What is the "key" to IFS work? Perhaps the bees know...
In a way, doing IFS inner work is like doing surgery. We are going inside, in order to heal and transform burdens that have lodged somewhere in consciousness. It’s delicate work that demands not only care and precision, but also confidence. You wouldn’t want a surgeon who is overly cautious, who isn’t sure of the right way to handle an unexpected issue that arises during a brain operation, and you wouldn’t want an IFS practitioner who is unsure of how to proceed either!
When energy is stuck — when there are chronic habits that don’t change, or procrastination, or self-criticism, or difficulty making wanted changes — it makes sense that our more driven parts, our ‘managers,’ want change and want it NOW.
Managers who WANT change are ultimately great allies in the journey. When they are on board, they bring focus, resources and energy to the table. AND, when they are impatient, they need support. Many managers are extremely tired of how hard they have to work to function in a system that is carrying heavy, unresolved emotional burdens. These managers become burned out and overwhelmed that change has not taken place or takes place at a snail’s pace.
Starting IFS work can therefore be both hopeful and painful for managers: hopeful because they see the possibility of some relief, but painful because the work almost ALWAYS proceeds more slowly than they want it to.
Inner work can only proceed at a pace that is safe for all parts. Managers do not get to set the pace. Exiles, and the SYSTEM of parts as a whole, set the pace. The resulting pain of impatience is something the managers need support with. But it can be hard to help them receive support, because they are so used to being the leader of the personality; they are so used to “blending” with the client and “being” WHO the client thinks she is. They may say, “What do you mean, wanting to heal is just a part of me, it’s not “me”? Isn’t wanting to heal important?!”
Yes, it is important, AND it is possible for parts to want healthy things, but to want them with such impatience, such intensity, and such compulsion, that the WAY they want them isn’t healthy.
All parts are impacted by, and carry pain, as a result of the emotional burdens that are stuck in consciousness. That pain CAN be unburdened, CAN be unstuck, but only by the power of Self-energy — the calm, compassionate center of consciousness, not the tense, “fix-it-now” determination of the managers.
Therefore, the more the managers can unblend, the sooner they will actually get what they want. To do so they must learn to accept help so they can relinquish their position at the seat of consciousness and make way for Self-energy to occupy that central position. This takes time and energy; it’s a relationship-building project between the managers and the Self-energy. Which, of course, can be maddening for managers who have learned that the exiles are the “key” to unburdening the personality— “Why are you wasting time on me when we need to get to those exiles and heal them?!”
So let’s set something right: exiles are not “the key” to unburdening, any more than a bee is “the key” to honey. To make honey you need bees, yes, but you need flowers, you need a bee hive, you need summer (winter doesn’t cut it), and you need a community all working in harmony. In the same way, to transform consciousness, to unburden emotional burdens, it takes an inner village. Honey making takes place at the pace of the bee hive community; unburdening takes place at the pace of the ENTIRE inner IFS community. It takes all parts — firefighters, managers, exiles — and Self together to make it happen. One lone bee does not a pot of honey make. One lone exile cut off from all other parts does not a transformed person make.
Also, a bee hive needs a queen in the center the way a person needs Self-energy in the center; a manager on the queen’s throne will not run a bee hive correctly.
Therefore, one of the important elements of IFS work IS the work with managers, to help them give up their place as the Self and to give it back, slowly, slowly, slowly, to the Self. This is a grief process because they really ARE giving up a seat of power, and accepting their limitations, and accepting and grieving how hard it has been to HAVE TO do the job of the Self. What a thankless situation in a way — the managers stepped up to lead the personality, to do a job no one else was doing, and they did it the best they could. Then they got used to having that position, and now they are being asked to relinquish it. That’s a lot of inner work for them to process. Over time, as they get to know the Self energy, they can trust the Self to lead.
Regardless of how managers feel about the Self’s capability to lead in day-to-day life, for sure, inner work can not be led BY managers. Gung-ho managers who want to “get to those exiles and heal them” will not succeed. This “fix ‘em quick” attitude, needless to say, does not make sensitive, exiled parts feel welcomed and loved. It makes them feel like problems to be solved and items on a checklist to be checked off. So what do the exiles do? They check out and refuse to participate if that is how they are going to be treated. Or they take in even more burdens of shame that they are “broken” and “defective.” In this way, the manager’s impatience actually ADDS to the burdens of pain and worthlessness that need to be healed. It’s a negatively reinforcing loop that doesn’t get anyone — managers, exiles or clients — closer to where they want to be.