What is Parts Work? (Part 1)

Have you ever felt like a part of you wanted one thing and a part of you wanted something else? Or maybe on your healing journey you've started to notice these seemingly problematic beliefs or behaviors, things like perfectionism, emotional eating, doom scrolling, etc... — each of these can be labeled as one of our "parts."

Today we’re diving into a healing modality called parts work, or internal family systems (IFS), and the role it can plays in healing anxiety & depression. I'll also talk through how it overlaps with nervous system regulations so beautifully and why this modality has felt so helpful to so many of our clients.

3 Takeaways:

1. Everyone has parts: They’re not flaws—they’re adaptations. Recognize that even your most challenging behaviors have a history and a good intention.
2. Try identifying your parts: Pay attention to repeated thoughts, reactions, or behaviors this week. Can you name any parts (e.g., the perfectionist, the avoider, the rebel)?
3. Explore the next step: Whether through journaling, therapy, or coaching, begin the practice of unblending—creating space between your core self and your parts so you can respond rather than react.

CLICK HERE for the full show notes, resources, and 3 tangible takeaways!

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Website: https://www.regulatedliving.com/podcast

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Transcript

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Welcome to regulate and rewire an anxiety and depression podcast where we discuss the things I wish someone would have taught me earlier in my healing journey. I'm your host, Amanda Armstrong, and I'll be sharing my steps, my missteps, client experiences and tangible research based tools to help you regulate your nervous system, rewire your mind and reclaim your life. Thanks for being here. Now. Let's dive in. 

Before we get into the teaching part of today's conversation, I want to invite you to reflect for a moment on a situation or a circumstance or a decision you had to make where there was part of you that wanted one thing and part of you that wanted something else. Maybe you were up for promotion, and part of you really wanted that promotion, and part of you didn't, and maybe you didn't even know why you didn't, but you just felt like you didn't. Or maybe it was with a relationship. There was part of you that knew that this relationship needed to end, but part of you that wanted to keep moving forward with it, or part of you that really wanted to go to your friend's birthday party, and there's part of you that struggles with social anxiety. 

We all have these various parts within us, and sometimes these parts have conflicting agendas, and in trivial matters, we can take something like that and laugh it off of like, Well, part of me wants to paint my room, and then part of me doesn't want to do the work. So what are we going to do? And then in more serious matters, this can feel really tumultuous. Like, why can't I just know? Why can't I trust my intuition? Or what even is my intuition. I don't know the difference between my authentic self and my anxiety. And we can look at the fact that we have these differing parts within us, and we can write a story that that means that something is wrong or broken in us. Today's conversation is going to be about a healing modality called parts work, or internal family systems, which is abbreviated ifs so throughout this conversation, I am going to use the term parts work and IFS pretty interchangeably to reflect this modality that I'm talking about, and we're going to unpack the role that this plays, or can play, in Healing anxiety and depression and how this modality can overlap with nervous system regulation, in my opinion, in a really beautiful way that we have seen support many, many of our clients. 

You've heard me mention this on the podcast a number of times, but my mental health coaching practice Rise As We is what we call an integrative or a mixed modality practice, meaning that we use a variety of different modalities and approaches to working with our clients, top down, bottom up, blood work, somatic healing practices and IFS or parts work is something that most, if not all of our coaches are also trained in and often pull from in their work with clients. This is just another way of understanding the way that you move through the world, understanding your reactions, your thoughts, your behaviors. There have been a number of podcasts episodes here to help you understand those things through a nervous system lens. Well, when I'm in the green zone, the yellow zone, the red zone, these are the symptoms that I experience. These are the thoughts that I that I think. 

Today I'm going to introduce to you another way of looking at and understanding this through parts work of, oh, when this part of me is in the driver's seat, and I'll share a bus analogy. So that makes sense in a moment when, when I'm blended, or this part of me is in the driver's seat, I act this way, or these are the habits that I see or when I'm thinking thoughts like this. This is how I know that this past wounded part of me is running the show versus my core, authentic self. 

