At War With Ourselves

Using Internal Family Systems to Turn Pain Into Peace

Richard C. Schwartz book on Internal Family Systems

Greetings to all you lovely people who open these emails whenever they grace your inbox. Recently, I’ve had trouble getting back into a writing habit. When I first started this newsletter, the plan was to produce and post a new piece of writing every week. I was able to do that for a while, but then the timeline got longer.

“Twice a month isn’t so bad,” eventually became, “can I even sustain once a month?” As the goal posts kept changing, the cruel voices in my head grew louder. I felt that I had let myself, and the people supporting me, down. My sense of motivation was missing in action and I didn’t know what to do. But my inner critic, as always, was quick to speak up.

Surprise, surprise, you failed! It’s because you never work hard enough.

Everyone thinks you’re a loser.

You’re embarrassing yourself. Do better or quit altogether.

I’ve tried my best to fight back by telling this critical part of myself to shut the fuck up and please please leave me alone. But this critic never responds well to my aggression and instead keeps the shame train running.

The more I hear its cruel commentary, the more I believe it. And the more I believe it, the easier it becomes to fall into the self-hating abyss. Eventually, this inner bully doesn’t even need to do its job anymore because I start doing it for it. Before it starts to shame me, I beat it to the punch.

It’s true. I’m a loser. There is no point. Why bother?

Self-criticism is not new to me, and I’d wager it isn’t a foreign concept to most people. We’ve all got dreams — money, power, and love being significant ones that we humans often find ourselves in agony over. There never seems to be enough of any of it.

My internal bully has been on my mind more lately since I’ve been listening to the audiobook “No Bad Parts” written by academic and family therapist Richard Schwartz. He is the creator of the branch of therapy called Internal Family Systems (IFS) or “part’s work.” Essentially, it is a therapy model that helps people identify the different personalities or “parts” that make up their psyche. (And yes, it is kinda like the Inside Out movies.)

As I understand it, per IFS, we all contain parts that make up who we are, and these parts are guided by a “Self” which is who we are at our most grounded. The “Self” is the force inside you that is kind, loving, and has your best interest in mind. Some people look at “Self” as intuition, Higher Self, God, or the Universe. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how you define it. The point is, everyone has it and can access it. During IFS sessions, patients learn how to communicate with their parts and resolve conflicts within themselves.

Parts work provides a helpful framework to understand a concept that humans have grappled with since the dawn of time: being in conflict with oneself. It is the angel and devil on your shoulders. It is God and Devil. Light and dark; positive and negative. Left unchecked, we create war within ourselves.

When battles between parts are unresolved, eventually, they bleed into our external realities. Translation: internal abuse creates external abuse. And this abuse can be in self-harming ways, or it can manifest in harming others. Over time, we come to see these behaviors as a way to escape from and self-soothe our inner distress (even if only for a moment).

Because humanity is so accustomed to battles — both internal and external — it is no surprise that we also possess the capacity for global battles. As we’ve seen throughout history, as well as our current timeline, the consequences are catastrophic, and the scales of misery and cruelty seem to have no limit.

It is a horrifying reality that our species has created weapons which can kill entire cities of people in the blink of an eye. Another chilling reality is how capital mutilates our world. In the quest for more, the planet, our home, is treated with the same disposability as that of a tissue. We destroy each other, and we destroy our lands. And it feels like the most natural thing in the world because we’re already so used to destroying ourselves.

Although it will not solve all of life’s problems, healing the inner war of self is a step in the right direction. If more people knew how to process their emotions and engage in de-escalation practices within their own minds, I truly believe our world would look different. We have enough people in the world who are guided by anger and shame — we need more who are led by love.

Of course, this shift cannot happen overnight because the compulsion to fight ourselves is what we’re used to. Society teaches us that we must “fight” the evil forces that infect our minds and bodies. Even our daily language is ripe with aggression, but it’s so embedded into us that we don’t even notice. We fight our addictions. We battle depression. We beat cancer. It’s all a game with winners and losers.

We learn that struggles like addiction, compulsive behaviors, and patterned thinking are our enemies. Not today Satan! Sometimes this works, but fighting has never proven to be a long-term solution to any problem that life offers. And long-term fighting can easily become toxic.

When the battling doesn’t work (and it never can for long) relapse occurs, and we mistakenly believe that we are back at square one. The logic goes that if we cannot fight these forces, we must not be doing the “right” kind of fighting, or perhaps we are not strong enough to win.

To combat this problem (another fighting word) we sprinkle-in some more aggression or fear. The more difficult it becomes to fight the fighter however, the more our shame increases. Fighting these internal battles, when done habitually, is exhausting. And with exhaustion comes more shame. In our tiredness, we see weakness.

Except that it isn’t weakness. No my dear, it is a cry for love.

Circling back to IFS, the philosophy is based around the idea that the parts of ourselves that we feel do the most damage to our lives are actually trying their best to help us — they’re just not doing it in the way that we need. With practice and patience however, they can be nurtured into becoming our biggest cheerleaders.

