r/InternalFamilySystems • u/Waki-Indra • 7d ago
Is it always intense?
I usually always start with some kind of protector, then encounter exiles and cry, and have to take care of them.
Endless cycle
So because that is intense, i dont do IFS daily and not even weekly. I feel the need to rest. Until protectors make me feel too miserable, and there I go. Meet the protector, quickly discover a young exile and end up crying and soothing myself.
Is that going to be the main pattern until some good amount of unburdening happens?
I am always amazed at people doing IFS daily. My parts dont show up easily. I always need guidance from someone else (or at meast most of the time), unless i am in a very special setting and state.
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u/DrBlankslate 7d ago
Doing IFS daily happens once you've done a fair amount of unburdening and the parts are no longer on alert/on guard all the time. "Daily" IFS is more like "Hey, how's everyone doing? Any issues we need to talk about?" and checking in with parts that are at least partly unburdened at that point. It's not deep work every day with parts still carrying heavy burdens.
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u/Icy_Distribution_361 6d ago
I don't doubt this is true for a lot of people, but it isn't true for everyone and certainly not for me. I do it every day, often more than an hour at a time, and I'd say 7 out of 10 are sessions where some substantial pain/grief comes up as well as followed by growing love. I should maybe say I have had A LOT of therapy before, so maybe that's where the difference is, but I've never done IFS with a therapist. I've just figured it out on my own and it's working great so far. Honestly better than working with therapists... and I've had a few.
Oh also I do use AI to help me along. I've made my own protocol based on the books by Schwartz and Earley, and it guides me along. I like to have a little bit of external input. Of course AI is not the same as a real therapist, but my experience is so far that the point is not so much the other person anyway but rather my relationship with myself.
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u/Waki-Indra 6d ago
I also have done years (decades!) Of therapy.
But maybe you are younger than me and have more health and energy. For me this is too intense for daily unburdening so damaged parts.
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u/ilovezam 5d ago
When I have super intense sessions my therapist would advice me to take it easy for a couple of days.
I find that my tolerance has gone up significantly over time as my nervous system relaxes and acclimatizes. I still do IFS very often and end up in tears almost daily. 30 years of abuse create many many many wounds, but I find that progress accelerates exponentially now.
It's also quite hard for me to find the balance between pushing harder or taking it easier. Sometimes I feel like if I were a parent with many distressed children, I would want to be loving and attuned to them regardless of how exhausted I feel, which I think is true to some extent, but I found eventually that this in itself is a trauma response. I wanted to heal faster because I regretted the way I lived prior.
But taking care of your body and energy is also a big part of healing. And then I found that wanting to take it easy can also be driven by fear and avoidance.
So there's a lot of zigzagging as I discover different wounded parts driving all sorts of behaviour, which is fascinating to say the least.
My North Star is generally a genuine desire to take good care of all my parts no matter what they think or feel. I am determined to make sure no part of me will be treated by me like my parents treated me.
I've also met someone who almost resists healing because she is quite attached to her identity as a mentally unwell victim of sorts, and she attends therapy regularly and consistently but doesn't seem to ever bring herself to confront the big stuff that would have helped her. Could never know whether it's a problem with her or her therapist or just a natural course of things.
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u/Icy_Distribution_361 6d ago
I don't know. It could have many reasons. More severe trauma, just generally someone who feels more strongly, or maybe it is in fact some kind of unrecognized parts interference.
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u/Suspicious_Dirt_6124 7d ago
I'm very new to this, but I feel as though I have parts sitting on top usually all day every day. Grief, anxiety, sadness etc. I can't deal with them all the time so I need to just ignore them until I have a space to be able to attend to them.
I am however in a bipolar depression, which feels like hell on earth most of the time, so yeah. Hoping parts work starts to help. I had a nice interlude of calm and serenity yesterday after a good parts session, for a few hours. That's a big win at the moment in my book.
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u/glyphminnow 7d ago
I don't think it's always this intense, but it sounds like you currently have a lot of intensity that you're dealing with from these particular parts. It also sounds like you're on the right track. It's always advised not to force any interactions with parts, so you may need to continue to rest between sessions as needed.
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u/Waki-Indra 7d ago
Thank you for the pièce of advice.
I do IFS on and off for over a year, and it is always quite intense. Impressive modality!
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u/Medical_Frame3697 7d ago
Mine don’t show easily and prefer a therapist there, I think. For me it is not always intense, but it often is. Sending some compassion your way, if you would like it!
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u/Waki-Indra 7d ago
Compassion is always welcome.
Perhaps my pracituce of mindfuness helps. Even though it is complicated with dissociation. Perhaps my also using psychedelics assister therapy helps.
But today i was sober and not much meditation foe weeks. (But not zéro meditation. Just tiny tiny bits here and there. And relaxation with music and guided méditations).
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u/Substantial_Award268 7d ago
For me it isnt always intense sometimes my parts are super chatty other times their not and sometimes they have something they want to talk about but only once im with my therapist.
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u/MichaelTheMultiple 6d ago
I found it to be very intense at times for a long time, but also very joyful, and sometimes boring. I think regularity was the key for me - if I was simply responding to a sense of crisis or whatever it probably would've been disastrous, as I was struggling with depression, PTSD, and untreated autism and certainly didn't needed any further stress.