So with this, I am going to probably be a little bit repetitive, in case there are some of you who've never heard of this modality before, and I want to start from the beginning by answering this question of, what is ifs what is parts work? So this is a model of support based on the idea that we all have a core self. Sometimes I refer to this as your authentic self, or your regulated self. So we all have an authentic and regulated core self and various other parts within us. These parts within us develop as a result of our past lived experiences, culture, the things that we have needed to adapt to the world around us, parts within us that get developed because of the things that we experience. So we all have these various parts of us, and what I need you to understand is that they're important parts of who we are that give us different outlooks on things, different feelings about things, beliefs, talents, abilities, skill sets, all. Now all of our parts are okay, and at times, some of our parts can develop into more extreme versions, and those are the parts that we tend to work with on our healing journey, our anxious part, our emotional eater part, our dissociative part. 

And in this modality of healing, these more extreme parts often fall into two categories. Category number one is our wounded and burdened parts, and then category number two is our protector parts. And before I go into more detail about these two category of parts, I want to reiterate and make it really, really clear that all of our parts are good and well intentioned, even when behaving in ways that are extreme or problematic to our overall system. And when I say system, I'm talking about this internal family system. So remember, this modality is is most formally referred to as ifs internal family system. So when you hear family system, you might think, mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, cousin, community. That is an external family system. Your internal family system is your core self and all of the surrounding parts.

So when we're talking about parts work, the goal here is to learn more about what parts make up your system, how they show up, what their underlying needs are, and to cultivate more what's often called self energy, more access to your regulated, authentic core self, which when we have a history of trauma or chronic stress, when we find ourselves living our life through a lens of survival mode, our authentic self can get shoved behind and become harder and harder to access because We are in defensive or offensive mode so often. So coming back to these two categories of extreme parts that we often see. 

Category number one is this wounded or burdened part this. And these are the parts of you that are holding painful emotions, painful memories. And then you have the second category, which is called and referred to as your protector parts, and those are the parts of you that are there to jump in and prevent any further wounding or distract you from feeling pain or hurt. 

So let's say you got home from work and you were feeling really overwhelmed or really discouraged or maybe insecure, and that that's the wounding, that's the burdened part. Is that tender emotion, that tender feeling that's tied to an experience that you had in your past, and maybe you go for a beer or a glass of wine, there is the wounded part, and then there's the protector part that's like, hey, we need to distract from feeling this pain or hurt, here's a solution, and so you might choose to label that as a drinking part. We often recognize our various parts through our impulsive thoughts, our impulsive reactive behaviors, how we tell stories about ourselves and the world are different tendencies. So maybe you have an inner critic part, maybe you have a rebellious part, an emotional eater or a drinking part. 

Parts that I've personally worked with and identified in my internal system are what I've labeled as the quote I'm too much part. I have an emotional eating part. I have a caretaker part of me with this story that no one is there to take care of me, and it's my job to take care of everybody else. I have a perfectionist part. So we all have many parts, but a key principle of this approach is that everyone has a core self. Everyone has an authentic and regulated self that is calm, compassionate, curious, and this authentic and regulated self is the natural leader of your internal system. Again, your internal system being made up of this core self, and all of your parts. If this feels confusing, I am going to offer you what I usually do, because it's the way that I learn best. Is to teach this through an analogy. 

So I want you to imagine for a second that you are sitting on a bus. The driver of that bus is the most calm, confident and grounded version of you, that calm, confident, grounded version of you is your regulated self, and we want that person driving the bus as often as possible. Now, inside this bus, there are many passengers. Each of these passengers represents a part of you. Some passengers are loud and demanding. Others are quiet and reserved. These. Are part of your personality, shaped by your experiences, your different emotions. Now, what often happens is that one of these passengers, or one of these parts of you, takes the wheel and starts driving the bus anytime your life thoughts or behaviors don't feel authentic or grounded, this can indicate to you that one of your parts is driving, and in ifs, we say that you've become blended with this part. And so what can be really helpful for our clients with this best analogy is that sometimes our coaches will reflect back, you know, in that situation, who was in the driver's seat? Was it your regulated, authentic self, or was it your anxious part, your angry part, your I'm not enough, part your eater, part your drinker, part your perfectionist part. And this can help us work with these different parts of ourselves in a more compassionate way, especially when we understand that every single one of our parts is good intentioned, even the part of you that yelled at your kid, even the part of you that Doom scrolled on Instagram for two hours last Night, even the part of you who insert any behavior or thought about yourself or the world that is a friction piece for you, that feels frustrating for you, that you wish. Why do I do that? Why do I think that? Why do I always insert whatever it is that comes after that statement for you that is a part of and through this modality? 

