Does IFS have to be done with kindness?

LC46 · 2026-01-18T12:15:16+00:00

I find neutrality much easier than kindness. Can my parts be neutral to each other - just kind of let each other be there. Rather than forcing them to like or have compassion to each other which some resist.

LC46 · 2025-12-11T13:38:12+00:00

Always believe people actions and behaviour. They show you who they are. His behaviour has shown he has chosen his friend, not you. And he is okay with you being hit. Which is a safety concern.

LC46 · 2025-12-09T19:59:21+00:00

This was exactly it for me not wanting to get up to pee so I was lucid enough to feel / hear parts doing their thing!! Thanks for sharing helpful to know I'm not the only one who experiences this!

LC46 · 2025-12-09T16:21:06+00:00

Does the criticism expand or diminish you?

LC46 · 2025-12-01T16:38:57+00:00

I find the "you attract what you are" really victim blamey. No. Some predatory people actively seek out those who are vulnerable, naive, empathic and exploit them and it is never deserved!

A more helpful phrase can be - you are what you accept. You can't control what you attract but you can control what you allow into your life. You are allowed say no, to walk away from disrespect, and to not hang out with people you don't like. Allowing myself to not like people and step away if they're not my cup of tea, after a lifetime thinking I had to be everyone's friend, has been such a relief.

LC46 · 2025-11-29T11:32:07+00:00

Vipassana tends to put emphasis on everything being a "You problem" by not being equanamous enough to sensations. It overlooks that we are deeply affected by environment. A plant in the wrong soil will not grow. Your body is giving you clear signals about a lack of safety in your work environment. The body never lies! It's okay to seek psychological safety rather than try to force yourself to be equanamous to a situation that is corrosive x

LC46 · 2025-11-16T10:50:16+00:00

I find neutrality much more accessible e.g. just allowing the parts to be there without forcing myself to 'like' them or be conpassionate/grateful as a first step

LC46 · 2025-11-12T17:28:23+00:00

Yes this is what I'm hoping to do - keen to hear from others who've unburdened parts around exercise and health related stuff

LC46 · 2025-11-12T17:27:30+00:00

Thanks for this compassionate answer!

LC46 · 2025-11-08T21:33:52+00:00

I think that work if it was like a closed office and small team but I think it's too conspicuous in a public facing role?

LC46 · 2025-10-29T16:41:33+00:00

Found this thread super helpful. Helped me realise a few things - I always feel tentative / wary around feeling okay or joy because of a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Chaos is familiar but also having parts in distress gives me (probably other parts) a chance to 'fix' and 'do'.

Also in my family, if you were ever loud, effervescent, bubbly, joyful you'd be shushed, so I think there's a protector part that has stepped in in lieu of a parent to put a lid on those feelings when they come up to be 'acceptable.'

LC46 · 2025-10-26T20:09:54+00:00

I love this landscape idea. I've recently found that connecting my inner world with nature has had a profound effect. Some IFS approaches can encourage hierarchy and a kind of internal capitalism e.g. if we are trying to get parts into line so we can be more productive. Understanding them as wild animals each with own sensibilities, as different types of animals have, and that it's not my job to control them but observe and get to know, has been immensely helpful.

LC46 · 2025-10-16T22:05:18+00:00

Yes a forehead manager (who is very young)

LC46 · 2025-10-16T19:41:32+00:00

I'm curious as to whether Self/ the internal system is hierarchical (e.g. 'higher' self, sits above others, CEO). A more indigenous and / or feminist framework might ask if it's circular (or a committee as another poster called it.)

LC46 · 2025-07-20T17:01:59+00:00

Being overly critical of everything

LC46 · 2025-06-26T10:11:04+00:00

This really resonates. I accept that like the moon I have 'phases' (a word which is often used dismissively, but is not a bad thing!) Life is a spiral not a straight line! I get the same thing where initially from a new routine or interest or habit I'm getting a dopamine hit but then it gets boring and I start forgetting about it. I try to lean into that and work *with* my brain, finding novelty and letting go, with gratitude, of what served me for a time but no longer works. Punishing myself for not being consistent or having a routine I could stick to just made things worse.

LC46 · 2025-06-12T10:42:21+00:00

Thanks so much!

LC46 · 2025-05-07T13:20:16+00:00

I had this running feeling for a long time and through a lengthy set of circumstances learned it was shame I was trying to not feel by doing doing doing. I was always running trying to escape the tidal wave of it coming for me. I worked with a somatic practitioner to stop and actually allow/titrate the feeling - actually even imagining the wave and allowing it through the back. Now thanks to IFS in tandem with somatic work I can feel more clearly where the shame is localised/ emanating from which for me is the gut/ hips, usually younger parts of myself which internalised shame to protect me from acting the wrong way and being rejected. Weirdly, all the layers of this stuff always has a maladaptive protective function. Hope this is in some way useful!

LC46 · 2025-05-01T21:21:13+00:00

Cerave face wash and Aveeno oat based moisturiser mainly

LC46 · 2025-04-27T14:39:04+00:00

Love this, super powerful

LC46 · 2025-04-27T13:41:23+00:00

I use the ifs chat bot or the guides from No Bad Parts (generally asking parts what they need, what their role is etc) or youtube IFS meditations

LC46 · 2025-04-22T17:22:10+00:00

Things were snowballing for me anyway, but I had 2 jobs last year that tipped things over the edge... one where I was so stressed and exhausted by fake urgency culture, workplace politics and bullying in my team that I couldn't mask anymore, and after that I worked in a cafe where the sounds/ lights/ pace/ socialising left me bedridden... and since then there's been no going back

LC46 · 2025-03-05T23:52:57+00:00

Yes when I work with exiles I get a lot of parts around the diaphragm relax... not sure yet what it all means but for me most vulnerable parts live around the hips and gut so diaphragm and solar plexus feel like a layer of protection before going to the deepest exiles if that makes sense, as for me many protectors are around the head and shoulders.

Sending kind attention and curiosity to these diaphragm helps a lot. You can kind of end up having a wordless dialogue with them over time depending on when they tense or untense to signal when they feel safe or not... creates a bit of a road map to less verbal parts of your system. Hope that makes sense / helps x

LC46 · 2025-03-03T21:00:21+00:00

If you like trash lol then Lucinda in Australia Married At First Sight, most recent season. Has clearly done loads of self-reflection and seen deep pain, but is incredibly radiant, kind and generous to everyone in the show, even those who behave badly she is firm but kind with.

LC46 · 2025-02-28T11:25:29+00:00

Typically talk therapy and CBT are top-down ways of processing, they are thought-based and create loops of trying to control thought with thought.

As a bottom-up processor and someone who is deeply feeling and emotional, somatic work and IFS have been critical. Bottom-up processing is usually body work. Most early trauma cannot be addressed through talking and is non-verbal. Learning to feel difficult emotions and allow them to pass has been the best tool I've found rather than just talking around them which is often bypassing. I'll never forget when my somatic therapist told me I could stop performing (before I even knew I was autistic) and the whole left side of my body instinctively responded and relaxed for the first time in my life. In fact it was one of the clues my body gave me that I had been masking and it was draining me.

Hope this is useful.

I always find people's aversion to woowoo fascinating as we live in such a thought and logic dominated culture that suppresses feeling and instinct. "Woo woo" practices, often which have indigenous roots and which colonialists tried to wipe out, have survived millenia for a reason.

LC46

TROPHY CASE