The Constellation of Parts

As one of the very fastest growing psychotherapies, IFS is remarkably simple. So simple, in fact, there are several books supporting the do-it-yourselfer.

PROTECTOR

Something or someone hurt you when you were small. (Obviously, this has happened to all of us.)

Because you didn’t get training in self-compassion at the time, you developed Protectors (Manager and Firefighter) as a way to protect against the pain.

Since you were young at the time, your Protectors are still young and have immature solutions. When they’re threatened, they display childish behavior.

The Protector's goal is to make sure you’ll never be hurt in that way ever again.

The Part they are protecting is called an Exile. The Exile, the wounded child, is the hidden part we don’t often see.

The Protectors are really good at hiding the Exile, so we don’t often feel the pain of the Exiles.

Instead, most of the problems we have with ourselves are from the immature efforts of the Protectors to do their jobs.

There are two protectors - the Manager and the Firefighter

MANAGER

Their job is to keep the Exile (‘wounded child’) hidden away for our safety. They carry the burdens of fear and responsibility.

They want to keep things perfect and under control.

Self-criticism is their most effective tool. For example, if we don’t something the Manager doesn’t like, it will criticize us until we reform.

They admit to being tired of their jobs, the always-on responsibility and control is exhausting

But they feel everything would fall apart if they stopped.

The more we rely on the Manager, the more we are likely to control and manage our intimate partner.

FIREFIGHTER

Firefighters deploy when a Manager isn’t successful at keeping an Exile hidden away.

They’ll do anything to avoid the feelings and thoughts associated with the pain the Exile is holding.

Like real firefighters, a Firefighter Part is a hero and will do anything for they view as an emergency.

Firemen will use their ax to break down your front door, they’ll smash your windows, flood your house with water.

Likewise, Firefighter Parts will indulge in drugs, alcohol, food, sex, anger, etc. Anything to distract from the Exiles pain.

Firefighters claim they like what they do and don’t want to stop. They feel embarrassed, ashamed, and isolated but appear to not care about the consequences of their actions.

For example, in marriage, anger is a tool of the Firefighter.

Once the Firefighter has done her job, then the Manager regains control by with her tools of criticism and control.

In a marriage, as long as your parts are at war with each other, they’ll always be war in your relationship. Because their solutions are short term and immature fixes and not real solutions, they need to assume the same roles over and over.

POLARIZING MANAGER AND FIREFIGHTER

We tend to swing back and forth between the two.

For example, your Manager is hard on you with “tough self-talk”, self-criticism, self-bullying. You force ourselves to soldier through a situation.

When you can’t take it anymore, you’ll swing to indulging yourself—like sounding off on someone. Or eating that ice cream, having a drink, anything to avoid the exhausted controlling Manager. Then the Manager takes back control with self-criticism and it goes on and on indefinitely.

Michael and I would both ‘firefight’ the situation (have a big argument trying hysterically to solve things.) Then we’d have our make-up quick-fix and get the manager back in the controlling position. We’d vow to do better next time, apologize, etc.

But nothing was solved. The Manager offers the illusion of things being under control.

THE TRUE SELF

The maturity of the True Self is ultimately wise.

When the protectors are befriended by the True-Self, the whole system is soothed, comforted and illuminated.

Another way of saying this:

Once your self-compassion is available you're more flexible with what was once a Protector’s rigid behavior.

An example:

A Manager Part who thinks she’s obliged to be the responsible but feels exhausted and put upon. Using the skill of self-compassion, she’s likely to feel more relaxed when things feel out of control.

Transformation occurs when the protectors are befriended by the True-Self.

IFS and Your True Self

Richard Schwartz arrived at the name “Internal Family Systems” because he started his career in the more well-known field of Family Therapy.

He discovered all his patients had a large “internal family” of parts.

The name can be misleading. It is not family therapy. This is an INSIDE family of parts.

In the 1980s, Harvard therapist Schwarz was working with eating-disordered patients when he noticed his clients talking about “parts” of themselves.

We talk this way because it makes intuitive sense to us. For example, someone might say:

“One part of me wants to stay on my diet, but another part wants to eat the chocolate cake.”

Or “One part of me is bending over backward to keep the peace with my husband and another part of me suddenly starts screaming at him.”