Number one, when you can recognize this part of you. Number two, when you can give this part of you the benefit of the doubt, when you can give it the context of, I understand you have a good intention with this behavior. And what we'll talk about a lot next a lot more next week, but when you can come into conversation with this part of, Hey, what is it that you're so afraid of? Like, what are you afraid would happen if we didn't have that beer or glass of wine after work? What is it that you were afraid would happen if you insert any behavior? And what we can do inside a coaching container, and there are so many journal parts work, ifs journaling prompts, you can even do some of this work with yourself. The idea is, can you get regulated enough so that you can source for some of that authentic, regulated self energy? Can you put your authentic self back in the driver's seat of that bus to then turn towards the passenger and say, Hey, what were you afraid would happen if you didn't take over in the way that you did. And what this almost always winds back to is a past lived experience where there was wounding, where you didn't feel seen or in control. 

And what can happen throughout healing is that as you become a more regulated human, you have more capacity to keep your authentic self in the driver's seat, and as you can do that, and you can come into conversation with these various protector or wounded parts of you. You can do what's called unburdening, and we're going to talk about that later. And when you've unburdened apart, when your present day, regulated adult self is able to turn towards what's often this inner child, this younger part of you, this wounded part of you, and offer them the validation, the safety, the need, the voice, the space that they were seeking in the past and didn't get. What will happen is that the next time that you are in this bus and you reach a really bumpy road, and that protector part of you is like, Oh, this is usually when I have to take over. Because remember, when you've built more trust in the system where you're the bus driver, that calm, regulated self can look back and say, Hey, remember, I've got this. And that part of you can now trust that you do, in fact, have this, that we don't need to keep defaulting to these old ways of showing up and behaving or thinking or believing, and that part of you can now shift into being part of this internal system in a softer or more helpful way. 

All right, we're going to keep unpacking this, and I'm going to keep explaining some of these things in slightly different ways, because this is a modality that can feel really intuitive for some people to grasp, and then for others of you who are like Amanda, tell me about heart rate variability and tell me about the physiology where we're a little bit more data driven, this can be a little bit harder to grasp. And I would say for many, many people, still really, really helpful. I think, understanding your system in the context of the nervous system ladder, as well as within this context of having this internal system, and understanding that we have multiplicity, just as a human being based on our lived experience, being able to navigate the world and recognizing when you. A regulated self is in the driver's seat, versus maybe a dysregulated part and how to navigate that can be really, really helpful. Layers of ways to move through anxiety and depression, healing so parts work, or ifs, helps you to recognize these passengers and to understand their roles, and instead of letting them drive you as the bus driver, learn to communicate with them. So you listen to their concerns, understand their fears and desires and help them find their place on the bus without taking control. And by doing this, you create collaboration and balance within yourself. 

So if you are looking at your life right now and you think, man, I do not feel like I am very collaborative or balanced or curious or grounded with myself, there might be a part in the driver's seat a lot of the time. The idea is that you create enough self energy. And what can happen so beautifully in a coaching session is that your coach can help you source for that sense of self, if it's been lost or buried for a long time within you, so that you can remain that confident driver guiding your bus smoothly along its path, while acknowledging and caring for all the parts of you who contribute to who you are. And with that, I will conclude the bus analogy for parts. 

And I want to reiterate again that all of our parts are not not problematic. They all have positive intentions. They all bring something to the table. A lot of times, our parts take a really fine, even beneficial and advantageous skill set to the extreme, especially when they don't feel safe. So for example, I have a part of my personality that likes to be meticulous and really good at things. This part of me strives for excellence. None of those things are problematic in any way, but at some point, I took on a burden that I can't be liked, I can't be loved, I can't be enough unless I'm perfect. And so that part of me that would strive for excellence got extreme, and now that part of me cannot tolerate imperfection without also feeling anxious, overwhelmed, fearful or uncertain. So again, I had this part of me that just really liked to be good at things, and then I took on the burden that unless you're good, unless you're perfect, you're not enough. And that part that was really helpful with that burden took the skill set to an extreme, especially in situations where I don't feel safe. 

Okay, if you're still with me, let's take a moment to reiterate we all have our authentic, regulated self, and then we have our parts. And our quote parts develop in response to our life experiences. These parts often form during childhood as a way to cope with difficult or traumatic events. They all have positive intentions, and the way that they show up truly did serve you at one point, your perfectionism, emotional eating, task mastering, caretaking over, exercising, scrolling on social media. All of those work or have worked in some way in the past, the problem arises when these old ways start to cause more harm or to be unhelpful in present day situations. So much of parts work is actually offering these parts of you the felt safety, validation, love and connection that they didn't get in those past experiences. Again, this is that process of unburdening, and this is where that part gets to release its extreme belief or emotion or role that it's been carrying. 

