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SANJAY SAYS
Getting in Touch with Your IFS Parts
Internal Family Systems can be a little difficult to start, this exercise will help
I wrote an article giving an overview of Internal Family Systems with examples of how it has helped me, but didn’t give any details of the process. These details felt like a different part of learning about IFS — first you decide you’re interested, and then you figure out how to do it.
This exercise is the fastest demonstration I’ve seen of how your emotional state can change using the techniques of IFS. Of course I recommend reading the book No Bad Parts if you’re interested in a much deeper dive.
Ok, now find a quiet place where you can settle down for 10 minutes and focus internally. If you meditate, then do your regular breathing exercises to centre yourself. Go all the way to end of these steps.
One — think of a time when you were triggered emotionally by someone in your life. Re-live the scenario in your mind, and try to experience the same emotion. I’ll use anger as an example. We’ll call this the trigger emotion.
Two — Focus on the emotion, see if you can feel it directly again. Focus your attention towards the emotion and towards where it resides in your body if you can. Ask the emotion…
