When I finally made the decision to leave a recent job, a part of me was really sad. But just as quickly as that sadness emerged, another voice in my mind spoke up.
“You know this is the right decision, so get over it,” the voice said. “Stop being sad and move on.”
It was jarring. Who was this harsh voice inside of me?
Although some part of me knew it was fine (and normal) to be a little sad, I listened to that harsh voice for a while. I was a host of other things in those last weeks of work—anxious, stressed, unsure about the future—but sadness took a backseat.
When I closed my laptop after my last video call, I sat there and stared out the window, waiting for a sense of relief to set it. Instead, I began to cry. This time, I finally welcomed the tears.
In Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown says contradictory thoughts and emotions, while uncomfortable, have a lot to teach us.
“. . . if we’re willing to stay with it and stay curious, complexity is one of our greatest teachers. The problem starts when we don’t have the skills or the experience to tolerate the uncertainty and ambiguity and we give in to the cravings for neat, mutually exclusive categories. There’s nothing more limiting than tapping out of tension and oversimplifying the thoughts and feelings that have the power to help us understand who we are and what we need.”
As an Enneagram 9, I crave peace—both internal and external—which means getting out of tension is often a top priority for me. However, Brown’s point that tapping out of tension too early is actually limiting makes sense to me on a gut level.
Think about a time you wrestled with a big decision or a complex situation. Have you ever had someone offer you advice in the form of a simple “solution”? Maybe it sounded something like:
You just need to pick one.
You just need to talk to her.
You just need to get some sleep.
There could be truth in those statements. Sometimes I need trusted friends to cut through my swirling inner life with some clear direction. (And sleep really does work wonders.) But oversimplifying complex problems can also be really painful. When something seems big to me, there are fewer things more limiting than when someone makes that thing sound small. I feel missed and unseen. Or I assume there’s something wrong with me—if it’s really that easy, then I must be too indecisive, too emotional, too complicated.
Sometimes we oversimplify other people’s problems because we’re uncomfortable with the tension. Black-and-white thinking is comforting because it’s clear. We know who or what to blame, and there’s a “right” way to move forward. Complexity, on the other hand, is awkward and a little sweaty, and we’d like to get rid of it quickly, please and thank you. We may have good intentions of wanting to cheer someone up or help them move forward, but if we don’t approach people with curiosity and empathy—with a true desire to understand and to be in it with them—we can do more harm than good.
The same thing is true about our inner worlds. The complexity we find on the inside is confusing and uncomfortable. Brown says conflicting thoughts and feelings are downright irritating to our brains. (Yep, that feels true.) But tapping out of the tension by silencing or shaming parts of ourselves isn’t the answer, and it will most likely make things worse in the long run.
As a deep feeler and a chronic overthinker, I find myself drawn to learning more about why we do (and think) the things we do. So when my friend Kimberly Cole recommended a book called No Bad Parts back in February, I quickly put it on hold at the library. Something about a therapeutic model of our inner worlds? Sign me up.
This summer, my therapist introduced me to a theory called Internal Family Systems (IFS), and a week or two later, I got a notification that No Bad Parts was ready to be picked up. I’d completely forgotten about it by that point, but as I took a closer look, I realized the book is about IFS and written by Dr. Richard Schwartz, the therapist who created the model. I had to laugh.
The basic concept of IFS is that each person has an inner system made up of many “parts” as well as a core “Self.” Some parts have been wounded (often when we were kids) and others have taken on specific—and sometimes unhelpful—roles to protect us from feeling that kind of pain again. Each person’s Self is the mature, grown-up part of you that has many positive traits, such as curiosity, creativity, and compassion, to name a few. From a Christian perspective, my therapist described the Self as our inherent worth that comes with being made in the image of God.
As the title suggests, Schwartz’s theory is that all of our parts are innately good, even if their methods seem chaotic or confusing on the surface. (I think I laughed out loud the first time my therapist told me that my anxiety is actually trying to help me.) Each part has something valuable to offer, Schwartz says, but first they need to be healed from past wounds and learn how to trust the Self.1
As I’m learning about IFS, two things are standing out to me right now:
Having parts of yourself—experiencing conflicting thoughts and feelings—is normal. We all have complex inner worlds.
The way forward is not to minimize or crush these complexities, but to get curious about them. Approaching our parts with compassion is how we heal.
When it comes to making decisions, I see lots of sides to every issue, and I’m always trying to make sure everyone else is as happy as possible. At first, conflicting thoughts and emotions seem like a normal part of working out a decision. But if that internal conflict goes on for too long, I start to get really frustrated with myself. Cue that harsh inner critic who popped up when I started feeling sad about leaving my job.
Reframing how I see these competing parts has helped me have a lot more compassion on myself. For me, big decisions may rarely feel good. (You can read more about that here.) But that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of making them or that there’s something wrong with me for having all this internal push and pull.
