April 11, 2026

The way I pick things apart is such a habit. It’s so natural for me to find the holes…it’s a true blessing and a curse. 

This week I found myself starting to pick apart Internal Family Systems model. Actually I’m not even picking it a part, I need to be honest with myself and name it for what it is. It’s a knowing without explanation, just a light-bulb knowing of “oh shit, what I love is not perfect, here are the holes.” That’s love right? Loving the contradictions, the hypocrisy, the weaknesses, the talents, the beauty.  I have loved IFS for years…and as I call this out I am in no way changing my love for it, it’s a realization for me to tweak how I apply it for myself and with others. 

My realization came from this instant knowing that “something is missing.” The language of “be with your parts, witness them, appreciate them” places us outside. It’s another example of a way we are placed outside of ourselves and potentially “bypassing” our emotions and our parts. 

This came about because I started to ask….

How can I appreciate something if not in the full feeling of appreciation? I found myself “appreciating” my parts from the intellectual level or the performance level because I know what one is “supposed to do in the model” and it FELT so completely disingenuous in that moment… 

Instead of appreciating that part, I was mad at this particular part for keeping me outside of an emotion (mad at the model for its design to “be with, and notice” and my intuitive side was saying you need to go INTO it. 

when outside of ourselves, in observation or in awareness,…we are so close, but still not fully there. When we practice from continuous awareness or “only half in” during therapy and in healing places, my concern is, we are not preparing ourselves for the real life instances when emotions/moments become actually heightened.

The word “notice” was ingrained in my yoga psychology teacher training and trauma informed care trainings as a strategy to “regulate,” a way for us to come outside of our experiences, our sensations, and yes enhance our awareness…

And more and more I am realizing in myself how awareness is pulling me further away. How regulation is paired with “calm” or even a way to “make myself or others comfortable.”

Noticing, witnessing, being with is creating distance and maybe too much (yes we need to notice, witness, and be aware) while also there may be a need to be IN (in our emotions and in the moment of ourselves) ……we are so afraid of going into what we need to go into. We think if we fully go into an emotion or the part that it will take over and make a bigger mess or create more damage. That we cannot handle it and will not survive. We are so afraid of hurt and so full of mistrust of our own selves that the healing modalities are still band-aids that keep us from our wholeness. 

I could write a whole essay on this, how I really got here, and even more of my ongoing thread of stream of consciousness, but basically what I am considering is that as we build in our “capacity” we could be getting further away, further apart, and further disconnected. So my conclusion (for myself is) 

the need to merge. 

Not by jumping in (while yes sometimes we will do that and that is not bad or wrong either, just be ready for the aftermath, which can go in so many directions).........we can approach merging with (our parts and our emotions, with self, the environments, others) with steadiness, care, and safe pacing….yet if we stay only in observance - which is what, in my experience, IFS and many healing modalities teach, then we are missing the full expansive emergence that comes after.

Perhaps we merge to emerge…

Meaning by actually being in the emotion and/or a part, from a place of choice and readiness, you fully connect and expand. 

There are different ways this happens:

We can merge from codependency, reliance, addictive ways of being with our parts and with our emotions…..merging from past patterns and perhaps unconsciously (this will likely continue suffering with self and on others)  

OR

We can merge from wholeness, connection, oneness, union with parts. 

We are already doing it anyway…so after awareness there can be space to go in…  

Some one here is likely codependently/addictively merged with their pain. Their intellectual, their critic, their pride, their ego, their pleasure, their sensuality, their fear, their child-like self etc. I am definitely reliant on my intellectualization….this is not necessarily “healthy” if it has the driver’s seat when I’m activated it’s going to create an inaccurate story. This story will keep me looping and potentially lead to internal criticism or even projection, deflection, and attack on another.

Sure eventually when out of it witnessing, aware, being with…is helpful here to unhook…. while also when in it, what feels good about it? You will not know what feels good and even not good unless you are connected to the feeling of it…which means you are closer to it. 

Example, my intellectualization sometimes gives me pride. Being connected to the pride (in it)  feels good. I feel above. I feel in control. My intellectualization, my awareness, also informs me that this is shame based pride. Meaning the pride is coming from a deeper emotion that is being protected. I am not in the shame, I am in the pride (safer).  I feel good but could be hurting another.