Then Schwartz began to notice that he also had Parts and that some of his parts were causing him problems. He became very curious.

Thirty years later, Internal Family Systems (IFS) is now one of the world’s fastest-growing psychotherapies.

Mind blowing.

So far none of this is mind-blowing.

The important discovery that blows my mind is:

His patients all had a wise and healing “part” which they called their “authentic self” or “true self.'

Everyone, every single person, has a healing, wise, always kind and loving part? And it is our essential self?

Mind freaking blowing.

And this is demonstrated both clinically and scientifically? Wow.

World-changing! This literally, actually means that at the core all of us is wise and good?

Richard Schwartz has worked with every kind of patient and found this to be the case. The exact kind of people you might have wondered if they had any goodness at all - like murderers and child abusers.

You are essentially and profoundly good. Does that change everything you know about yourself?

If you saw the children’s movie Inside Out you saw the warring “parts” fighting for control of the little girl's behavior.

The Inside-Out movie doesn’t include the “Self” which harmonizes the inner warring parts and is what I sometimes call self-compassion.

The more Self has harmonized various parts, the more at peace you are,

The True Self balances the best of both spirituality and psychology.

Our dark stuff isn’t skipped over—no spiritual by-pass.

And all psychology's negative thoughts and feelings have incredible value when self-compassion opens your heart.

All the noisy parts—the parts causing us confusion or distress—are simply trying to get your attention. When we hear each part out and learn what they are trying to achieve, we find that no matter how confusing, stubborn, or distressing it initially seemed, the part ultimately gives us a gift of wisdom and empowerment.

The True Self, compassionate inner-self -- a higher self, if you will, has the capacity to resolve…well…everything and anything.

Richard Schwartz writes “The idea that at your essence you are pure joy and peace, and that from that place you are able to manifest clusters of wonderful leadership and healing qualities and a sense of spiritual connectedness, runs counter to what you’ve learned about yourself.”

• Everyone is born with a True Self (or Authentic Self.)

• The True Self can never be damaged.

• It does not need to be developed. It’s a basic part of a human. Profoundly, and with an enduring truth, this is who YOU are—a good, healing force.

• You are a blessing, a force for well-being—your well-being and those around you.

• The True Self reclaims inner parts that were preventing a problem-solving approach and instead they become your powerful allies in resolving marital issues.

The True Self heals with Richard Schwartz’s 8 Cs: clarity, curiosity, calmness, courage, connectedness, creativity, confidence, and compassion.

The goal of IFS is it becoming Self-Led, which restores you and restores your relationships.

A Win-Win Marriage

We all know the metaphor of putting your airplane face-mask on before the child’s face-mask, so I’ll start there.

With self-compassion, you’ve taken care of yourself first.

Because it’s such an obvious radical upgrade, it naturally becomes the first place you go for a solution. Self-compassion becomes a spontaneous go-to at those moments when your relationship is challenging.

Like the face mask metaphor, self-care gives you the ability to breathe. Once you can breathe, you can take care of those around you.

Women often feel like they’re so busy caring for everyone else. They forget to take care of themselves.

Taking care of others without self-care creates burn out.

“I take care of everyone but no one takes care of me,” was one of my core complaints before I took up self-compassion is my main relational survival skill.

When I became the CEO of my self-care, I gained the capacity to ask for help.

Asking for help appropriately, means I am not forcing anyone to care about me. I am not so overdue for help, or so uncomfortable asking, that I am angry by the time I make a request.

Instead, I’m really good at inviting them to help me so they WANT to.

With self-compassion arguments become problem-solving opportunities.

Once I’ve taken the time for self-compassion, it’s natural for me to open my heart for my intimate partner. I can hear his point of view.

Our relationship is exciting and intimate when I can hear his point of view. I love this part. The conversation becomes one of finding solutions that work for everyone.

I never expect (or require) him to hear my point of view.

Our current cultural definition of love —“does he care about me”— is a trap that creates disconnection. The requirement that the other person agrees with your point of view prevents spontaneous authentic connection.

No requirement for agreement makes it easier to simply hear another person’s point of view.

Also, compassion can be inauthentic when it’s a requirement. Beware of love as something you’re ‘supposed’ to do.