And so think about the example I shared. For me, the extreme belief is that I'm unlovable unless I'm perfect. So this high achieving part of me when I can unburden this part, it means that I have released this belief that I'm only lovable when I'm perfect. So that this part of me can now be high achieving in a less extreme way. Being high achieving is only problematic when it's taken to the extreme. And so that's that process of unburdening. 

Now, before we wrap up, I want to offer another example of how this actually works, this process of identifying a part, building a relationship with them, eventually working to unburden and transform the way that they show up in this internal system, and how that might work in session with a practitioner. So the practitioner, the coach, the therapist, is there to act as a guide, to help you as the client, source for your authentic, your regulated self, who can then turn to and communicate with the parts. And it's this. Really beautiful self healing process where you learn to recognize and source for your regulated self, who can then turn and say, Ooh, hey part, let's chat. The idea is to create a safe space for our parts, our wounded and burdened parts, as well as our protector parts, to express themselves so that your authentic self can lead that healing process. 

So an example of this is, imagine there's a client, or you're the client. In this example, I'll call a client John, who's struggling with anxiety, and in a session, John identifies a part that feels intense shame from childhood bullying. So that would be the wounded or the burdened part that holds that intense shame from this experience of childhood bullying, and then he also recognizes that there is a protector part that jumps in to prevent him from feeling shame by overworking. So what happens is our protector parts often suppress our wounded parts. We're like we don't want to hear from you. Forget what happened. We're just going to keep working so we don't have to feel this. And through parts work, this client learned how to approach these various parts of himself with compassion, helping the protector part to relax and then allow the wounded part to express the pain. And that's where the healing begins, the trail back to unburdening again, we will. We'll talk more about this next week. Is that our authentic self, we've got to be able to source for that. So a lot of times that is the role of the therapist or the coach, is just to help you really source and feel into who is, where is this regulated part of me, this grounded, authentic part of me, and then to recognize, okay, there's the wound, but then there are so many different protective beliefs or behaviors that have suppressed that wounded part of me. And in this safe space, we can turn to that overworking part and say, Hey, what were you? What are you afraid would happen if we didn't overwork? And we've got to hear that part out.

And ultimately, in this scenario, what comes up is, well, if we don't stay busy, if we don't overwork, then we're going to feel the pain and the shame from that experience. And I don't think that we could handle that. And when your regulated self can have that conversation and say, but what if? What if we could handle that? And here, here's how we might, and if it starts to get overwhelming, I'm gonna let you come right back in and do your job. But do you think that you could step aside for a second and let me come into conversation with that younger part of me that it's is holding that pain and that wounding, and then we work there, and that is where patterns change in our life in really deep and fundamental ways. 

And so this process of understanding and healing our parts helps to soften our internal system, which allows for new, healthier ways of coping and moving through the world to be established, and how this layers into the conversation that we typically have here, which is understanding anxiety and depression through a nervous system lens, is to understand that our nervous system is deeply connected to our emotional well being, and so unhealed parts can contribute To our dysregulation, and when we can address the underlying emotional wounds and trauma and when we can gain support in accessing more of our authentic and regulated self, this facilitates a more regulated nervous system overall. 

And what our practitioners often do is, first, over time, help you to better source for your authentic self. Many, many of us have lost touch with this core sense of self, and our coaches and other therapists and practitioners out there who are trained in ifs help to create a container where your authentic and regulated self can come into conversation with these dysregulated parts and offer them space for their emotions to come up and to assure those parts of you that you're welcome, that you're seen, that you're heard, that your worries are valid. And you become more regulated overall, not because you were trying to keep your parts from feeling these hard things or expressing their pain, but because your authentic self learns how to soothe and CO regulate these more dysregulated emotional parts of us. Emotions cannot be integrated or released until they are felt. And through parts work, you can create this beautiful capacity within yourself to facilitate that process. Internally, parts show up big. Emotions are present. They are very. Viewed, they are supported, and then that part of you can process that emotion and release it. 

And our practitioners often layer in somatic components to this by supporting our clients to move through vicarious regulating practices to ground the system prior to doing parts work, in parts work after parts work, coaches might see a big emotion come up, and they can check in with the client and hey, are are you feeling like this? Is this amount of emotion coming up from this part is okay for you to feel? Is this amount of intensity okay? And if the client says, yes, then we can stay in that conversation with that part. We can stay in that emotion, building our capacity for it. And if the client says, No, this actually feels really overwhelming, then the practitioner is there to say, Okay, let's take a step back. Let's try a cleansing breath. Let's shake it out. And in that settling, we're not trying to get that part of us to have less emotion, but instead to help our core self, our regulated self, have more capacity and regulated self energy to offer that part of us that has the wounding, that has the burden, that has that bigness in feeling, and then outside of this general nervous system, work generally leads to more capacity within the nervous system itself, so that it naturally translates into greater capacity for when our authentic self approaches parts of us that carry more of the distress. 

All right, quick summary of what we've talked about today, we chatted through what parts work or ifs is a little bit about how it works, its application to healing anxiety and depression, its overlay with the nervous system regulation stuff we always talk about, we learned that by addressing and healing our internal parts, it leads to improved coping skills, more nervous system regulation and overall, more flexible and resilient experience of life. And if you're sitting here and you're like Amanda, I've been listening to for 30 minutes and I still have no idea what you're talking about. Go ahead and check the show notes. I am going to drop in a couple YouTube videos that I have found helpful, or other people explaining what parts work is, because maybe the way that they present it is going to make a little bit more sense to you. 

And also remember, next week, we are going to talk a little bit more about what this looks like in action, what it looks like to recognize apart and unblend from them into the moment. This is very synonymous and is going to feel really familiar to what I've talked about before as reactive regulation. Hey, I'm really dysregulated right now. What can I do in the moment to take off the intensity of this? Ooh, another way of looking at this is, I'm really blended with a part right now, and that's creating a lot of dysregulation. How can I un blend from that part? What is the process of recognizing and unblending and then proactive work, proactive regulation that I've talked about? One of those categories is deeper healing work that can come in this flavor of unburdening. What does it look like to come into conversation with those wounded parts and over time, unburden them so that you can view life a different way, have different ways of coping. 

And my hope is that either by checking out some of the other resources in the show notes and tuning in next week, that this begins to feel a little bit more tangible, a little bit more palatable, in being something that you can opt into, hey, that feels helpful to my healing journey, or Awesome, thanks for sharing, and I am going to stick with exclusively the nervous system ladder, or another modality that I have been introduced to by another practitioner, and that's okay. 

A huge part of what I want to offer you here on the podcast is exposure to the various ways that you can heal and navigate and work with anxiety and depression. Because what we have found to be true is that different things work for each of our clients. Some of our clients are 80% parts work, 20% behavior change in nervous system regulation. Other clients are 80% behavior change nervous system regulation really into blood work in the physiology. And they're like, Yeah, okay, they can take your leave some of the parts work. So there is nothing here that is gospel. There's nothing here that's like, this is the right way. What I want to do is just present another modality, another methodology that many, many of our clients, in varying degrees, has have found to be a really supportive and gentle way of healing anxiety and depression. 

So today's three takeaways are 

number one to remember that we all have parts. Each of these parts is well intentioned, and their mechanisms for handling situations may no longer be the best option for you, that's when those parts become extreme, and those are the parts we work with most in our healing journey. 

Number two is an invitation for you to try to identify some of your parts this week. Do you have a perfectionist part, an inner critic? Part, a rebellious part? Maybe some of the things I listed earlier in this episode felt familiar. There and then decide which one, if any, you feel ready to work with. 

And number three is a second invitation to do that work. And you can do that by working with a coach, by working with a therapist, by joining the membership or a one on one coaching program. You can also start to do that through journaling and a quick Google search, maybe quote like journaling prompts for parts work is a really great place to start and some of that self healing work. 

So like I mentioned, next week, I'm going to elaborate more on two important concepts of healing through parts work, which is unblending and unburdening, and that's it, sending you and all of your parts so much love, hope and healing until next week.

Thanks for listening to another episode of The regulate and rewire podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe and leave a five star review to help us get these powerful tools out to even more people who need them. And if you yourself are looking for more personalized support and applying what you've learned today, consider joining me inside rise my monthly mental health membership and nervous system healing space, or apply for our one on one anxiety and depression coaching program, restore. I've shared a link for more information to both in the show notes. Again, thanks so much for being here, and I'll see you next time you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai