My Body Reacts: A Professional Crossroads.
My session today began with a “trailhead” triggered by some recent professional challenges. My body immediately signaled its distress through a headache and significant tension at the base of my skull and top of my neck. As I sat with these sensations, a “worrying part” emerged, voicing deep-seated anxieties about my future, my stability, and my authenticity. Another part felt that it had to keep “juggling” every detail of my life to prevent a catastrophe. While my analytical mind tried to rationalize that mistakes are simply learning opportunities, a more vulnerable exile part reacted with intense anger at feeling dismissed by that rationalizing part and then deep fear that even one mistake could be “deadly” or invite the “wrath of God”.
From Terror to Tenderness
To bridge the gap between my rational thoughts and this intense internal pressure, I offered the exiled part empathy and compassion. I recognized the “high-pressure trap” it had lived in since childhood, where one wrong move felt like a threat to its very existence. By putting words to its experience—naming its terror and constant self-consciousness—there was a shift from “passive safety” of that exile to a more active, trusted connection. We ended the session with a symbolic group hug, acknowledging the hard work of the worrying, juggling, and somatic parts. This session reminded me that when my worrying part gets worried, it is often just trying to protect some of the most frightened parts of my history.
These posts are personal reflections on my own n=1 experiment with IFS and somatic inquiry. They are shared for educational purposes and are not intended as medical or psychological advice.