Although IFS is a therapy model, anybody can start practicing. Here’s an example of how one can communicate with their parts using their capital S, Self. I’ll be using my current struggles with my inner critic, who I’ve named Ms. Critic, as the sample. You can do this in a journal, in a meditation, or in a cozy and quiet space in your home.

Self: Hi there Miss Critic. Are you available to talk?

Ms. Critic: Sure, I guess. (She huffs and rolls her eyes)

Self: Thank you for agreeing to chat. I want to understand: why do you criticize me?

Ms. Critic: I criticize you because you suck at living your life!

Self: Okay harsh. But you didn’t answer my question. And by the way, I won’t accept answers that are designed to hurt me cuz newsflash: I’m in charge here.

Ms. Critic: Okay okay fine, yeesh! Look babe, I criticize you because I know you can do better. So when I see you struggling with motivation or laziness, I get so angry and annoyed because I’m watching you waste your potential. And how dare you waste the gifts you’ve been given?

Self: Why do you care if I “waste” my potential or not?

Ms. Critic: Oh my god, isn’t it obvious? It’s because I know about all of your dreams and I’m trying to help you achieve them!

Self: Well, I can’t say I like your approach, but I’m happy to know that you want me to achieve my goals.

Ms. Critic: Of course I do! I wouldn’t be so loud if I didn’t.

Self: Well, this definitely puts things into perspective... Thank you for believing in me so much Ms. Critic. I’m truly moved. Now here’s the tough part: we’re going to need to completely change the way that we communicate with one another. I know you’re just trying to help me, but your commentary actually has the opposite intended effect — it makes me feel less motivated, not more.

Ms. Critic: It’s not my fault you feel that way! Maybe if you just worked harder I wouldn’t have to step-in so much.

Self: How do you define “hard work”?

Ms. Critic: Is this a trick question?

Self: Not at all. I want to understand what you mean. Per your definition, if I was working as hard as I should be, what would that look like?

Ms. Critic: Well obviously you’d be really really busy and stressed.

Self: Huh, that’s interesting. It makes a lot of sense that you’d feel that way. We grew up struggling to keep up in school and now, in our adulthood, we’ve developed a pattern. We have periods of intensity, and then we get totally burnt out.

Ms. Critic: Yeah, I know! And this is what I’m talking about. I know you can be in that intense place! So lets go back there.

Self: See this is what you’re not getting. I’m not going back there.

Ms. Critic: But why not??!! It worked before!

Self: It did, but it won’t anymore. It’s time for us to do things differently.

Ms. Critic: Well what if the way you want to do things doesn’t work?

Self: It might not. But I know that the way you and I communicate now doesn’t work either, so it’s time to try something new. Things are going to change between you and I. I’m not asking you by the way, I’m telling you.

Ms. Critic: B-but that’s not fair! I was just trying to help you!

Self: I know sweety, and you did! It’s just that I’m a lot older now, and I’m the leader here. I know it’s so hard to learn new systems but don’t worry, I’ll be holding your hand the entire time. We’ll do it together — how does that sound?

Ms. Critic: It sounds okay, I guess.

This is a condensed version of a conversation I’ve had with myself and, if you haven’t spoken with any of your parts before, the conversation could be much longer. Or, you might struggle to differentiate between the parts at first. That’s all okay. I’ve journaled for years, and have communicated with this part many times, so I already had a degree of insight before officially labeling this part “Ms. Critic”. But just because we’ve spoken before doesn’t mean I’m suddenly enlightened and never fall into her drama. I know that Ms. Critic and I will have many more conversations throughout my life.

IFS teaches that many of our parts formed at young ages and, because of this, they still believe that we are those ages. My struggles with motivation and fear of failure are, in part, linked to the stress I experienced during my school days. For years I struggled to keep up, especially in math and science classes, and felt extreme anxiety around exams and grades.

Miss Critic is absolutely convinced that I will fail in life unless I put myself into an extreme state of anxiety and so, when she doesn’t see me experiencing that, she says whatever she can to get me to panic. Panicking may have helped me back in the day to cram for tests, but this is far from the only method to achieve goals in life, and it’s my job to remind her of that.

When communicating with parts, it’s important to speak to them with patience and confidence. As you probably saw in my example, I made a point to speak to Ms. Critic with understanding, but also set clear boundaries.

When doing parts work, our parts will not easily accept us taking the reins because they believe they know best. Arguing with parts is common — especially if you’ve relied on their guidance for years. But fear not. With enough patience on ourselves, they will eventually grow to trust you and relax their grip. With time, you will gain the confidence to know that you are in the driver’s seat and that they are your youthful passengers.

Before talking to Ms. Critic, it would have been easy to label this part of myself as something evil or bad. After speaking with her, though, it becomes clear that this part is actually rooting for my success, but just in a way that doesn’t work for me anymore. With time and nurturing, these parts can be soothed into being our most loving fans. I challenge you to start talking to and identifying these parts — you may be surprised by what you find.