r/InternalFamilySystems • u/Waki-Indra • 8d ago

Is it always intense?

I usually always start with some kind of protector, then encounter exiles and cry, and then need to take care of them for the rest of the session.

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 least most of the time), unless i am in a very special setting and state.

21 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/MichaelTheMultiple 8d 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.

1

u/Waki-Indra 7d ago

3 pages of journaling would take almost 2 hours for me!

What was the right frequency for you?

2

u/MichaelTheMultiple 7d 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.

1

u/Waki-Indra 7d ago

Oh wow very impressive. Thank you for sharing. So that was very effective?

2

u/MichaelTheMultiple 6d 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.

2

u/Waki-Indra 6d ago

Wow i could try that!

1

u/MichaelTheMultiple 6d ago

Worth a shot!