I am honoured to be a Featured Teacher on Insight Timer's home page for the upcoming week. I love this app and am so proud to be part of a global community of teachers, producing – mostly free – content for the 26 million meditators who use Insight Timer across the globe.
If you would like to try one of my breathwork practices, mindfulness, self-compassion or IFS meditations, or guided-imagery practices, check out my collection at: insighttimer.com/danrobertstherapy
Love ❤️
Dan
Image by Giulia Bertelli
I am pleased to announce the launch of my second Premium Audio Course for Insight Timer – Easing Worry & Anxiety with Internal Family Systems. If you sign up to this six-day course today you will learn why you feel so anxious, starting with the evolutionary and neurological roots of anxiety, explaining why it’s a crucial emotion for us all to feel, because it alerts us to threats and helps us react to them, quickly if need be.
Understanding why you feel so anxious is a key step in learning to accept it, because anxiety is something we all feel and is an important alarm signal when things need our attention. And then helping you ease it over time – this course will help you start to feel calmer, safer, and more at peace, step by step.
Over the six days you will also learn about internal family systems therapy, which is one of the fastest growing and most popular models of therapy in the world right now. As an Internal Family Systems Therapist, I use this warm, compassionate, and highly effective treatment approach with my clients and in my teaching, because it offers a revolutionary way of understanding problems like chronic anxiety.
You will learn that this anxiety comes from an anxious young part of you, holding painful thoughts, feelings, and memories of difficult experiences in your childhood. To ease your anxiety, you need to learn how to connect with, understand and soothe this anxious little boy or girl inside.
I will also teach you that worry comes from another part of you, called the Worrier. Again, you will learn how to accept and even value this protective part, because it’s just trying to help, even if the way it does so can be stressful and exhausting at times.
I hope you join me on this transformative six-day journey, which includes theories and techniques drawn from my many years of helping clients better manage their anxiety. As well as trauma-informed teaching about the mind-body source of problematic anxiety, I will lead you through powerful calming techniques including breathwork and guided-imagery exercises, drawn from IFS and other trauma-informed therapy models.
The course is free if you become a Member Plus Supporter. This costs just $60 for 12 months of high-quality content like this on the Insight Timer app from me and thousands of other leading teachers.
Try it now by visiting my Insight Timer collection or clicking on the button below.
I hope you find it insightful and healing.
Love ❤️
Dan
Image by Nik
One of the frustrating aspects of being human can be dealing with other humans. Not the nice, kind, reasonable ones. But the annoying, rude, disrespectful ones – I’m sure you have a few of those in your life. And managing these tricky customers is not easy, especially if they are partners, family members, close friends or colleagues. If someone says or does something hurtful or annoying, you may respond in all sorts of unhelpful ways, like firing off an angry message, giving them the silent treatment, people-pleasing or suppressing your own needs, desires and opinions to keep the peace.
Viewed through the parts-based lens of internal family systems therapy, we can take a more compassionate view, as everyone (including me!) has tricky protective parts, who might get angry, judgemental or even hostile to protect your younger, more vulnerable parts from being hurt. This may be especially important for you if you were harshly criticised, bullied or shamed as a child – that’s when those protectors came online for you and why they will fire up with great speed and ferocity if they sense something similar happening to you now.
So when you are in conflict with someone, it’s like a war between their protectors and yours. Their angry protector fires up and says something hurtful or mean. So your angry protector gets activated and fires a verbal volley at them, which comes back at you and so it goes until somebody ‘wins’ or backs down. Entirely understandable, but not usually very productive, because one or both of you could get hurt, or you might damage a relationship that’s important to you. Many marriages end in divorce precisely for this reason.
Happily, there is a more productive, kind and effective way to resolve conflict. In order to do that, you need to approach this difficult person from your Self, asking your protectors to relax and let you (strong, confident, adult you) handle the situation. I have written a few posts about Self, but as a refresher, in IFS Self is described as you who is not a part, or who you are deep down. This is the you who is calm, sturdy, robust and resilient. When you are in Self you also feel authentic, compassionate and kind. With this energy, you can approach conflict without out-of-control anger or hostility, but a firm, steady, assertive energy that both protects you and diffuses the situation.
If you would like to see the human embodiment of Self-energy, watch the wonderful Netflix documentary featuring the late Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, Mission: Joy – Finding Happiness in Troubled Times. Both are wise, kind and deeply spiritual, in their own ways. There is a deep strength to them (one who successfully fought apartheid and the other continues to combat oppression by the Chinese government) coupled with huge-heartedness, warmth and a deep sense of playfulness and joy. Two remarkable leaders and qualities we can all aspire to, or develop, the more we live in Self and are less in thrall to well-meaning but unhelpful parts.