Not everyone doubts themselves and their decisions in the same way I do, but we all have parts of ourselves. We’re all complex beings. It’s not fair—and it’s certainly not helpful—for me to compare what I know about my inner life to what I see other people say or do. There’s so much more beyond the surface.
Since internal conflict is uncomfortable, it’s normal for us to want to get rid of the parts of us that are causing some chaos on the inside. But silencing or shaming the parts that are trying to speak up isn’t the solution.
Schwartz says, “We often find that the harder we try to get rid of emotions and thoughts, the stronger they become.”
If there are no bad parts, then even the harsh or shrill-sounding voices in our minds are there for a reason. Our parts are doing the best they can to keep us safe. Granted, they’re not always resourceful, and their methods can be counterproductive. But their intentions are good. All of these thoughts and emotions—anxiety, anger, sadness, fear, criticism—are there for a reason. As my therapist says, all behavior makes sense in context. Our parts make sense in context too—the context of our personalities, past hurts, and current realities. They’re just asking us to pay attention.
Schwartz says, “Basically, what I found is that love is the answer in the inner world, just as it is in the outer world. Listening to, embracing, and loving parts allows them to heal and transform as much as it does for people. . . . Or, through a Christian lens, through IFS people wind up doing in the inner world what Jesus did in the outer—they go to inner exiles and enemies with love, heal them, and bring them home, just as he did with the lepers, the poor, and the outcasts.”2
Jesus went to the outcasts. He moved closer with love and with questions, which healed people and changed their lives. The same approach is true in our inner worlds. If we move toward our parts with compassion and curiosity, there’s so much to learn. Maybe there’s a past wound that needs attention. Maybe a part is trying to remind us of something we value. Maybe it’s offering some wisdom about what we need to do next.
I’ve started to get curious about that inner critic who was so sure I shouldn’t be sad about leaving my job. She was forceful. She was angry. Why? What was she afraid would happen if she didn’t shut down that sadness?
The decision to leave my job was hard-won. I’d been stuck for a long time, and it was taking a toll on me. I wonder if my inner critic wanted to make sure I didn’t waver. Maybe she was afraid if I got too sad—if I thought too much about all the things I might lose—I’d second-guess my choice and decide to stay. I think she was trying to protect me.
Looking back now, I also have much more compassion on the part of me that was sad about leaving. There were a lot of legitimate reasons to be sad. For one, I’d no longer be working alongside some truly incredible friends. I knew leaving was the right decision, but just like our inner worlds, life is complex. It’s rarely just one thing. With every good and necessary change also comes some loss.
I can see now that both parts were serving a valuable purpose: one was keeping me on the path out the door, and the other was reminding me of people and things I value. The critic helped me stick to my decision. The sadness helped me be grateful for the good things from that season. Neither part needed to be shamed or silenced. They just needed to be heard.
In Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor says this:
“To be human is to live by sunlight and moonlight, with anxiety and delight, admitting limits and transcending them, falling down and rising up. To want a life with only half of these things in it is to want half a life, shutting the other half away where it will not interfere with one’s bright fantasies of the way things ought to be.”
Our inner worlds aren’t black and white. It’s all a lot more gray in there than we’d like to think, but that’s okay. Multiple things can be true at once. Maybe your parts are pointing you toward something you value. Maybe they’re reminding you to ask for what you need.
So in case you need to hear it today:
You have permission to think and feel conflicting things. You’re not dramatic. You’re not too much. You’re human.
You can long for adventure and also crave stability.
You can be thrilled about that new thing and also anxious about the changes it will bring.
You can feel confident in your decision and also grieve letting go.
Don’t fear the tension or tap out too early. Instead, lean in with curiosity and compassion. Every part of you is innately valuable, so move a little closer, sit still a little longer, and see what the complexity is trying to teach you.
Worth Mentioning
Resources to help us engage our inner worlds, be present in our daily lives, and delight in beauty along the way.
No Bad Parts by Richard C. Schwartz, PhD
This book is helpful introduction to IFS. Schwartz includes some exercises you can use to begin exploring IFS on your own; however, he highly recommends working through them alongside a licensed therapist, especially if you’re dealing with trauma from your past.Restoring Relationships by Molly LaCroix, LMFT
If you’re looking for a Christian take on IFS, Kimberly also recommended this book by therapist and teacher Molly LaCroix. (Thanks, Kimberly!) I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on my list.
Let me be the first to say that I’m not an IFS expert. I’m very new to all of this, but my basic understanding comes from Schwartz’s book No Bad Parts. I’m also learning how to engage this personally with the help of a licensed therapist.
Schwartz doesn’t claim to be a Christian. In his book, he says he was an atheist for many years. However, he also sees a spiritual aspect to IFS, and he often shows how his theories relate to Christianity, Buddhism, and other contemplative traditions. While Schwartz seems to be saying that we can heal ourselves by learning to trust the Self, I believe we need help from Someone outside of ourselves. I see God as the ultimate source of healing, but I also think we have a role to play. Maybe IFS can be one more tool for your toolbox.