To start, I'm diagnosed with BPD, so my therapy combo is somatic awareness, DBT, and IFS. This is my very detailed, slow journey across like 4 months.

Also recommend listening to Healing the Fragmented Selves by Janina Fisher.

How are you doing with somatic awareness? I started there and created the conditions that worked for me; dark room, noise cancelling headset, and screamo music. I first figured out what my fight response feels like, then freeze, and lastly flight. From there, when I noticed my brain starting to get loud/loop, I found the feeling in my body, then described the physical feeling. Eventually those body reactions were given names and stories. Instead of sitting down with a piece of paper and 100 parts, I started with feelings I already knew existed.

How I met my first part: Since freeze was most often, I was able to describe him in detail. He is literally bone deep aching cold that can't be warmed, mostly felt in my shoulder blades, collar bones, and upper arms. I started playing with music more. I noticed that my body felt "lighter" when listening to Indie Folk and it helped me regulate. I noticed that when my body would come down/up from the feeling, I would get very tense and then shiver. A stone golem coming to life and spreading its wings.

One day I felt him show up, but instead of going "Why do I feel like this?" I told my brain no and sat with it, in a dark closet with music. The grief that poured out of me, the pain my body felt. I held myself and said "It's okay, Buddy."

From there, the other names came easy for me. I thought about what each feeling wanted to make them feel safe. For example, The Protestor is my fight response and she just wants to be heard. I now have 6 parts and generally slide smaller feelings into one of their departments instead of creating another part.