If you are struggling with a difficult person in your life, here is a guided-imagery practice I adapted from the classic IFS meditation, developed by the wonderful Dr Richard Schwartz, founder of IFS. You can do this alone or, ideally, with a partner – if you have help, they can read you the script while you sit with eyes closed.
The script for this practice is quite long, but I have included the whole thing so you can use it, with a friend, family member or therapist. (If you are a therapist and would like to use this with your clients, on social media or in your teaching, please credit me and link to my Insight Timer collection).
You may prefer to listen to the recording on Insight Timer, which you can do here – Fire Drill: IFS Meditation.
Welcome to this Fire Drill Meditation. This is a short practice you can use any time you are feeling angry with someone or dealing with some conflict in your life.
As you go through this practice, I encourage you to pause whenever you need to, if you feel you need more time. You may also want to spend some time journaling afterwards, making a note of anything you learned and want to remember.
Now close your eyes, if that feels OK for you, or gently lower your gaze. Then find a comfortable sitting posture and start by feeling your feet, flat and grounded on the floor. Then gently roll your shoulders back and feel your chest opening up, lengthen your spine so you’re sitting in an upright but relaxed posture.
Take some nice deep breaths – in through your nose, out through your mouth, to a slow count of four on the in-breath and four on the out-breath, for 30 seconds.
Now I want you to think of someone who is really getting on your nerves at the moment. This could be your partner or child, a family member, a friend or colleague. Or it could even be a politician, a celebrity, or someone on social media you have never met but have a strong, negative reaction to.
And now, in your mind’s eye, put that person in a room, so you’re outside the room and watching them through a large window. Have them do the thing they do which annoys you so much – it could be sending you a critical message, saying something unkind, ignoring or belittling you.
It could be expressing an opinion you vehemently disagree with, or find offensive in some way. Perhaps you feel they are being selfish, or unkind to you or someone you love.
Just stand outside the room, watching them say or do the thing that triggers you.
Then notice the parts that are with you outside the room, wanting to protect you from this person, or the ones who feel scared or vulnerable around them and in need of protection.
There might only be one main part involved in this conflict, or a whole group of them there with you.
As you stand outside with your parts, know that you don’t have to go into the room. It might be best to use this time just getting to know these parts of you – both the scared ones and those trying to protect them.
Start by asking your protective parts what they are scared would happen if they weren’t out front protecting you from this person. They may have all kinds of fears and concerns – like you being hurt, attacked, manipulated or shamed by the triggering person – so just listen to and acknowledge these fears, whatever they may be.
And then, don’t try and force anything, but if you can send your protectors a little wave of appreciation, or gratitude, for how hard they work to protect you from this person, and others like them, that would be great.
Once you’ve done that, speak to the scared parts, who may be quite young. Ask them why they find this person so difficult. It’s likely that the difficult person reminds these young ones of someone in the past who really did hurt them, so if that’s the case, hear them out and comfort them in any way that feels authentic and natural for you.
That might be with reassuring words, or a hug, if that feels good for these scared parts. Just see what comes naturally and do that.
Then, ask for permission from all your parts – both the scared ones and the protectors – to go and speak to this person while they watch through the window.
If that’s too much for them, it’s no problem at all, just spend some time understanding that and why this person pushes so many buttons for them.
But if it is OK for them, open the door, go inside the room and leave your parts outside.
Sit down opposite your triggering person and spend some time talking to them. The purpose of this is not to try and change this person or win the argument in any way, just spend some time listening to and talking with them.
What’s it like to face him or her and speak to them, just as your Self, without your protective parts reacting so strongly? How does it feel in your body? What’s your tone of voice like? What language are you using? Are you able to be calmer, more direct, more assertive? There is no right or wrong way to do this, but just notice whatever’s happening.
As you continue speaking to this person, you may notice your protectors getting involved, especially if you become irritated, hostile or defensive in any way, or find yourself interrupting and talking more than listening. If this happens, see if that protective part is willing to go back outside and let you finish talking to this person, alone. Reassure them that you can handle this and nothing bad will happen.
When you’re done, thank the person for speaking to you and go back outside, closing the door.
Ask your parts, what was that like for them? How did they feel about the way you handled this challenging person? Was it OK for them, or do they have any worries about it? Just listen, whatever they have to say.
