Peace Is Always Possible
#4 Wisdom Jewels from Internal Family Systems
The fourth of my series of gems from Internal Family Systems - you can read previous gems here. If you’re new to the magic of IFS, you can read my free introduction (with puppies) here.
One of my favourite images from my early reading about Internal Family Systems is that of a sailboat out in the middle of the sea.
Richard Schwartz, the founder of IFS, asks us to imagine two people on a boat who are both holding onto one end of a rope. One is leaning precariously out over the water on one side of the boat, and the other is leaning over the opposite side. They are both aware that if either of them stops pulling so hard on their end of the rope they will become unbalanced, the boat will tip over and capsize, and they will both end up in the water.
This is his way of describing how polarisations happen - both between people, and between different parts of us inside us. As one part panics and pulls harder, the other part has to pull harder too.
What are a couple of polarisations that happen between me and others?
⛵ The more I present myself as self-sufficient and capable, the less other people think I need support with anything and the less often they offer me help, and so the more alone I feel and so the more I feel I need to be self-sufficient.
⛵ The more I micro-manage others, the less trusted they feel by me and so the more nervous they get and so the more mistakes they make, and so the more I feel I need to micro-manage.
What polarisations do I have inside me?
⛵ I have a part that wants me to work 16 hours a day, and a part that wants me to sit on the sofa and watch Netflix forever. When the Netflix part wins, the working part panics and steps it up - and vice versa.
⛵ The part that wants me to be thin vs. the part that wants me to eat many cookies.
⛵ The perfectionist part of me vs. the part that really enjoys bodging things and takes pride in my slapdash-ness (I think the American word is janky? I love that word!).
These polarised parts are, at best, on bad terms with each other. Sometimes it’s all-out bloody war.
Polarisations take up a lot of energy inside of us. Imagine how much energy it takes to pull that hard on the rope! The good news is that even small shifts, as we saw last week, can make a big difference. When we can get both parts to relax a teensy bit, this will release energy, bring ease to our system, and make a big difference to how we feel.
How do we do this?
As always with IFS, the healing happens when we bring in more Self-energy. We offer compassion and curiosity to our polarised parts.
When we bring more of the qualities of Self1, various things are likely to happen:
🍪 We are more likely to identify and accept our polarisations.
“I feel bad this morning… I wonder why… could it be because last night I ate too many cookies and then let my diet-Hitler part take over for a while? It really beat me up… I wonder why I ate the cookies? Maybe that difficult conversation affected me more than I realised, and my system was trying to find some equilibrium. I did feel a bit ashamed afterwards, like I’d got something really wrong… Yup - that makes sense. I feel better knowing what happened - maybe I can go a little easy on myself today.”
🍪 Polarised parts are less likely to feel alone.
Our polarised parts usually only get to see the part that is on the other end of the rope. My cookie-eating part sees the diet-Hitler, trying to unbalance them, and the diet-Hitler sees the cookie eater. They (understandably!) hate each other. When they notice that Self is listening, with genuine interest and with no judgement, this can help them to feel a lot better. They might say, ‘do you see this guy trying to pull me into the water? You get that I’m only trying to soothe you/keep you healthy, don’t you?’ ‘Yes’, says Self. ‘I see that. I get it. It’s tough for you!’ Parts, like people, feel better when they’re listened to without judgement. As they relax, they might also relax their grip on the rope a little bit.
🍪 We might catch sight of what’s underneath the polarisation.
Why do polarised parts have to pull so HARD? Usually it is because there are vulnerable exiled parts underneath the water, threatening to erupt with sadness or shame or fury and make huge waves that would definitely capsize the boat. I ate cookies because the difficult conversation actually made me feel inadequate - this exiled part holds shame and, when triggered, the shame started to overwhelm me.
The diet parts are also trying to keep shame away - if I put on weight then I’m ‘weak’ and that also proves my inadequacy.
We can heal these exiled parts by working with an IFS therapist, but even knowing that they’re there and sending them a little love can help a lot.
🍪 Our polarised parts might get to know each other a little better and stop being such mortal enemies.
As I said above, as we get to know polarised parts better we can see that they are both trying their best to keep us safe and steady in their own way. In this example they are both trying to stop me from being overwhelmed by the shame of my inadequacy. As Self listens, our parts might realise that they’re not just trying to sabotage each other for the sake of it after all. They’re on the same side, but they just have opposite methods to each other. This can help them to feel more understanding of each other which, again, will help them to relax.
🍪 We are more likely to forgive ourselves.
Maybe it’s not the end of the world that I ate the cookies. It was a tough conversation! As I get clearer about what happened, the shame melts away a little and I can find my way back to my normal relationship with food.
So today’s wisdom gem is:
Peace is always possible
Can you identify any of your own parts that are polarised with each other, or with someone else? What’s helped you to ease their fighting? Any questions about anything I’ve shared today?
Go gently, the water can get choppy out there…
Satya <3
The eight c’s - curiosity, compassion, calm, connectedness, creativity, courage, clarity and confidence.
Great post. Thank you. I can relate. I have the same two parts ~ wanting to watch Netflix all day versus working too hard. Sometimes I watch Netflix while I’m writing. The inner child finds it so hard to relax. I keep reassuring her it is safe now. I am learning to do that little by little.
Woah, needed to read this today and how! Who knew my cookie-eating side and my diet-Hitler side were actually engaged in a tug-of-war that could capsize my whole ship? LOVED your analogies. There’s always a way to bring peace by simply listening and giving a little love to our feuding parts :)