The last thing you want to do is crush your genuine heart opening expression of love.

When you attempt compassion (as opposed to self-compassion) with a heart that fears burn out, it is fake compassion. Because your heart and ears are halfway closed, the next steps, the solutions, are not going to be effective.

Interconnected….

Perhaps it seems paradoxical that self-compassion makes it obvious that you are interconnected. Your open heart is the center of your universe from which you connect to all of humanity.

Also importantly, it doesn’t mean you are ‘nice’ all the time, by any means.

Maybe the optimal situation calls for you to say 'no' even if your intimate partner doesn't like it. With self-compassion, you have the courage.

Even sometimes you are in a circumstance where the optimal solution is wrath. Wrath is anger based on love.

For example, one time when a co-worker was repeatedly raging at me, I kept saying the words, “This is not acceptable.” But the words had no impact.

After making self-compassion primary, when I said the exact same words— “This is not acceptable”—she heard me. I said the exact same words, but my voice and attitude had a very different tone. She paused with a surprised look on her face, walked away and never raged at me again.

• With self-compassion your communication becomes clear. A woman who don’t tend to speak up, finds she has more capacity to say what needs saying. Those who speak too quickly, find they have more discernment.

• When self-compassion is the go-to, you don’t make choices based on the need to relieve the discomfort of the moment, your discomfort or your partners.

• You no longer find yourself speaking in question marks rather than periods. You no longer find yourself softening your voice or feeling you have to smile so he doesn't feel threatened.

• Because self-compassion learns from bad feelings and situations, it transforms the situation and communication becomes more about hearing the other’s perspective. You're no longer having the same fights over and over.

• Compassion for your intimate partner is automatic once you prioritize self-compassion.

Your capacity for authentic spontaneous compassion is directly correlated with your capacity for self-compassion.

The Quickest Fix for a Polluted Marriage

It’s funny now.

Or sad.

Or both….

Michael and I both agreed that since I was an expert—a professional psychologist, coach and a big meditator—I should figure out all the family’s problems.

And then simply tell him what to do.

He had other stuff to do. He was busy running a business.

So he delegated the job of ‘figuring out life’ to me.

Lots of families have similar agreements, that the wife is the expert of the children, the family psychologist and the spiritual heart of the family.

Comedians joke about this. In fact, there are whole sitcoms based on this joke, that the man should ‘just do what the wife says.’

But Byron Katie says:

“I can find only three kinds of business in the universe: mine, yours, and God’s”

I didn't know I was that I wasn’t minding my own business.

But I was infantilizing him.

Not surprisingly, he disconnected from me in a million little ways. He felt irritated and unappreciated. He was depressed and lost his confidence.

A criticism here, a sarcastic look, an eye rolled, an argument — before we knew it, we are living in misery.

No intimacy, no romance, no sex. Our relationship was polluted.

We had polluted it through poor communication skills.

Poor problem-solving skills.

Quite unconsciously.

When I stopped treating him like a child, he naturally wanted to be responsible.

QUICK FIX: CLEAN UP YOUR ECOSYSTEM AND LOVE THRIVES

It works almost immediately—if you stop critiquing your intimate partner. Stop thinking you know what they need to do.

When they ask you, simply say, “Whatever you think.”

Because it is “whatever he thinks.” His choices are the only ones that will make his life work.

No two of us are meant to make the same choices along the way.

Each of us has our own individual lessons to learn along the way.

Obviously—THIS IS TRUE FOR BOTH OF YOU.

If your inner-knowing is your best compass, the same is true for everyone else as well.

Your intimate partner can’t find his inner-voice if you are talking over it.

If you want a quickie fix—this is it. Try just this for a few weeks and see the transformation.

Non-critiquing is so fundamental that it works quickly.

The love was there all along. But you can’t grow a garden in polluted soil.

Love needs a healthy environment in which to thrive and then it can thrive quite naturally.

If you simply stop, have a self-imposed moratorium—you will be amazed at how fast things change for the better in your marriage.

SIMPLY STOPPING critiquing is NOT going to give you the capacity for self-compassion or the capacity to connect deeply with your intimate partner—but it will be the biggest, fastest change you will see.

THIS IS THE QUICK FIX. It is the quickest clean-up for a polluted marriage.

