How to “feel our feelings” without being swept away using Internal Family Systems/Part Works

Do you ever feel embarrassed when you’re emotional? Like you have to make it stop ASAP? I think almost everyone has had that experience. Many of us have learned that emotions - especially negative emotions - are basically destructive and need to be tamped down. And there’s some good reason for that, right? We don’t want to scream at our kids. We don’t want to cry in an awkward situation. We don’t want to freeze during a presentation at work. 

We don’t want to lose our shit! 

But when stuffing emotions back in becomes our go-to strategy - you may start to notice more of this:

• Resentment and irritation builds and blows up over little things. 

• You “check out” and distract yourself to numb yourself from feeling - drinking, eating, video gaming, or doomscrolling too much. 

• Grief or loss may be like an elephant in the room of your mind - huge and heavy but never acknowledged.

• You may find yourself avoiding things. Important decisions, relationships, and projects sit neglected and unattended and your guilt grows louder.

• Relationships stagnate because there’s too much that needs to be said that hasn’t been said. You’ve grown apart and it’s hard to imagine finding your way back to each other. 

• You find yourself judging yourself harshly because you definitely already know you’re doing these things!

When this all keeps building up - dealing with emotions can be a bit like opening Pandora's box. We do not want to see what’s in there!

In therapy, we have a safe place to open that box, and start relating to our emotions in a way that’s a little less overwhelming. In Internal Family Systems/Parts Work - we learn to relate to our emotions as “parts of us.” Some of those parts may be throwing tantrums or might cast a long, scary shadow, but we can learn to separate from them a bit, and get a good look. Who is this part of me that’s so sad? Who is this part of me that is criticizing me so relentlessly? Instead of seeing through the eyes of these parts and experiencing their feelings as some irrefutable truth, we can look at them with curiosity. We start to see our parts as having a perspective that makes sense but also may be a bit limited. We recognize our parts actually need our help. 

We can learn to take emotions more seriously but also less seriously. They are there for valid reasons. They are telling us something important that we might be missing. But they don’t tell us the whole story either. Sometimes a part of us is stuck in an old trauma being triggered or past losses that are unresolved or old stories and beliefs that no longer fit our current reality. In therapy, we can start to separate that out and heal old wounds and let go of stories that no longer serve us. 

If there’s one thing that therapy can give us - it’s the ability to listen to our emotions and to respond to them rather than reacting. Our parts can talk to us and we can handle what they have to say. Rather than being assaulted by our emotions - it can be more like talking to old friends. You know why they are the way they are. You respect their strengths, you know what’s hard for them, and you know what gets them riled up. With that inner understanding - there’s more choice about what comes next.