A kid walking down the street

This morning, I was walking down the street when a scene stopped me in motion, grabbed my stomach and travelled me back in time. Here’s the situation.

A kid is about to cross the road at upcoming traffic when a woman, let’s assume his mum, pulls his arm in terror and immediately shouts “Stop! Don’t cross!” which is followed by the dreadful “What is wrong with you?”.

Silence.

Visibly terrified by what could have happened to the child, what very likely came from deep love, mixed with fear, got transformed into a severe, personal reproach.

Sounds familiar?

Oh yes. How many times have you heard this sound as a child? How often do we still find unhelpful ways to express our emotions without thinking about the repercussions these will have on the people around us, often the ones we care the most about?

That got me thinking, if that random encounter could trigger such visceral reaction in me, what else can it teach me in terms of the parts of Me it activated?

Internal Family Systems

I was listening to a WCDHT episode with Dr Richard Schwartz providing an overview of Internal Family Systems (IFS) – episode #295 is absolute gold, a must listen to. I was struck when I heard that one of the techniques that can be used to express the parts of ourselves is to convene a ‘conference of the selves’ with the big Self at the head of the table. This felt incredibly normalising in a way as, without being aware of the specifics of IFS, I had intuitively came up with what was for me a helpful way to visualise the internal dialogue I sometimes have with my selves, what I described here as a ‘Me-eting’. Let me introduce you to the parts I have identified so far:

• Planning Me – she thinks ahead and plans carefully with Future Me’s best interests at heart, although she has learned perfectionism and control along the way to keep me safe, which is not always entirely helpful (but we know despite her dictatorial behaviour that she means well)
• Cuddly Me – she just wants to be free, quiet, cuddles and softness all around
• Wit Me – She can be a bit of a smart ass, she is pretty funny and cares more about doing the right thing than most other things.

With the language of IFS, I am now learning that our parts can be sub-categorised into:

• Exiles – young parts that have experienced some kind of trauma and have become isolated from the rest of the system
• Managers – parts that run the day-to-day life and often revert to control to protect the Self
• Firefighters – who use different strategies to cope, control and extinguish the feelings of the Exiles.

I can now see how Cuddly Me is an Exile that I’ve been nurturing more and more and that Planning Me is doing her best to manage our lives. Not sure about Wit Me, though she’s probably already figured it out herself.

One of the takeaways for me is that my current internal systems mapping had not identified specifically the Firefighters – subconsciously or intentionally perhaps to pretend these coping strategies were not present. This is interesting, I can’t wait to welcome new hot friends to our ‘Me-etings’!

The kid still walks

Back to our kid crossing the road story and how the language we use influences us and the people around us. I now can’t help thinking an Exile would have taken on board the ‘you are not worthy’ message and buried it close enough to the surface that the wound could be reopened at the echo of these words “What is wrong with you?”.

Cuddly Me is grateful for all the protection and hard work of Planning Me and is glad Wit Me is around to try and make it all a bit more fun.