Criticism Blocks Inner-Knowing

Criticism is the enemy of inner knowing.

And it’s everywhere in our culture. Self-criticism is probably our most pervasive problem preventing emotional well being.

We’re transitioning to a new world view, but criticism has us trapped in-between the old one and the new one.

The old social order relied on self-criticism to keep the rules and norms of society running smoothly.

The just emerging social order relies on inner-knowing.

But self-criticism blocks your inner-knowing.

THE OLD WAY….

In the past, we lived in a top-down culture which expected us all to follow the same rules. Criticism and self-criticism were the main mechanisms for enforcing this system.

It was a simpler time, with coherent top-down rules. The orderliness of Newtonian physics let us believe everything could be standardized.

Comparing ourselves to others was (is still) how we learned the top-down rules. In school you got an A or an F, you got gold stars (or not), your career rewarded you with money (or not). There still are so many ways society judges us as winners or losers.

Self-criticism was essential to make this system work. A top-down culture controlled us through criticism. And we cooperated by INTERNALIZING the criticism.

But the world has become way too complicated, for this simplistic understanding. There are no simple rules to follow anymore.

THE NEW WAY….

Now we are trying to find our way in a more complicated and chaotic culture.

Absent the simpler rules, the only way to make optimal choices is to know yourself and your own inner wisdom.

By default, now we have to rely on ourselves to make good choices

Now it’s necessary to have an inner guidance system—a clear view from the inside-out.

Self-knowing is the necessary orientating tool required in today's chaotic times.

NEW RULES….

• Each of us has a unique path.

• We each have our own very brilliance.

• No two of us are meant to make the same choices along the way.

• Each of us has our own individual lessons to learn in life.

• A commitment to our individuality brings an inner sense of harmony and peace.

• You can't compare ourselves to the other guy because the choices he’s making, probably have nothing to do with you.

But self-criticism keeps stuck between the old way and the new way.

We don't yet sufficiently know how to trust the instructions we get from inside because self-criticism prevents self-trust.

How can we trust our inner-knowing? When we go inside to listen for inner-knowing we find self-criticism constantly babbling away?

Our inner-environment is indecipherably messy and dangerous.

Self-criticism undermines your inner knowing big time.

You can’t clarify what is going on inside until your heart can tolerate seeing it.

Self-compassion gradually works to soothe and clarify the criticism and then we can see whatever else happening inside.

As trust grows, through self-compassion, your self-critiquing falls away. All critiquing naturally falls away.

How Does an 'Inside Job' Help my Relationship?

How can an ‘inside job’ help a relationship?

With self-compassion, I knew how to get support in a way I never had previously, because I knew how to ask for it and I knew specifically, exactly what was needed.

Especially in those moments when I was most miserable, I had often asked Michael for help in such as a way to almost assure I was NOT going to get support.

He was supposed to ‘know’ what to do to care for me. He would ask “What can I do to help?” And since I had no idea how to answer, I would get angry and push him away.

With self-compassion first I knew exactly what to ask for.

Or I could say, “I don’t know yet. Thank you. I’ll get back to you.”

You’re the CEO of yourself. Your True self has the skills to self-soothe.

And then you can delegate whatever support you need. Even if you are completely triggered or stressed, you know how to ask for it appropriately.

SELF-COMPASSION CREATES COMPASSION FOR YOUR INTIMATE PARTNER

When you use self-compassion, you become naturally, spontaneously compassionate toward others. Compassion for your intimate partner is not something you have to work on or develop. It just grows naturally as a result of the compassion we have for ourselves.

The only reason, the only time, you ever lack in compassion is when you can’t tolerate the other person’s feelings. You freeze and cut the other person's feelings off because you’re blocking the feelings inside you.

With self-compassion, no feelings ever need to be shut down — yours or his.

Parts of yourself that were being held back by fear of your thoughts and feelings, hold wisdom and empowerment that is now accessible.

In fact, you find it such a rich resource of healing knowledge, that you almost fall in love with the negative feelings.

But compassion without SELF-compassion can be sticky-sweet and fake.

Starting with SELF-compassion as opposed to OTHER-compassion your heart is truly open to the suffering of others. You aren’t just being compassionate because you think that’s what you are supposed to do.

