Believing in Our Goodness

We really need to have a revolution of believing in ourselves and believing in our goodness.

Internal Family Systems therapy is a psychology that actually says that human beings are entirely good.

I wanted to make a quick video to explain to people who aren't psychologists, what's important to understand about Internal Family Systems therapy.

It even has too long of a name, and the name is too hard to understand or explain. So I'm not going to bother.

It's very popular among young psychologists. One of the things that is so exciting about it is that it has a very large spiritual component.

There really are some important differences about it, compared to other psychologies that I think are really important to just generally understand.

So the first ones I want to talk about is there's something called the True Self otherwise known in IFS as the Authentic Self, which is entirely good, and it heals all the other parts.

As we come to understand that we are entirely good and let the True Self shine its care on all our various misinformed parts that we've used to get through life the way it currently is structured, or the way we believe it to be currently structured, these parts relax.

The parts are parts that you have created to protect yourself from misinformation, from the misinformation that you're not entirely good that everything you do isn't perfect, just the way it is.

Dick Swartz, who's at Harvard, has conducted scientific studies to validate that IFS actually works. He conducted a study among arthritis patients and proved that it improved their pain levels.

Okay, in IFS, there are basically the Authentic Self, which some people draw it as if it were a separate part.

But it's not a part and includes all the parts, and it takes care of all the parts.

So basically, the only parts you need to understand are two protector parts. And they have different names, Firefighter and Manager, and the Exile, which is a wounded part of us.

You can think of it as a child, and these two Protector parts, which are trying to protect the pain of the wounded child.

We created these parts because of the misunderstanding that we're not entirely perfect, that we're not entirely good just the way we are.

So we created these parts, the Manager is trying to be little Ms. Perfect, keeping everybody else under control, keeping ourselves under control, dotting the i's and crossing the t's.

Say you're on a diet, that's always my favorite example.

You're measuring your food, you're exhausted of being on the diet, you're doing it perfectly, it's uncomfortable, but you're doing it anyway.

And then there's the Firefighter; it's called the Firefighter because it is a hero. And yet, just like firefighters, it'll come into your home and break your windows, smash up your doors, throw water all over the whole entire place, soak up your couch, in an emergency will do whatever is called for in an emergency to take care of the situation.

All of the parts of you that might seem annoying, usually we favor the Manager, and we're annoyed with the Firefighter.

Usually, we do things like if we're on a diet, we eat the chocolate cake because we're exhausted.

Or because the Exile is threatened, somebody, something some situation is getting us too close to experiencing some pain that our Exile had. So we'll eat the whole chocolate cake.

The Manager is exhausting. And we need some relaxation. And we don't have good resources for another way to relax. So we eat the chocolate cake.

So what I want to say is all these parts are balancing each other. They're all doing their best. They all mean well. And they all have important functions.

It's not like there's a good part of you and a bad part of you.

That's the part I'm trying to emphasize—every single part of you has a purpose and has a function and means well, and is doing its best.

And the other thing I want to say is that True Self is the real you.

It's not a part of you; these other parts have been constructed, because we were trained that we weren't behaving properly, we need to do better.

We create these parts to hide our pain, try to be little Ms. Perfect.

And then of course there is the necessary Little MS. Imperfect, that has to balance it out it you couldn't be Little MS. Perfect without level Miss Imperfect.

So one thing I want to tell you is if you don't like your little Ms. Imperfect, if that part of you is driving you crazy, understand that it's balanced with a part of you, that you think is the good part.

So stop thinking the good part's so awesome. Stop thinking that the imperfect part is the problem.

And start to understand that the good part of you and the bad part of you are actually in balance with each other.

If the bad part of you the quote-unquote bad part of you is driving you crazy, you might want to look to the good part of you and see how she's driving you crazy,

The more you step into understanding that you are entirely all good and that this part of you, knowing this thing that you are all good, that is a part of you that heals.

Knowing that the bad part of you is all good, knowing that the good part of you means well—is doing her very level best.

Okay, so far we've got, you're all good, you have a True Self that is all good and can heal all your various other parts, simply by loving them, and seeing how they mean well.

Also, that we shouldn't take our parts exactly the way they present themselves like one's naughty, one's good, I think we should take that with a big grain of salt.

And so the third thing I want to talk about is the Exile, which we keep under wraps,

We keep her, or him, very protected with the Manager and the Firefighter.

And my recommendation is to leave them protected. If that part of you wants to hide out, I highly suggest that you let it hideout.

Psychology can be very banal sometimes when it thinks we need to dig in and get the wounded part out and love it so that it's okay. Just let it be.

That's my suggestion. I suggest just loving your Manager and your Firefighter.

When your Manager and your Firefighter have relaxed, they know what to do with the Exile that will be absolutely perfect.

All of these parts, the Protectors and the Exile all have great resources that we're not sufficiently using because we erroneously have bad information that we need to get ourselves to behave.

These parts have some of the best-hidden resources, our strengths and wisdom, and fun.

Because we don't know that we're entirely good and we don't shine this knowing on ourselves sufficiently.

We are missing out on all the riches of all these parts of ourselves. And we could totally relax and just trust ourselves and that would let those parts show us the way to be, that's more relaxed and has all kinds of resources that we have tightened into controlling us.

I actually work with women to improve their intimate relationship. I work from the perspective that your intimate relationship is only as good as your relationship with yourself.

For example, the Manager is a part that we are inclined to think is doing a good job but actually women tend to over-manage in their lives in a way that can create a lot of problems in their intimate relationships because it makes the other person feel like there's something wrong with them if they need to be managed.

My name is Felicity Minerva, peacelovemarriage.com.

Please sign up for my newsletter to learn more about how to clean up the ecosystem of your intimate relationship.