Last week our group decided to discuss and rehash Josh Korda’s Pandemic Talk #3 https://www.dharmapunxnyc.com about inner conflict and the Internal Family Systems model of reuniting the different parts of ourselves. We discussed the Exiles, the Managers, the Firefighters and the Core Self. The Exiles are early childhood feelings of abandonment, being judged, unloved, neglected, and all our fears and traumas. We keep these outside our consciousness at all costs. The Managers want to block the Exiles from emerging into consciousness, doing whatever necessary to keep them at bay. The Managers are socially acceptable personality traits that we use as a way of coping. Often they become out of balance, and one emerges as dominant, overruling the others to secure our survival, and collapsing the whole system into panic and or depression. We then call in the Firefighters which are socially unacceptable behaviors and one of activities emerge as dominant causing addiction and shame to arise. There is a constant battle between the Managers and the Firefighters in order to repress the Exiles and consequentially the access to the Core Self is blocked. The Core Self consists of calmness, clarity, compassion, connectedness, creativity, curiosity and courage. Only though slowly getting in touch with the Exiles with acceptance, self-love and compassion can we begin to access the Core Self.
Can you have an awareness that “I am not the part”? Instead have a conscious observer part that is non-judgmental, and does not evaluate or reject any part. This observer can ask the parts to reduce their dominance and allow for balance of all the parts.
In this time of Covid 19 quarantine, loss of connection with others, is common. We need community, and people we can co-regulate our emotions with otherwise stress, anxiety, fight/flight behaviors, repeating thoughts and overwhelming depression emerge. We can’t begin the process of uniting our parts without personal connection.
In group discussion Sam talked about experiencing a civil war in his mind. And realizing that when he practices meditation regularly everything slows down and he is able to make better decisions. Mary talked about “all or nothing thinking,” noting that the quality of our interaction is defined by which part is in control and realizing that other people have parts that spin out of control makes it easier to be compassionate with others.