OTHER-compassion without SELF-compassion can easily become exhausting and inauthentic.

You find your true voice.

You’re open and loving when that’s what is needed OR wrathfully loving when necessary. You are able to bite your tongue when necessary and you're able to speak up and set limits when that is what’s needed.

You are able to be solution-oriented in tough conversations instead of blaming.

You are able to have a tough conversation with integrity—conversations about everybody getting their needs met, rather than winning a point. Your conversation is about connection rather than winning.

Profound spiritual-psychological forces are at work with self-compassion.

I am not going to try to explain or understand concepts like shadow, mirror, holographic universe, etc.

Instead I prefer ideas which lead to action. As high minded as those ideas are, I think they are obvious when you see them in action.

Instead, I’m simply going to say, that when you focus on yourself everything changes. A fight that you thought would end your marriage can disappear.

If you keep focusing on the other person as the ‘problem’ it will never change. You’ll stay stuck in the same cycle.

FIRST DO NO HARM

My best suggestion, at first, is that you stop all critical conversation or feedback. Just take a moratorium.

You don’t need to analyze problems to be intimate, quite the contrary.

At the very least you’ll stop fighting and give your relationship a chance to breathe.

Simply this can totally turn things around. The love is there, it just needs a chance to take root again.

Marriage is an Inside Job? Huh? What?

Michelle Obama said in an interview that she realized "it wasn't up to my husband to make me happy."

But when she said "I had to learn to fill myself up" you were probably wondering.......how?

How do I 'fill myself up?'

Because when you're tired or overwhelmed, old patterns of reactivity show up. It's just how it is.

Life has so many ups and downs.

You need something robust, something effective when negativity's strong pull is taking over.

You need something reliable when you are tired, overwhelmed, feeling unappreciated.

You need something that will stand up in the intimacy of your own heart, in the intimacy of your intimate relationship, in the privacy of your own home.

Or when the two of you need to solve something challenging together? Something that makes feelings prickly? Something where you feel misunderstood?

We have a very limited set of skills that we've been taught.

A limited set of skills that don’t work very well.

With the skills you've been taught, you can either push away the feelings with positive thinking or drown in your negative thinking.

That’s all we have available. That’s all we’ve been taught.

I've tried pushing negative thoughts and feelings away, using positive thinking. It's exhausting.

And when negativity was too much, I've tried escaping into antidotes—ice cream, Netflix, anger, depression. These were even more exhausting.

And that’s all the tools we’ve learned.

Self-compassion (the skill you WERE NOT taught growing up) calms and soothes the need to either push away or fall into negative thoughts and feelings.

You progressively spend less time swinging between being too hard or too easy on yourself. When you are having negative feelings, you find yourself naturally going to self-compassion.

Once you're no longer overwhelmed by the negative thoughts and feelings, then it's a good time to go back to your intimate partner for a productive and solution-oriented conversation.

Instead of allowing your feelings to propel you into a solution that doesn't work, you have the capacity for real problem-solving in the moment.

Instead of using stop-gap measures which end up causing more problems than they solve, when you use self-compassion, you know what is needed in that time, place and circumstance.

You hear from yourself what part of you needs care, what kind of care and how specifically to do it. As opposed to 'figuring it out' all this becomes obvious, when you've taken the time for this all-important step of self-compassion.

I was so confused. When I needed help, why was that the time I couldn't find help anywhere?

"I'm taking care of everyone else, but who's takes care of me?" was my mantra at those times.

The answer became myself; I took care of me and I knew how.

And I got support because I knew how to appropriately ask for it and I knew exactly was was needed.

I never appropriately asked Michael — he was supposed to 'know' what to do for me—even though I had no idea.

With self-compassion, I knew exactly what to ask for and how to ask for it.

I Thought He Just Needed to Listen to Me→

I thought if he would just do what I said, everything would be great.

I was willing to fight for what was ‘right’ when I thought he was wrong. I was fighting for both of us.

I meant well. I was an idealist, actually, and super committed to figuring it out between us.

Why wouldn’t he just do what I said?

And Michael was trying as hard as I was.

We just had a bad idea of what would be helpful.

We’d apologize after each fight. Say we’d try to do better. We really would try.

