Years ago, I was talking to a client about what it truly means to be a Calm Mama. And she realized that the absence of yelling ≠ calm. There is something deeper that we’re working toward. An inner wisdom, inner peace, and knowing that you can handle anything that comes along. There might be a lot of chaos around you, but inside you are calm and steady.

Today, we begin a new 3-part series on Internal Family Systems (IFS) - a therapeutic model created by Richard Schwartz. One of the central concepts is that everything you need for deep healing and wisdom are already within you.

You’ll Learn:

• The 4 parts of Internal Family Systems and how they go together
• How we get stuck in past pain and trauma
• Examples of burdens you might be carrying from childhood (and how I’m working through some of my own)
• How to befriend your core Self

Listen to find out how IFS works and how you can use it to move into Self-led energy and feel more peace.

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Why Does Your Peace Matter?

We talk about this a lot on the podcast, but in case you’re new to my world (or need a quick refresher), there are a lot of reasons that being calm matters as a parent. The big picture is about raising our children in emotionally healthy families so that they grow up to be emotionally healthy adults.

This looks like:

• Letting our kids experience their negative emotions
• Being able to witness their emotional pain without getting upset about their big feelings or behaviors
• Communicating to your kid that they are going to be okay
• Letting your child know that they are safe and loved, no matter what is happening

When we try to prevent our kids from experiencing or expressing negative emotion by over-protecting, over-planning, over-organizing, or bypassing that emotion, we're actually creating little micro wounds in our kids. They are learning to shut down their own feelings, which is not what we want.

In order to be able to do the things our kids need for emotional health, we often need to reparent ourselves and heal our own emotional wounds. Maybe there were times when you were told that you weren’t good enough, or that you didn’t matter, or that the way you felt didn’t matter. In order to feel truly at peace, we have to believe that we are loved, safe, worthy, and that we’re going to be okay, too.

This is much easier said than done. So, how do we get to that place of deep, legit calm?

 

4 Parts of the Internal Family System

Feelings drive behavior. And when we don’t know what to do with our feelings, we act them out in behaviors or strategies that we think will protect us from pain or help us deal with pain when it comes up.

When we’re acting from our wounded parts, we act in ways that might hurt us or others. The goal is to act from our whole, healed, healthy parts - the Self. 

The Self is an embodied sense of who you are at your core - without any pain or wounds. We all come into this world pure and filled with joy, ready to experience all the things in life that come. At our core, what we want to feel is peace.

But then the world steps in. We experience all kinds of discomfort, and if we don’t get to express and process it, it can get stuck within us. 

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is an approach to healing that identifies the wounded parts of you, as well as the whole, not wounded parts of you. And it helps you to build a relationship between your core Self and those wounded parts so that they can heal, have a sense of wholeness and become what we call “unburdened”.

Imagine your internal family as your core Self, plus the other parts of you that are related to your Self and your pain (aka burden). There are unburdened parts that bring you lots of joy, goodness, and love. And there are also wounded parts that start to act in protective ways to help prevent pain or run from pain. 

 

In addition to the Self, there are 3 parts of the Internal Family System:

1. Exile: A part that is in pain
2. Manager: The part that is trying to prevent pain
3. Firefighter: The part that tries to run from pain or douse it if it shows up

 

Exile. When a part of you gets wounded, the manager and firefighter want to make sure that it doesn’t happen again, so they exile that part of you. There are also gifts and beautiful things about this part of you, but they don't know how to protect you from pain without exiling that entire part of yourself.

Your exiled parts carry your burdens. These come from events that happened in your childhood when you felt hurt, humiliated, or terrified. Burdens might sound like, “I am worthless,” “No one loves me,” “I’m not good enough,” “The world is not safe,” or “No one is there for me.”

We can also experience burdens from cultural trauma. If you’ve been marginalized in some way because of how you look, your religion, your relationship, etc., you may have exiles related to those experiences. 

The exile gets isolated, and it is not healed, so these thoughts and feelings become our normal paradigm. We start to live in a world where we think we’re vulnerable, worthless, alone. And we get stuck there.

 

Manager. The manager is in prevention mode. It works very, very hard to come up with a plan to keep the world safe for the exile, while also keeping the exile contained. The manager tries to keep you small and safe through behaviors like people pleasing, control, performance/achievement, rule following, and hypervigilance.

The manager often looks hardworking, dedicated, dependable, risk-averse, and seems to have the right answer for every situation. Managers tend to be perfectionists, organizers, highly critical and judgmental (of others and of themselves). They’re intellectual, constantly scanning for hazards, and can overindulge in caregiving in order to have a purpose and to control their environment.

Some of these traits can be good, but the manager often takes them to an extreme. 

And even a perfect manager can’t prevent pain all the time, because the world is out there triggering and activating us. There will always be things that are outside our control.

 

Firefighter. When pain can’t be prevented, or the exile pops up and starts having big feelings, the firefighter steps in. The intention of the firefighter is to numb, soothe, distract, and/or dissociate. And it’s willing to do anything it can to get away from the pain and not be vulnerable. 

Some strategies of the firefighter are retail therapy, addictions to food, drinking, sex, drugs, or gambling, numbing through social media or watching a lot of TV. Self harm can also be a strategy to prevent pain by focusing on different pain that is within your control. 

There is constant conflict between the manager and the firefighter because neither of them is working in a way that’s actually healing. It’s like a whack-a-mole of pain and problems. It pops up, you push it down, over and over again.

None of these parts are inherently bad. Your exiled parts also have interesting, fun, creative aspects to them that want to feel free. Your firefighter wants you to relax and have fun. And your manager helps you to get organized and take care of business. The problem is when they come up in these distorted, extreme roles. 

 

Self-Led Energy

I believe that the more we heal, the more peace we bring to the world and to our relationships (including our kids). 

The answer to getting out of the burdened pain cycle is connecting to your deeper core Self. The Self is meant to emerge as the natural leader of the system. It’s the eternal part of you - your essence, your wisdom, your intuition. It is pure and cannot be damaged. It is the source of your healing. 

When you’re connected to Self, it’s that feeling of wellbeing, of being enough, knowing that you’re safe and everything is going to be okay. 

You can also think of the 8 Cs as ways to know if you are in Self energy: Curiosity, Calm, Confidence, Compassion, Creativity, Clarity, Courage, and Connectedness.

This is something you can feel in your body. And it’s always there, ready and available to you.

You can connect with your core Self through a process called “befriending”, in which you talk to these different parts of yourself. It might feel a little awkward or silly, but you’ll find that your Self is ready to fall in love with all the other parts of you. As you get to know some of your parts, consider the following questions:

• How do they feel? 
• What are they afraid of? 
• What are they protecting you from? 
• What are the things that they're afraid will happen if they stop doing their job? 
• What is the original part that needs to be healed? 
• What would happen if that part got healed? 
• What would your manager part want to do instead? 

All the wisdom and healing you need is already within you and available to you. Your truest Self is ready to heal you of your wounds and pain and bring you to a more peaceful place. 

Throughout the next 2 episodes in this series, you’ll learn how to get in touch with your Self energy and heal yourself and how to do this with your children. Because when you learn how to heal yourself, you can heal your kids in real time when they have upsets. How powerful is that?

You’ll Learn:

• The 4 parts of Internal Family Systems and how they go together
• How we get stuck in past pain and trauma
• Examples of burdens you might be carrying from childhood (and how I’m working through some of my own)
• How to befriend your core Self

Resources:

• How To Heal series on the Become A Calm Mama podcast
• No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Connect With Darlynn: 

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily tips 
• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes