Checking for Self-Energy.
I began my session by trying to bring in some self-energy like calm, compassion, and courage. I then noticed a part reacting with hesitation toward the idea of courage as it felt pushy and non-organic; it prompted a conversation among my parts about what “inner work” really means for me in this later stage of my trauma recovery. There was then a shared sense of gratitude from parts that had felt unacknowledged for so long, like they were working silently behind the scenes like some system that cleaned the water somewhere upstream, while people just took for granted the clean water. These parts were simply happy that the veil was pulled back and that their hypervigilance and long years of work were finally recognized.
Working with a Manager
As my session progressed, a specific manager part surfaced that held a strong drive toward productivity and keeping me on task. Unblending from it and getting it to sit beside me, it looked like a small, light-bluish, green, and gray brain in the middle of the seat of the chair, and it admitted that it worries that without its push, I’ll slack off and face judgment or isolation from others. It described its constant vigilance as feeling like a race car driver focused on many important and critical things, and that any sort of a break from this resembled a hurried pit stop for quick maintenance before rushing back out into the race. Exploring its origins, we learned about 93% of it was actually a legacy burden—echoing a perspective passed down through my dad about someday having to account to God for every minute of my life.
Shifting to the Body
By releasing that 93% back into the past, this pushing manager felt much calmer and more relaxed and shrunk significantly, and it didn’t feel a need for more unburdening, rather, it just appreciated being seen and welcomed. As I began to wind down, my system felt ready to step back from being strictly head-led and instead recommit to an experiment of letting my body take the lead in my daily life. I finally closed with gratitude for all the parts that came forth today, sharing and expressing themselves, and the system wide progress I made with their help and them saying it was more about me, and then me saying, “Well, I have to also thank the likes of people like Carl Jung, and Dick Schwartz, and Dan brown, and many more.”
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.