But, if I am honest, I thought he was the one causing problems in the relationship. I thought, well, maybe I shouldn’t have gotten angry, but he was just wrong.

I was so disappointed in him. I wanted him to be calm and wise.

But we kept having the same fights over and over!

Hadn’t he just apologized? Hadn’t he just resolved to do better?

Why was he doing it again? It was horribly frustrating.

I tried everything—anything—but nothing seemed to get through!

All the exhausting, disheartening efforts to change the situation, to fix him, DO NOT freaking work.

Michelle Obama said when she first decided to go to couples counseling, she thought it would "fix" her husband.

The problem was that I was putting effort into doing something that wasn’t ever going to work.

Now I am a big believer in Byron Katie's words:

I was trying to manage something, someone, that was not anything I could control.

That’s not how human nature works. Not how reality works.

He had a true life path he needed to follow.

And the further he got away from that truth, the more frustrated, cranky, depressed, and disconnected he became.

We Were Having the Same Fights Over and Over→

Years ago, when Michael and I were fighting all the time, there was a ‘fix your marriage’ book about respecting your husband.

Even I though hated the book, I was fascinated. I bought it several times.

The sexist language would irritate me, so I’d get rid of the book. But then I’d buy it again.

What I didn’t realize at that time, the reason I was so fascinated by the sexist book, was that I DID need to respect Michael.

But the word ‘respect’ seemed to come from an authoritarian mindset, from the 1950s.

From a Leave it to Beaver world that had nothing to do with me.

I’m still ambivalent about the word ‘respect’ because it still doesn’t sound romantic or intimate. Probably 'unconditional love' is a better word.

I needed to love him unconditionally, not because he was my husband, not because he was a man (women should respect men, the sexist book explained) but because he was a human being.

• Human beings thrive when they get respect.

• Human beings fail when they receive criticism.

• Relationships fail when criticism becomes predominant.

Our marriage had become polluted.

At the time I thought honesty was equivalent to intimacy—or what I thought was honesty. Now I’d say it's sharing every teeny thought that passes through my mind.

I thought an adult relationship meant that we put all our cards on the table and worked it out together. I thought that saying all my bad thoughts or feelings was being honest.

I thought I could say all my negative thoughts and feelings, even about him, say them TO HIM and that somehow, he was supposed to tolerate and utilize this information.

He was supposed to know they were just momentary thoughts and help me sort them out.

After all, I was a psychologist and that’s what we believed in—talking through problems.

When I think about it now, I must have thought Michael was either my psychotherapist or a saint.

That’s what I thought then.

Now I think that what I called ‘honesty’ then is more like spilling my bad feelings all over another person.

Fortunately, my children were luckier.

Somehow I knew that seeing them positively was key to their well-being. And that it was a responsibility I wanted to take on. It was a choice I could make.

That if I saw my children as successful, adorable, agreeable, they would be all those things. And occasionally when they weren’t successful, adorable or agreeable, I’d let them know that was the aberration. That they were wonderful, regardless.

That’s what love is—being committed to seeing the good in another person even when it’s hard to see.

I am so glad I took that on as my commitment as a mother. Unconditional love.

I want to be clear, I am not suggesting positivity at the cost of honesty, because that would sacrifice intimacy.

However, even though I knew that with my kids, I didn’t know how to do that with Michael.

Instead with Michael, I was stuck on this idea that as the adults in the family, as partners, that he and I should work things out together.

That if he was doing stuff I didn't like, I should tell him it was a problem and then he should change.

I was very invested in the idea that that’s what adults did, that’s how adults behaved who loved each other and were intimate.

In moments when negativity was predominant, I thought I could, or should, turn to him and that he would fix things and fix himself.

Often, the moments I wasn’t happy “with him” were more accurately moments when I simply wasn’t happy.

Where did I get the idea that when I was at my worst was the exact moment Michael could be his best?

Quite the opposite….

In fact, when I would download my bad feelings, I’d make him miserable too and then everything would simply go from bad to worse.

What I thought was intimate and honest was actually lack of respect, but I didn’t know that.

I thought sharing the thoughts and feelings would create understanding and closeness but instead it creating disrespect and disconnection.

I didn’t know I was creating an environment where criticism had become predominant.