciate your efforts and positive intent for me, I finally understand”

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Contacting exiles, in a trusted and healing mode, asking each burdened part, “what are you feeling?” They might say, “where have you been?” Speaking to them, “I wasn’t able to protect you then, but I can love you and protect you now” Speaking to the exiles, “I am feeling compassion, connection, curiosity, clarity, and calm, around you and for you” 

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Playing the role of an observer and witness, asking the exiles, “What do you want to show me?” “What do you want me to know” “What do I need to know to understand how this was for you?” Listening for their answer, feeling attuned with them.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Playing the role of a trusted and caring parent, asking the exiles, “Is there anything you need from me to change this situation?” Listening for the answer, feeling compassion for them.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Retrieving exiled inner children parts, asking them, “Do you want to leave this place?” “Do you want to be in a different place?” Listening for the answer, displaying our curiosity and interest.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Asking them if they would like to unburden themselves, and asking each one, “Where do you carry your pain?” “Are you ready to let go of that pain?” In a supportive and compassionate way, speaking to the burdened parts, “When you are ready, you can let all that pain go” The exiles will probably say, “yes please, we are so tired and alone”

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Engaging in healing unburdening ceremonies, exiles, protector parts, concerned parts, and Self participating in healing and restoration. The vulnerable child parts, the concerned parts, and the protective parts choosing the way to unburden the pain. Each one choosing, and choosing from healing ceremonies of: Fire, Water, Air, Energy, Earth, Poetry, Song.

Integrating exiles means the protectors and concerned parts could choose new jobs. Asking each and every part, “What do you want to do now?” “Where do you want to live?” “Do you still need anything from me?”

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

After the healing ceremonies and reintegration was done, all the parts of our internal family exist in our mind in a place of their choosing. And now, they remind us of the past without overwhelming the whole system. They protect us in nonextreme ways as we maintain healthy boundaries, with assertiveness. They are able to watch over us while we make our way in the world, and have developed new, healthy beliefs, about us, others, and the world.

Breathing in, noticing your lungs filling up with air, and breathing out.

Remaining compassionate, connected, calm, clear, curious, creative, courageous, and confident. Self is consistently in the leadership role it was meant to fill, in a state of wise mind. Namaste, love and light, and abundance my fellow human beings.

James Fitzgerald, Author