Containing Multitudes (and why they don't play together nicely)
Using the idea of multiple parts of ourselves to make sense of unhelpful habits and how to change them.
Have you ever had the feeling that there’s another personality inside your head who sometimes makes choices you’re later surprised about? I'm not talking about clinically diagnosed multiple personality disorder, which is a real psychological state that needs appropriate care from a qualified professional. I’m talking about the everyday sense where you go to work in the morning, completely committed to working out in the gym on the way home, but find yourself in the pub for happy hour with your work colleagues instead. Or looking at various decisions you’ve made in the recent past and thinking they were made by different people.
You’re not going mad. It’s a real thing. We all have multiple parts to ourselves (Walt Whitman wrote about this in Song of Myself in 1855). You may notice this if you have different groups of friends who don’t overlap. Say your work friends and your Taekwondo friends. You get on just fine with each group, but you’re only showing part of yourself to each group. This doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. Humans are social creatures, it’s perfectly okay to meet different needs in different groups. But in fact the concept of different parts of ourselves goes deeper than that.
The concept of Internal Family Systems originated with Dr Richard Schwartz in the 1980’s and defines itself like this:
IFS is a transformative tool that conceives of every human being as a system of protective and wounded inner parts led by a core Self. We believe the mind is naturally multiple and that is a good thing. Just like members of a family, inner parts are forced from their valuable states into extreme roles within us. Self is in everyone. It can’t be damaged. It knows how to heal.
This takes the Jungian concept I wrote about here of coping mechanisms and mid-life realignment and gives us another tool. I personally found it very helpful to compartmentalize certain experiences or aspects of the self so that I can better understand the patterns and make changes. IFS does this beautifully.
The concept is that we all have multiple ‘players’ inside us, who represent various interests or fears. The key is that they are all inherently generative (trying to make our life better) but that through life experiences, can sometimes become forced into ‘extreme states within us’. There is a ‘core self’ who is whole and who will ideally become the leader, and also three categories that our other selves get pushed into:
Managers (the protective parts which try to keep us functioning, no matter what is going on outside).
Exiles (injured parts of ourselves that have been exiled by the Managers and become more extreme to get heard).
Firefighters (the parts that put out emotional fires at any cost. Closely attuned to the amygdala and threat system, they are involved in unhealthy coping mechanisms like avoidance, compulsive behavior, addiction).
I found this concept fascinating when I first heard about it and wanted to find out who my internal actors were. You can try this exercise yourself.
The idea is that all parts of the self are welcome and valued (IFS have a worksheet to help you here). They are trying to do a positive job, but they may have received a garbled message. So the first step is to figure out who is there.
Like so much of self inquiry, this involves curiosity and questioning, and a willingness to listen what comes up without judgement or letting your internal fear jockey beat anyone up.
Ask what the part wants and what it believes. Let it tell you how it’s keeping you safe. The idea behind this system is that, done properly, you can shift the more extreme actors (particularly if you’re dealing with past trauma), releasing them from their historical burden and get them in line with where you actually want to go.
This might sound uncomfortable and a bit ‘woo-woo’ especially if you’re a logical or left-brain thinker. If so, I encourage you to regard it as a tool, a framework or a metaphor, and have a go anyway.
The process can be both heavy and light hearted. I have a part I call my ‘Compliance Manager’. In my childhood and adolescence, when I moved around a lot, always the new kid in school, she was a superpower — highly attuned to changing nuances, what I had to do to avoid being outcast, bending myself to fit the best mould so that I could make friends and grow in my new surroundings. But over time, she got a bit big for her boots and started insisting on straight jackets where none were really required. (Plus, I got older and less accommodating, and she has had to learn to let go of her gold star fixation). But understanding the valuable role she played earlier in my life has made it much easier to both understand some other, less helpful behavior that she’s triggered as an adult, and also to consciously let it go. This is very much a work in progress for me, but it’s rewarding when I catch myself about to say or act in a certain way and recognize that she’s grabbed the megaphone again.
I discussed this concept with life coach, Joey Owen, recently, who explained just how flexible this approach can be: a colleague needed to create a website for her business: she ‘metaphorically sat all her inner parts on the sofa in front of her and said “Right, you lot, I need to make a website. If you’re good at this, come forward, if you’re not, please stay seated, we’ll get to you later.”’
It was her way of sidelining the gremlins of doubt who plague so many of our endeavors, but without demonizing them or undercutting herself. It’s hard to be generative while also batting forces of doubt and fear. I love it when I meet woo-woo’s pragmatic edge!
The idea behind Internal Family Systems is not static. It’s not a ‘one and done’ deal. It’s a constantly evolving group. Some of whom may not be visible to you the first time you enquire. But it can be hugely valuable, particularly when you’re navigating a new way of living going forward and choosing to leave old patterns behind you.
You don’t have to blow up the village. You can make your peace with them first and then take the next step. And the beauty of this approach is that you can take it with you wherever you go from here. With every life decision you take. Tune into your internal ‘management board’ and help them work for you, not against you.
Let me know if you’ve tried this and what you discovered. Who was the most surprising character that showed up for you and how can you value their positive input — or at least intentions — as you negotiate with them?
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