How to better your life, part by part
When I find myself struggling in a particular area, I sometimes engage in parts work meditation. Parts work, derived from Internal Family Systems, is a meditation approach with therapeutic value. In it, we identify personal cognitive/emotional/somatic patterns that cause us pain or trouble and personify them in order to, quite literally, get to know them better. We relate to them from what’s referred to as “The Self,” or “The Wise Adult” — a place of inner peace that resides within all of us and that is easier to find after some meditation experience. For anyone familiar with dialectical behavioral therapy, this is also the wise mind. What this basically means is that I’m holding an internal conversation between the deepest part of me and the various subpersonalities within me.
Getting to know parts of ourselves better has a few advantages. First, we can gain some insight into our drives, motivations, and fears. Second, we may even get an understanding of how these patterns began, which can provide additional insight. But more importantly, three and four: through that understanding we develop self-compassion in place of self-frustration, and when we have this self-understanding and compassion, these behavioral patterns usually ease on their own.
I want to share a write-up of such a meditation that I had today. It might sound a bit awkward, to talk to parts of oneself, but if it’s right for you, this approach is incredibly effective.
Bedtime at our house has been rough recently. My 2.5-year-old daughter has struggled with going to sleep and staying asleep in the last two weeks, and I find myself getting inappropriately angry when it happens. I set out to understand the part of me that gets angry better.
I started by recalling a recent experience — it was last night at nearly 10 p.m. and my daughter had been in bed for almost two hours but was still calling out for me every few minutes. “Mommy, I need you, Mommy, I dropped my bibi (pacifier) on the floor — I need to look for it.” I snapped at her, “no, you’re staying in bed,” as I briskly picked up the bibi and gave it to her, then walked away annoyed.
As I ran this scenario through my head, the angry part of me began to emerge. It screamed “it’s BEDTIME! I don’t want to come in there every 5 minutes anymore. GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP!”
It’s useful to understand that we often don’t realize that these thought and behavioral patterns are only parts of us — they feel like the whole, and when they do, we say we’re “fused” with those parts. When we are fused with a part, we experience the world as though through its eyes — we feel its emotions in our bodies, we literally see from its perspective (e.g. we’re more likely to interpret a neutral facial twitch as a smirk if we’re fused with a part that feels disrespected), we interpret words through its experience, etc.
As this part of me raged, I felt its emotions very strongly throughout my body — I was fused with it. I greeted it directly but gently, and asked for some space from it, in order to allow me to see it more clearly and get to know it better. It “separated ” from me [note: Internal Family Systems views this as a volitional act by the part, and it does feel like that experientially, but from my point of view, this separation is a natural consequence of mindfully discerning that I am not this pattern of thought. Happy to answer any questions about this.] After that, it felt smaller than before — only a piece of me rather than the whole. I thanked it for giving me some space, and began to ask it what it’s worried about.
It responded that I deserve my alone time. “ferfucksake, you’ve been with her ALL DAY — don’t you get to finally shut off, read your book, be an adult? Does she have to take up every goddamn waking minute of your life?” It was raging. [And by the way, sorry about the profanity, just trying to depict this part accurately.]
I acknowledged what it said, “you want to protect my time and my ability to have an adult life not defined only by motherhood. I appreciate that, thank you for fighting for me.” I asked it what it wants to be called. “Sanity Guardian,” it said.
At this point, I noticed another part emerge, and it was chastising the first. It said I’m a horrible mother for feeling this way about a helpless, scared toddler. I acknowledged this part and thanked it for its concern for my daughter, which I share. Then, I asked it to stay back for the moment in order to allow me to get to know Sanity Guardian better. It did.
Turning back to Sanity Guardian, I asked it what it’s most afraid of.
“Exhaustion,” it said. “If you’re too tired, you won’t be able to function and you’ll fall into unhappiness again.” I recognized that it has experienced a lot of unhappiness in the past — I felt worn out by depression for much of my 20s, and it sounds like that was extremely difficult for this part. It softened as it felt my recognition and compassion. And then it continued that it needs to protect my sleep.
I asked it to tell me more. It reminded me (through flashes of insight and visuals rather than in words) that sleep has long been a challenge for me. When I was a young child, I frequently got scared at night, and cried for my parents or tried to crawl into their bed. But even when I was much older and lived alone, I frequently struggled with insomnia at night when I was depressed, feeling the worst of the symptoms in the silent, lonely dark. Night became a time I dreaded. These days, things are different. I have a partner to sleep with at night. After 10 years of meditation, I’m quite happy and haven’t felt depression in years. Finally, now I can enjoy my nights and sleep peacefully. “And she doesn’t care at all! She’s ruining it!” It referred to my daughter as it seethed with anger again. Another layer of understanding — the resentment I feel in the moment that my daughter is interfering with the peaceful rest I didn’t get to enjoy for so long.