If it felt OK for your parts, you could also ask them whether they are willing to let you do this in the real world, with this person and others you find difficult.
When that feels complete, thank your parts for letting you go into the room, if they did, or for sharing their fears with you if they didn’t.
Do whatever you need to make that feel complete, then let the image fade away – it’s fading, fading and then it’s gone.
Take a deep breath and bring your focus back outside. Then come on back and open your eyes.
I hope that was helpful for you. Try using this practice whenever you have to deal with a difficult person, or are feeling triggered or activated by someone. You may find it helps to make those tricky people in your life just a little less tricky, as well as building your muscles of confidence, strength and assertiveness.
You can also listen to a recording of this practice in my Insight Timer Collection, by clicking on the button below.
Love ❤️
Dan
Another satisfied student after taking my new Premium Audio Course for Insight Timer – Healing from Childhood Trauma with IFS & Self-Compassion. Over 800 students have already taken the course and found it powerful and healing, giving it consistently positive feedback like this.
If you sign up today you will learn about child development, temperament, core developmental needs, schemas and the IFS model of internal parts, how to work with your Inner Critic, what we mean by childhood trauma and neglect – as well as how to heal from these painful experiences using powerful techniques drawn from schema therapy, compassion-focused therapy, mindful self-compassion and internal family systems.
The course is free if you become a Member Plus Supporter. This costs just $60 for 12 months of high-quality content like this on the Insight Timer app from me and thousands of other leading teachers.
Try it now by visiting my Insight Timer collection or clicking on the button below.
I hope you find it insightful and healing.
Love ❤️
Dan
Image by Wes Hicks
Have you listened to my new Premium Audio Course for Insight Timer yet – Healing from Childhood Trauma with IFS & Self-Compassion? Over 600 students have already taken the course and found it powerful and healing, giving it five-star reviews and consistently positive feedback.
If you sign up today you will learn about child development, temperament, core developmental needs, schemas and the IFS model of internal parts, how to work with your Inner Critic, what we mean by childhood trauma and neglect – as well as how to heal from these painful experiences using powerful techniques drawn from schema therapy, compassion-focused therapy, mindful self-compassion and internal family systems.
The course is free if you become a Member Plus Supporter. This costs just $60 for 12 months of high-quality content like this on the Insight Timer app from me and thousands of other leading teachers.
Try it now by clicking on the button below. I hope you enjoy it!
Love ❤️
Dan
Image by Sean Oulashin
I am excited to announce the launch of my new Premium Audio Course for Insight Timer – Healing from Childhood Trauma with IFS & Self-Compassion. If you struggle with your mental health, and especially if you had a difficult childhood, I hope you will find this course calming and insightful.
You will be guided on a healing journey with eight days of teaching and experiential exercises such as journalling, guided imagery, breathwork and meditation. The eight lessons range in length from 15-20 minutes, so are easy to fit into your busy day.
I am really proud of this course – it synthesises many of the things I am most passionate about into one short, powerful week of teaching. You will learn about child development, temperament, core developmental needs, schemas and the IFS model of internal parts, how to work with your Inner Critic, what we mean by childhood trauma and neglect – as well as how to heal from these painful experiences using powerful techniques drawn from schema therapy, compassion-focused therapy, mindful self-compassion and internal family systems.
The course is free if you become a Member Plus Supporter. This costs just $60 for 12 months of high-quality content like this on the Insight Timer app from me and thousands of other leading teachers.
Get started now by clicking on the button below. I hope you enjoy it!
Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️
Dan
Image by Lili Popper
Have you ever been in therapy? I’m guessing, as you are currently reading this post on a blog all about mental health, that the answer is yes. If so, did it help? I certainly hope so, but sadly many people try different therapists, as well as different flavours of therapy, and find them either minimally helpful or not much help at all.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that all therapies are unhelpful. It’s just that, in my experience, people often choose therapists without really understanding the exact type of therapy they offer, why it’s better/worse than other approaches, or whether it’s the best approach for them.
Let me give you a concrete example. If you have experienced trauma in your life, you will probably need professional help to recover from that. And so you may find yourself a nice, friendly, caring counsellor, who says what you need is to talk through those traumatic events in great detail. But for many people just talking about what they have been through, in an unstructured way, will not only be unhelpful, but actually re-traumatising.
You would need a trauma-informed therapy like EMDR, sensorimotor psychotherapy, somatic experiencing, trauma-informed stabilisation treatment, schema therapy or trauma-focused CBT. All of these approaches will help you process your traumatic memories in a safe, structured and focused way. Just talking about your experiences, in this case, is not the way to heal them.
Let me be clear – I’m not knocking counselling here. There are some wonderful counsellors out there and the work they do is invaluable. It’s especially helpful to get you through a tough time, like bereavement or divorce, when a kind, empathic, non-judgemental person is exactly what you need. But mainstream counselling is not designed to help with trauma, which is why it’s not the right choice if that’s the kind of help you need.
The longer I do this work and the more therapy models I study, the more I believe that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to healing, whatever kind of psychological problem you are struggling with. I often think to myself, ‘What does this person need, at this moment, in this session?’ And I then draw from a wide range of theories, techniques and strategies in my mind to find just the right one for that person, in that moment.
You might also find that you need different therapies at different times in your life – where a highly focused, time-limited approach like CBT may be perfect for one phase of your life, a longer-term, less-structured modality like IFS may be right for another phase, or set of problems.
With that in mind, if you are considering therapy, here are some suggestions for finding your own path to healing, happiness and a flourishing life:
The relationship is everything. Whichever of the many wonderful therapies you choose, remember that the primary healing agent in any therapy is the relationship between you and your therapist. This is especially true in longer-term approaches, like schema therapy or psychodynamic therapy. But even in short-term models like CBT, feeling safe in the room (or online) with someone, that they get you, care about you, are warm and nurturing, is crucial. I often tell people to shop around – if you have an assessment with someone and it doesn’t feel right, trust your gut and find another person.
Trauma-informed therapies for trauma-processing work. As I mentioned earlier, it’s so important to find a trauma-informed therapy/therapist if you have experienced trauma in your life. The bigger and more impactful the trauma, the more important this is. So ask your prospective therapist about their model, experience and plans to help you heal. If their answers seem a little off, or unconvincing, keep shopping.
Therapy is just one piece of the pie. As well as integrating various therapy models in my work, I am also a holistic practitioner. I talk to my clients about many things, but top of the list is how much sleep they are getting and whether they exercise regularly. We are only beginning to understand the importance of sleep for mental and physical health (spoiler alert: it’s profoundly important).
And getting regular exercise is right up there with good-quality therapy, in my opinion. We need to move our bodies, in ways we enjoy, as often as possible. I’m talking weight-training, HIIT, spin classes, walking, swimming, yoga, dancing, running, vigorous gardening, rock climbing… Every system in your brain and body is built to work optimally when you’re moving, your heart rate is up, blood is pumping, your breaths are deep and skin is warm.
Extensive research shows that exercise is a powerful healing agent for stress, anxiety and depression – the three main types of psychological problem people struggle with. Meditation is also key, as are warm, loving relationships, a healthy (ideally Mediterranean) diet, moderate drinking, a healthy microbiome, mind-opening books and podcasts… Therapy is an important piece of the pie, but it’s certainly not the only one.
I hope you found that thought-provoking and helpful. I also hope you find the right person/approach for you, as that can be life-changing.
And if you are struggling right now, sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️
Dan
Image by Travis Saylor
Do you ever feel stuck? Are you plagued by procrastination? Do you find yourself full of good intentions, plans and goals but struggle to achieve any of them? These questions feel especially relevant in this first week of the new year, when we are all encouraged to come up with noble-sounding, life-changing resolutions, which often end up dusty and discarded a few weeks later.
And they feel especially relevant to me, because I have felt a bit blocked this week. I came back from my holiday feeling pretty well rested and batteries recharged. This is a quiet week, therapy-wise, as many of my clients have kids who are not yet back at school. So I thought to myself, ‘Great! The perfect week to write lots of blog posts, social-media content and get started on that Insight Timer course I have planned…’
And I have done some of those things but, honestly, it’s been a struggle. I have procrastinated, a lot. I’m currently reading a brilliant book – Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently, by Steve Silberman – so that has filled many of my quieter hours. It’s fascinating, and of course hugely beneficial for my work and understanding of neurodiversity, but it’s also a handy excuse to not be writing myself.
This stuckness and procrastination is very familiar to me. Because, as I have learned over the years, I have one part – who I call the Hard Worker – that is relentlessly focused on getting stuff done. And he is amazing, because he has helped me achieve so much in my career. Everything I have done, any success I have had, is all down to him and his drive, energy and determination.