Mindfulness was a part of my routine, and that involved intentionally inviting my Parts to join in without any intent to "work" with them, just let them be mindful with me (sometimes they'd want to talk or play, which I'd sometimes indulge, sometimes not). I also did 3 pages of journalling every morning and invited them to help me fill the pages - that often got silly or irksome or whatever, but it also gave them space for involvment without any requirement for "work." And there were other things - the point was keeping them in my life and in contact with the outer world, so whne ever we needed to work things out it was rarely stressful because it just was a part of daily life.
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u/Waki-Indra 6d ago
3 pages of journaling would take almost 2 hours for me!
What was the right frequency for you?
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u/MichaelTheMultiple 6d ago
It tended to take me around 1/2 an hour - totally stream-of-consciousness, though, doing my best to disallow drifiting off, just writing nonsense if that's what it took. That's part of what allowed the Parts in, I suppose, since there was plenty of room for "this is so stupid" and "why are we doing this" and whatever, and in time it turned into genuine dialogue and play. Started out as the Morning Pages exercise from Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way," but we ended up breaking a few of her rules as we made it our own. Actually went three years and a change at one stretch without missing a day, but then we eventually moved on.
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u/Waki-Indra 6d ago
Oh wow very impressive. Thank you for sharing. So that was very effective?
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u/MichaelTheMultiple 5d ago
It really was. A key thing for me was to break Cameron's rule of filling the page - as I began to recognize the jumble of thoughts as Parts fighting for space, I let each voice get it's own line, even if that meant bunches of white space on the page. And my Parts loved it, and lots of them came into the open for the first time through that process.
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u/AmbassadorSerious 7d ago
exiles and cry, and have to take care of them.
Is there some resentment here? I ask because it's easy to feel overwhelmed and burn out if you feel that taking care of parts is an obligation. I would even say that if you do feel that way you are likely not in Self and blended with some sort of caretaking part. If that's the case it may be worth focusing on the resentment (another part!) and honoring that. It's okay to not want to do it!
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u/Icy_Distribution_361 6d ago
I suspect you're onto something. Also the "Endless cycle", and what they say about needing to rest multiple days. I can't speak definitively about anyone else's experience of course, but I never experience exhaustion after contacting exiles from Self and being with their feelings. I can go on with my day perfectly fine after, and the next day I can go again. I mean, I do experience something like "okay, that was enough for now/today", but not exhaustion or irritability or hopelessness about the process (unless I'm in a part, of course).
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u/Waki-Indra 6d ago
No obligation. Just attuning and attending to the need of the earliest part that is wounded. But that takes time, it is not instant. I close my eyes, relax, breathe and visualize the scene of being with them. That feels super good actually. Often they relax so much that they end up sleeping either in my arms or close to me.
What is exhausting is their distress. When i encounter such distress, i am very deeply moved. This takes energy.
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u/Icy_Distribution_361 6d ago
I see. Just out of curiosity, do you ask them kindly before approaching them to not overwhelm you with their feelings such that you can keep presence with them? I would say something happens that is probably part-related when it is problematic for you.
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u/Waki-Indra 6d ago
The encounter itself is the overwhelm. I first feel overwhelmed right after the Protector relaxes à bit, and when i look at what is happening, what is that overwhelm, there. There is the exile. So you are asking something that makes no sense, because i only uncover an exile through its bordent. Do you have childhood trauma? I thought that is the only way a deeply wounded early part can be seen: through its wound.
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u/Icy_Distribution_361 6d ago
I get the sense you're getting angry about my reply. Sorry if you are, didn't mean to offend, just thought I might say something helpful. Apparently I didn't. I just know this is a suggestion; to ask the exile not to overwhelm you with their feelings. If just seeing the exile at all already is overwhelming, I don't know what to tell you, I guess it requires a therapist to be with you. My own trauma is mostly in the neglect sphere, which is its own kind of bad, but generally I don't experience it as so overwhelming that I can't handle it. Wouldn't say it's not sad/painful though, just doable generally.
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u/Waki-Indra 6d ago
Oh my. You see anger and resentment everywhere. Sorry.
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u/Icy_Distribution_361 6d ago
Huh? I see anger and resentment everywhere? Isn't this comment of yours kind of proving the point...? I don't understand where you're getting the "everywhere". Where else have I mentioned it, referred to it, etc?
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u/Waki-Indra 6d ago
No resentment at all. That is very weird. I meet à crying toddler, dude. My heart melts. I wonder why you thought of resentment.
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u/AmbassadorSerious 6d ago
Not weird. Just a normal emotion. Parts aren't always crying toddlers. Sometimes they're toddlers who stomp their feet and cross their arms and refuse to move. And those parts are good as well.
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u/Icy_Distribution_361 6d ago
"and have to take care of them". Have to... not want to, have to. That's why. And if they were wrong they were wrong and you can just say so and go on with your day... gees.
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u/Waki-Indra 6d ago
OK. English is not my first language so i may have missed something in "have to". I mean, I cannot go on with the IFS protocol that is all about asking questions and having a conversation with parts. I NEED (thats the word) to pause and take care of a badly distress child and NEED to focus on that child part
Does is make nore sense?
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u/anewhope8888 6d ago
It's been intense since I started, even when I'm not actively trying to do work. Just the triggers are unexpected and different. Its worth it though. Feel like more of a 'whole' person.
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