I reflected back my understanding of its perspective and thanked it again for looking out for my well-being. I acknowledged how hard sleep has been historically, and validated Sanity Guardian’s fears as being rooted in experience. At this point, I asked it what emotion precedes it — lies prior to it. This is a bit different from classical Internal Family Systems, where parts like this one is referred to as a “protector” who is guarding more vulnerable, child parts (or “exiles”). Sometimes I go about it that way, and sometimes I simply ask what emotion is prior to it. Typically, it’s a more vulnerable emotion. After asking the question, I felt sadness and helplessness in my body, and saw a visual of a little girl scared at night. And in that moment also, I felt a flood of compassion for my own daughter, who’s probably experiencing similar emotions when she struggles at bedtime. Note that intellectually, I knew this — the chastising part that called me a horrible mother referenced it just a few minutes earlier. However, there’s a huge difference between knowing this intellectually and deeply experiencing it in the body. The scared little girl I saw is another part — probably a younger one related to the fears I mentioned from my childhood. I wanted to meet her as well, but in this meditation, I was trying to get to know my anger.
I asked Sanity Guardian if there’s anything more that it fears. “If you don’t sleep, you’re going to fall apart. You won’t be able to take care of yourself and it’s all going to go to hell.”
Again, I acknowledged how painful that concern is, and how hard this part works to try to prevent this scary outcome. But here, I also responded to it with reassurance. “I’m an adult now, and I’m stable. I do know how to take care of myself. I do know how to cook and manage my household” (with my husband’s ample help, if not the other way around…) and I reminded it of the resources I have in case things get harder. Essentially, I reassured it — without dismissing its concerns — that I’m taking the concern seriously but that I’ve got this. It cautiously listened to me, weighing my words. It seemed to feel a bit calmer. And I asked it if there’s anything else it wanted me to know.
It bristled again, and started to talk about how my daughter doesn’t listen to me, bringing up that she doesn’t eat what I serve her, either — another situation where I get angry. I validated this frustration and asked it to continue.
“She needs to eat, goddamnit!” It raged again. “You cook for her and she disrespects you! She needs to listen to you and eat. And she needs to listen when you say it’s bedtime! YOU are the adult, she needs to know her place!”
In that moment, I recognized that this was actually a different part of me. This part isn’t worried about guarding my mental health, but is upset that I’m not being respected, deferred to in my expertise. However, it was clear to to me that both parts are involved in my bedtime anger, and I welcomed it in, asking to get to know it better, also. I asked it what it would like to be called. “The Authority.” Ok, then. What does it fear?
“You won’t be taken seriously. You’ll be disrespected. Everyone will look down on you. Everyone will think you’re a bad mom. She’ll grow up to be a delinquent!”
I thanked it for trying to prevent my failure, hurt, and humiliation and acknowledged how stressful it must be for it to live with these nightmares in its head. It appeared to appreciate the empathy and continued that it frequently feels out of control. I offered empathy for how scary that must be, and felt a great deal of compassion. It softened a bit and added, “I feel like I always have to get it right and it’s very tiring,” it said. I continued to validate how hard it works and how tired it must be. It seemed to sit down, its anger soothed. I recognized that there may be a lot more to work on with this newer part. I suspected it may relate to deeper fears and sadness over being dismissed or unwanted, but it was time to end my meditation — the bell rang, and I had to get back to other work. I promised it that I will return to get to know it better in the near future. It seemed to hear me.
I ended the meditation by thanking all of the parts — Sanity Guardian and the Authority, as well as the chastiser and the scared little girl with whom I didn’t talk much today — for their presence and honesty. In turn, I asked the two I worked with today if there was anything more they wanted to say, or needed from me. “Respect,” said the Authority, and I promised it to treat myself with respect, even if my mothering actions aren’t successful. “Some alone time,” said Sanity Guardian, then asked for me to return to be with it another time. I agreed to both requests. I promised the other two that I’ll make contact with them in another meditation. And then I began to write this entry.
Reflecting on this session, I feel insight and deeper self-compassion. I see the ways in which my parts are concerned about difficulties I had in my youth, and that they don’t yet trust I’ve grown past. This is common for these parts — to have formed in younger, more helpless days and to not yet have discovered the greater maturity and resources that exist now. I also see their exhaustion and need for self-care. I feel warmer both toward myself and my daughter, and I’m hopeful that the work I did today can be helpful in the bedtimes to come.
I hope this transcript is a useful taste of this kind of meditation for those who are unfamiliar. Parts work is extremely effective with a facilitator, but even by oneself, it can be fruitful. If you found this transcript compelling, check out this book (https://www.amazon.com/Self-Therapy-Step-Step-Cutting-Edge-Psychotherapy/dp/0984392777) or reach out to talk about it further.
Sign up for weekly thoughts on relational parenting: https://relationalparenting.substack.com/