I have a coach I’ve been working with for a little over a year and a half now. Like many coaches, it started as business coaching but has almost completely transitioned to personal development and life coaching. Probably not much of a shock to anyone who has worked with a coach but something I wasn’t ready for.
It makes sense, as you start to uncover the issues you have, the blockers in your way, and the disagreements at every turn, you realize pretty quickly that the issue is with me and how I interpret the world. That is at the root of most of my business and life challenges.
Now, I have a pretty damn good coach. I have known him for over a decade and while I may be partial he has a way of being that has opened up my life in ways I can never repay. Recently, I was discussing issues I was having with a co-worker and as we broke down the issue it became apparent that the co-worker and I had ideological differences that were not going to get resolved without some give and take on both our parts.
As I explained this to my coach I admitted that I am committed to being right instead of allowing other perspectives to help shape the resolution. He dug deeper with me to understand why I felt I had to be right at all. This lead to fears, concerns, anxiety that seems to come with a lot of my situations. There are times when certain personalities “come out” and wreak havoc. I explained to him that at times I cannot control the voices in my head. They are all consuming and blur my vision. They make me react negatively in situations and I don’t know how to overcome them. This is when he introduced Internal Family Systems and shared the book, “No Bad Parts” written by Dr. Richard Schwartz. This book would quickly become part of some of the biggest breakthroughs I’ve had getting more connected to my spiritual self and honoring the parts of me I like to reject or keep from view as much as possible.
Internal Family Systems – What is it?
The easiest way to break this down is think of every human being has having multiple personalities (or parts). The theory is that we are all born with a subdivision of personalities that evolve as we experience the world. Extreme cases of trauma can result in a diagnosis of “multiple personality disorder” because the parts have become completely subdivided and segmented from the others. Under this model, however, we all have these subdivisions albeit more subtle than extreme cases. Most people have blended parts with self.
Here is Dr. Richards Schwartz describing what Internal Family Systems Theory is all about:
How I Work With My Internal “Parts”
Dr. Scwhartz book provides a number of exercises and practices to meet and introduce yourself to your parts but also methods on how to honor, pay respect, and invite them in for conversation but also to work with them to take a back seat and let you drive for a while.
See, your parts were created at some point in your life when you needed a protector, firefighter, manager, etc. They were born into existence based on a need.
Meet Gary:
I have this one part I identified and named Gary. Gary ensures that whenever something doesn’t go how I planned or I miss out on a promotion, job interview, financial move, relationship, etc, Gary makes sure to remind me of what a piece of shit I am and that I should probably just throw it all away because I’ll never amount to anything.
Gary is one of my inner critics. He is there to protect me from risk of death (as he sees it). How he goes about it is a little infantile and lacks maturity but most likely he was a creation of mine when I was a child. It’s his unique way of saying, it’s dangerous to take risks, stay here where it’s safe. If you think you’re a piece of shit you’re less likely to go out and do something stupid (that’s his opinion anyways).
Utilizing some of the exercises from No Bad Parts, I meditated and invited Gary in to meet with me. During this initial 30 minute meditation I introduced myself to Gary. I let him know how old I was and that I was going to be showing up more often (suggestions from the book). I talked to him and let him know that I deeply appreciate his protection and management over my life but that I would be taking a more proactive role. I closed by ensuring he knew I still needed him and if it’s alright with him I will work to stay in better communication with him so he doesn’t feel he has to run the whole ship.
I did the same with other parts that I had identified and almost immediately I could feel their recession. I could feel a feeling of calm and control at the same time.
What Did I Really Do Here?
All I can say about this first interaction was that whether it was 100% in my head or if I was actually conversing with another part of me, I don’t care. It worked. It worked after a single session. I immediately felt those feelings retreat and I’ve made a practice of thanking him when those feelings start to crop up. As I make that more of a practice Gary’s insistence has dulled to more of an “heads up” approach rather than a hostile take over by him.
IFS & Psychedelics
As I continued reading through all the various exercises and host of examples from his patients were shared I couldn’t help but think this type of talk therapy could only be further beneficial with the use of psychedelics.
I do not think psychedelics are the cure for everything but damn they sure are a huge benefit when it comes to softening our perspectives and allowing us to see other opportunities in our mind. Sure enough, chapter 6 introduced that very concept.
I’m increasingly enthused by mainstream doctors, writers, media and therapists the like, acknowledging the healing benefits of psychedelics in a medical setting. The mere admittance of the value gives me hope for the future of these medicines.
Psychedelics have had such an incalculably positive impact on my own life it’s validating and reassuring to see that they are being talked about the same way in main stream media and scientific communities seriously.
This truly feels the beginning of the spirituality intersecting and co-mingling with material science. My whole life I believed that what’s true is only what you can prove scientifically and while you cannot deny the positive impacts of spirituality in anyone’s lives it’s still a grey area where “proof” is primarily in the eyes of the beholder.
As I reflect on many of the IFS exercises in the book and make them part of my regular meditation practice I can’t imagine how beneficial this work would be with someone coupling it with psychedelic ceremonies. They suspend the filters of the ego and allow that softening of the individual which creates those incredible breakthroughs and reaffirms that we are all part of something bigger. We’re interconnected. Under that premise, why wouldn’t it work the same with those parts of us we try to hide, exile, or hate. We can find space to honor them, to love them, to accept them as a part of us. To believe they are actually trying to help and allow us to have a conversation with them. I hope to continue my IFS work with psychedelics in the future though I have not done so to date.
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