But there is a downside to this highly-energised part – he doesn’t get that I am human. So he keeps driving me, taking on more and more projects, working harder and with greater intensity, until I am teetering on the edge of burnout and have to take a big step back.
There is another part – who I call the Shutdown Part – who has the exact opposite job inside. When the Hard Worker has me hurtling towards exhaustion, this one just shuts me down. Sometimes I get sick, either with a bug or just feeling nauseous and wiped out. Sometimes he makes me feel down, with low energy and motivation. Other times I just can’t come up with yet another idea for my blog, Instagram post or guided meditation. I’m done.
So if you are feeling any of those things right now, don’t despair. It’s probably someone inside telling you that it’s too much. You need a break. Just because it’s a new year doesn’t mean we are all magically fizzing with energy and zest for life. The days are cold and dark and, really, we should all be hibernating, not rushing off to the gym/getting sober/losing 10lb/starting a new side-hustle.
Instead, the key is to integrate the wisdom of both sides of you – the pedal-to-the-metal side and the hide-under-the-duvet side. They both mean well and are trying to help, even if their method of helping isn’t always, well, very helpful. So integration is key, rather than lurching from one extreme to the other (as in yo-yo dieting, for example, or getting sober and then relapsing over and over again).
As I am often saying in these posts, parts-based therapy models like schema therapy or internal family systems teach us that rather than letting one part drive us, the key is to integrate them all, with you (calm, rational, loving, adult you – the Compassionate Self) in charge at all times.
So to put this more concretely, if your Compassionate Self is in charge, you might resolve to go to the gym twice a week, instead of every day. That is entirely doable and a resolution you can stick to. Or, instead of suddenly going from wolf-like carnivore to strict vegan, how about eating plant-based meals every other day? If you want to drink less, that’s a good idea – but moderation every week for the rest of the year is better than Dry January and then back to excessive boozing. These are all achievable and realistic goals, which means they are likely to last longer than February.
Integral to this kinder, gentler approach is learning to make more thoughtful, considered decisions. I notice that the decisions I make in haste are often not very helpful, in the long run, so it’s always best to slow down and choose more slowly and skilfully, when we can. In the mindfulness world this is called taking a ‘mindful pause’, which is why I developed this practice for Insight Timer – Learn How to Take a Mindful Pause.
I hope you enjoy it – and that you have a wonderful, mindful, fruitful year ahead.
Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️
Dan
Image by Tashi Nyima
Let me ask you a question: How do you feel about yourself, in general? I hope you mostly like and approve of yourself. But the opposite may be true – you may really dislike yourself and find it hard to treat yourself with anything approaching kindness. Sadly, this is especially likely to be true if you have a trauma history, because that often scrambles our sense of ourselves.
But even if you’re lucky enough to like yourself, most of the time, I bet there are parts of you that you’re not so keen on. Your inner Critic, for example. As I often say to my clients, nobody loves their Critic! That’s because this part of us often treats us harshly, or is highly demanding, pushing us way too hard with a long lists of shoulds (‘You should be doing better than this, what’s wrong with you?’ or ‘You should be thinner/smarter/richer/more popular/harder-working…’).
We may also feel negatively towards parts that make us do stuff we find shameful, embarrassing or destructive in our lives. The part that makes us drink too much. The parts that tell us to gamble, smoke weed, work obsessively, pick the same kind of unsuitable person over and over. Nobody loves these guys.
But as I have written before in these posts, we need to understand that there are no bad parts (such an important idea that Dr Richard Schwartz, founder of Internal Family Systems therapy, used it as the title of one of his books). Even what are called ‘extreme’ parts in IFS, like the ones listed above, genuinely mean well. It can be hard to see that sometimes, but every part of you is either holding some kind of pain or trying to protect you from it. And the weed-smoking one, or the gambling one, are just trying to help you numb, soothe or avoid painful emotions.
It’s why people get home from an uber-stressful day and say, ‘God I need a glass of wine!’ Or why people rush out from high-pressure meetings to smoke a hasty cigarette. In both cases that’s a soother-type part, helping the person deal with painful/stressful feelings. Now this doesn’t mean that we should drink like fishes or smoke 40 a day! Of course not. We may need to help these parts change, or set limits on them, but it’s imperative that we do that collaboratively, with compassion, or it just doesn’t work.
That’s why people get sober and relapse, over and over. Or why many smokers quit again and again and again, but always end up back on the baccy. If you want to make deep, long-lasting changes in your life, you have to work with these parts, not against them. You need to understand why they are making you drink/smoke/work/gamble. There is always a reason – and that reason is usually helping you with some kind of pain.
I’m well aware that it’s much easier for me to write some encouraging words in a blog post than for you to actually change. To change the way you behave, day in and day out. Or the way you interact with these parts of yourself you may dislike, or even despise. It is not easy – take it from someone who spends their whole working life trying to help people change.
But it is doable. And this is one reason I recorded a new guided meditation recently – Sending Loving-Kindness to Every Part of You: IFS Meditation. I blended the classic Buddhist metta (loving-kindness) practice with the IFS approach, to help you develop greater feelings of self-acceptance, self-kindness and self-compassion for every part of you, even the tricky parts.
I’m pleased with this one, so I very much hope it helps.
Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️
Dan
Image by Benjamin DeYoung
Do you struggle with addiction or compulsive behaviour? Many of us do, whether that’s drinking a bit too much wine, too often, eating more chocolate than we would like, or impulsively buying stuff we don’t really need. Our use of substances and activities can range from mild and fairly benign, like a bit too much chocolate, to severe and potentially dangerous, like using heroin.
Whether you are at the mild or severe end of this spectrum, addiction is probably something you have heard a lot about, either through your own research, from a health professional or in the media. And much of the information we get about addiction can, in my opinion, be both unhelpful and stigmatising. It can also be a bit old-fashioned, based on 20th-century ideas about the mind and brain that don’t stand up well to the latest research/insights from neuroscience and psychology.
But there is another, newer way to think about addiction. This approach is kind, compassionate and understanding of the reasons why we might misuse substances or activities, whether it’s smoking, over-eating, gambling, taking recreational drugs, drinking heavily or compulsively shopping. I have found this approach a game-changer in terms of helping my clients and understanding my own behaviour, especially when I was younger and, let’s say, not as sober and sensible as I am now!
In order to understand why we become addicted to things, you first need to understand that our mind is made up of many subpersonalities or parts, with different functions for us, internally. I won’t go into detail about that here, as I have written about it extensively elsewhere, but my favourite parts-based model is internal family systems (IFS). In IFS, there are two main types of parts. You have young ones who hold painful memories, thoughts and feelings from that time in your life (so a four-year-old part, an eight-year-old part, and so on). And protectors, whose job it is to make sure those young parts never get hurt again.
These protectors are then divided into managers, who are hard-working, proactive and strategic – your Worrier is a typical manager, trying to anticipate bad things and help you avoid them. And firefighters, who are the opposite – they are reactive and want to get rid of the pain as quickly as possible, with no thought given to the consequences.
In IFS, addiction – or more accurately, addictive processes – is primarily about the firefighters. So a young part of you is in some kind of pain, feeling overwhelming emotions like stress, anxiety, loneliness, shame or anger. And the firefighter wants to put out the fire of painful feelings, by any means necessary. So firefighters might make you smoke weed, drink whiskey, use pornography, zone out with games on your phone, help you detach/dissociate from your feelings, or use a virtually limitless range of strategies to numb, distract or soothe the anguished young part.
And it works, right? That is why we have a glass of wine or two when we are stressed after a long day. Or go for a cigarette/vape break at work when we’re buckling under the weight of our workload. And it’s why people get addicted to heroin and other opioids, because they are so damn (and dangerously) effective at numbing physical and emotional pain.
If you want to change your own addictive processes, understanding that any kind of addictive process is essentially the same, inside, and that they just vary in terms of severity, is step one. Then understanding that it’s all about getting rid of/distracting yourself from pain, is step two. And the admittedly tricky final step is having compassion for the parts of you that make you do things that can be harmful or downright dangerous.
As I often say to my clients, it’s helpful to separate the intention (soothing your pain) from the method or behaviour (drinking alcohol, etc). Because however damaging the method, the intention is always good. And when we speak to these firefighter parts, we get how desperate they to help – and the fact that they use the only tools they have available to them.
Learning to speak to them with compassion – rather than judgement and frustration, as we typically do – helps them soften and eventually change. And this change is long-term, because we have buy-in from every part of you, rather than the yo-yo dieting or swinging between sobriety and relapse we see so often with more traditional treatment approaches.
If you would like to find out more about this approach to healing your parts, try my Fire Drill: IFS Meditation. This will help you enter into a more compassionate and helpful dialogue with any part of you, even the more extreme and ‘difficult’ ones.
I hope it helps – sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️
Dan
Image by Zain Bhatti
Internal Family Systems therapy is definitely having a moment. If you have tried to find an IFS therapist or supervisor recently, you will know exactly what I mean. And if you want to train in IFS, you will actually need to enter a lottery, as the courses are so popular right now! So what is IFS – and why is it surging from a little-known, slightly out-there model to the mainstream of psychotherapy?
IFS was founded by Dr Richard Schwartz (who prefers to be called Dick) in the 80s. Dick says that he learned the model from his clients, because they kept saying ‘A part of me thinks this, but another part thinks that…’ or ‘One part wants me to binge on cake, but another part really doesn’t want me to and is berating me about it.’
As a systemic family therapist, Dick was trained to think systemically, because rather than working with an individual client his sessions featured their whole family. And he began to see these families existing not just in his clients’ external worlds but inside their heads, too. This, for me, is probably the biggest revolution to have occurred in the therapy world for decades – the idea that we are not just one, unified self (Dan) but we have a brain that creates what we think of as ‘us’ in a system of parts (the many parts of Dan).
I won’t go into detail about these parts here, as I have explained them in many other posts, webinars and talks for Insight Timer. Instead, I would like to focus on what Dick calls, ‘Who you really are, deep down’. Because all of these parts, as lovable and well-intentioned as they are, often develop to help us deal with trauma or other painful incidents in our lives. So they are stuck in somewhat rigid roles, either holding painful memories or helping us cope with them. And the way they do that can, unintentionally, be deeply unhelpful – like the bingeing or berating in the example above.
One of the many lovely ideas in the IFS model is that there is another you, at your core, which isn’t a part. That you is warm, loving, kind, compassionate, strong, calm and deeply healing, if we can access its nourishing energy. And this is your Self.
Again, if this sounds a bit out there, just think about it from a biological perspective. Every second of every day of your life, your body is healing, repairing and replenishing itself. This happens on a cellular level constantly, without you having any awareness of it. We know this is true, because you’re alive to read this post!
If this constant cycle of repair was not happening, you wouldn’t be here. For example, if you broke your leg playing football, the doctors would set the bone and put a cast on your leg, but all the healing would come from within. Your body would heal itself.
The same is true of your mind, brain and nervous system – where all the wounds from childhood, or other painful parts of your life, need to be healed – and in IFS, it’s the Self that does that healing, especially for the wounded parts who live inside you. As a critical thinker, whose initial training was in evidence-based therapy models like CBT, this explanation helps me understand what Self is and why it is real. It’s just the psychological version of the same forces that heal your broken leg.
If you have never experienced IFS, this may still seem a bit weird or hard to grasp, which is fine. Dick says that until you experience this stuff, it’s all just words. But one metaphor that is often used for Self is that of the Sun. So if you imagine you are on that plane in the photo, when you took off and before you flew through the clouds, you would know the Sun was above them, intellectually, but you wouldn’t be able to feel it.
And then that magical moment would happen where you burst through the clouds and there, in all its glory, was the beautiful, life-giving Sun. You could see it, feel its warmth through the plane window – even if you shut your eyes its bright, powerful light would shine through your eyelids. There would be no doubting or questioning it, because you were experiencing this delicious energy, not just imagining it.
Here are some other times you may have felt Self-energy, without being aware of it:
When you looked at your partner’s face, thought of all the years you had spent together, all the times they had helped you when you were sick, or down, or struggling and your heart just filled with love
Sitting with a friend as they tearfully told you a sad story from their life and you just listened, calmly and patiently, before giving them a big hug and they collapsed in your arms, sobbing until the anguish left their body and they felt soothed and restored
Holding your newborn baby in your arms for the first time and feeling the kind of overwhelming, all-consuming love you didn’t know until that moment was even possible
Being in such a deep flow state while doing something utterly engrossing that time slipped away, your mind went quiet and all that existed was you, the moment and the task
Holding your ground with a rude co-worker when they crossed a line and feeling completely calm, strong and sturdy – unshakeable in your conviction
Seeing a photo of an impoverished child in your newspaper and feeling such sadness, such compassion for that little person that you immediately made a big donation to a charity working in their part of the world, which helped you feel hopeful and determined to relieve suffering in your human family
I hope that gives you a little taste of Self-energy, especially if you are struggling right now. Remember that, whatever you have been through in your life, it’s never too much and never too late to heal. And the magic ingredient in that healing is, of course, Self-energy.
And here is a practice I recorded for Insight Timer – Accessing Healing Self-Energy – which you might enjoy.
Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️
Dan
Image by Norbu Gyachung
The idea of an inner child is not a new one. This notion has been around, in personal-growth circles, since the 60s. In fact, the term ‘inner child’ was first coined by Carl Jung in the 19th century. What is different now is we have a number of psychotherapy models based on the idea that we all have different parts of our personality, the inner child being just one of them.
Schema therapy, internal family systems (IFS), compassion-focused therapy, trauma-informed stabilisation treatment and the structural dissociation model all operate from this foundational idea that we are not a single, unitary self but are made up of a kaleidoscope of inner parts. This is especially true if you have experienced trauma, because your brain helps you cope with traumatic experiences by creating some parts to hold traumatic memories and experiences, while others form to help you cope with the trauma. The jargony term for this is ‘multiplicity of self’, which I think IFS understands and explains best.
So, most of us are familiar with the idea that we have an inner child, who is young, hurt and needs our love, warmth, reassurance and healing to help all of us feel calmer, happier and more at peace. But you are probably less familiar with your inner teenager, who is just as important. This is one of the many things I love about IFS – Dick Schwartz, its founder, believes that we have a whole bunch of young parts inside, ranging from infancy right through to young adulthood.
And if you think about it, that makes a great deal of sense. Just compare a child at three and 13 – they are like different people. Or think about pivotal moments in your childhood and adolescence, especially painful or traumatic ones. If you get the idea of parts (which is now strongly backed up by neuroscientific research and theory) then it’s a logical step to say that there is a four-year-old, holding key memories from age four, a seven-year-old holding key memories from age seven, and so on.
In my personal IFS therapy – which has been a wonderful, transformative experience – we have done a lot of work with my teenage parts. And that’s because my teenage years were tumultuous, to put it mildly. Especially from 17-19, when I was smoking weed every day, getting into all sorts of trouble and driving my parents – especially my poor mum – crazy.
Like many teenagers, I was also unhappy. I remember feeling so insecure about everything – my appearance, which I really disliked; whether I was cool enough (no); whether girls liked me (rarely); essentially every aspect of my personality, my body, the way I spoke and behaved with others was internally analysed, criticised and found wanting. Hence, I now understand, all the weed-smoking and general bad behaviour. I was really struggling and so acted out, with a vengeance.
Almost 40 years on, my life could not be more different. I live a (mostly) calm, mindful, sober existence. My wild years are long gone and the strongest drug I enjoy day to day is caffeine! Thanks to many years of personal work, surrounding myself with loving, supportive friends, colleagues and family, as well as living according to Buddhist principles, life today is mostly good.
I used to be ashamed of those wild times, but the more I understood about my teenage years and how unhappy I was, the more I also understood why I behaved that way. So I love and forgive him, that painfully self-conscious boy. He had a good heart, but was struggling, as so many teenagers do.
I hope you are starting to resonate with the idea that you have an inner teenager living inside you, carrying all the painful thoughts, feelings, memories and experiences of adolescence and your later teenage years. And just knowing this is a good start, because these parts often feel lost and left behind before we find and start to connect with/care for them.
This period of your life may be especially important to reframe, telling a different story to yourself about how you acted and why. Creating a new, more understanding and compassionate story for myself about why I acted out the way I did has been hugely helpful for me. You may also need to forgive yourself for some pretty wild stuff
Or you might just have felt deeply insecure, like I did, as this is a developmental stage when we are acutely aware of what others think of us and whether we fit in, our rampaging hormones also making us suddenly, painfully aware of boys or girls and whether they are attracted to us
Try journalling about this period of your life, trying to make sense of any behaviour you might have felt ashamed of through the lens of child development, trauma, neglect and any painful family dynamics that may have impacted on you as a child and teenager. Understand that whatever you thought, felt, said or did was not your fault
If you have teens in your life now, think about what makes them anxious, angry, upset, lonely, hurt or depressed. And think about why they feel that way as they cope with the emotional and hormonal maelstrom of teenage-hood
Think about what you would say to them to try and explain all of that, or how you would help them feel calm, safe and loved. Then try saying those things to your teenage self, through journalling, in your mind or out loud
Know that this inner teen deserves love, compassion and understanding as much as any other young person on this planet. And that you can give them all the love, now, that you didn’t get at that age – through journalling, reframing painful memories and perhaps help from a skilled therapist, who understands how to identify and work with your inner system of parts. I have found this process deeply healing, so I hope you do too
Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️
Dan