If I go into the shame what happens? Not thought, but feeling..…I cry. I scream. I whine. I’m back to being a toddler because the shame first started there, so I need to go back. I need to go back into it and literally offer myself another living experience. To be able to cry, scream, whine, shake, curl up on the floor, and tell myself it’s okay as it is. No intellectualization, no regulation strategies, just literally allow myself to have the process. I’ve done this many times over the past year. By myself. 

Typically though, what happens when you touch your shame? What happens when fully in your feelings of shame, unworthiness and inadequacy? Perhaps you barely stay there because it’s so uncomfortable or were taught not to show those emotions…so another part comes in and takes over and well yah you go to protection mode….pride as one example, awareness, projection, intellectualization, shut down, distraction…

You can witness the unworthiness and it will give you information and maybe you’ll get a little feeling from it but the “integration” or wholeness will not occur without actually fully connecting and going into it in a new way. 

The same goes for love, joy, excitement, creativity. 

I wonder if….we need to be in them. Inhabit them. Merge. 

And to stay. To stay there long enough for it to work itself through. It will dissolve, it will transform. 

In my many IFS experiences.. from trainings I have done and even being on the client end, not once have I been directed to actually go into anything.  

IFS does not seem to include the aspect of actually going into the emotion. Most practitioners do not even know how to do this themselves…also the emotional inhabitation typically requires a longer amount of time. 

possibly even longer than the session holds for. 

And it’s wild how often I even say, “be with the feeling” or “notice this sensation”  vs. be inside of it. 

Here I stand corrected, be in the feeling. 

Everything you want is on the other side of the emotions that we have been taught to not feel. Everything you want is on the other side of the emotion, hence…go into it. 

Let the underdeveloped emotion guide you for a period of time. 

Be messy.

Be uncontained in your own sacred space of self. 

….it’s expansive and it’s where your energy/life force exists. 

And when you merge with love, well you get to bring that to your shame. So maybe start there. 

We cannot feel love, appreciation, joy fully if we are not willing to feel grief, fear, anxiety, disappointment, hurt, embarrassment and even shame. 

The amount of times I’ve heard someone say, I am not going to do that thing because I am “scared to hurt them” as if we do not trust the other person to handle their own hurt. BUT really what is being said by these people is “I do not trust myself to be in my own fear” and “I do not trust myself to be in my own care for self and another” because well most people go into guilt and shame before actually being in a place of real care for themselves and another. 

It’s okay to not trust yourself yet. What is it like to be in mistrust? 

My take, the practitioner needs to not be scared of the emotions in order to support someone through their own emotions. We will only go as far with another as willing to go with ourselves. 

If I am coming from a model that still stays close to the surface, I am creating a disservice for others. If I am coming from a place where I have not gone into the depths of my own emotions with integrity then I am creating a disservice for anyone I interact with. I will discharge the emotions outwardly because I have not fully practiced how to do this myself. How can I without the full support? What happens when our support places are only half in?

Every time I go deeper I can sense the disconnection that is outside of me, in rooms, in people, in society. I can sense models that still teach from an intellectualized, cautious places…essentially it teaches “do not push people” as if it will retraumatize them.  

I do not believe it will. I believe our responses/our emotions to trauma get disrupted and it’s that disruption that keeps the loop open and keeps one hooked. It keeps us in old patterns and more prone to continue to hurt self and others.

Sometimes we need to be pushed to go back in with pacing and openness until actual completion.   

I push you because I trust you. 

I push you because (for the most part) I trust myself. 

I say for the most part because if I make a mistake I hope to repair when told of any impact I may be responsible for. 

And anything I say or offer is always a choice. I say that in every yoga class (who knows maybe there will come a time when this language will get changed too). 

I will, however, not stop speaking. I will not stop sharing. I will continue to bring my truth to places even if no one hears me.

I am able to feel the appreciation for my intellectualized and aware parts now because my anger and sadness got to be felt. To go inside and get the fully sensory experience of them.

We need both, to witness and be with and also to go in. 

My hope is that this comes to more therapeutic spaces so you do not have to do it alone and also not expect someone else who possibly is not ready to do it with you.

Even with this piece of writing, in this moment, I notice I am still a bit outside of it. 

YOU AMAZE ME. I love you.

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