Internal Family Systems Scripts:
Steps To Unblend from a Firefighter or Manager Protector Part of Self
When our nervous system is dysregulated, also known as being triggered, our protector parts get activated and their feelings and thoughts can flood the body with intense and overwhelming emotions and impulses to act or behave in ways that are out of alignment with how we would show up in a regulated state, as our adult selves, and in our wise mind. That is being blended. To remember our Self again, we need to practice unblending by mindfully locating the part in our body, notice it, name it, enact dual awareness, bringing the prefrontal cortex or the wise adult Self online and into the room with the distressed parts.
Assume that any and all upsetting or overwhelming feelings and thoughts are a communication from parts and try to make that assumption even if you are not aware if it is true.
Locate the part in your body. It could show up as butterflies in the stomach, a clenched jaw, fidgeting hands, tingling in the limbs etc. Focus on the sensation in your body, giving it your attention and presence.
Name the part to the best of your ability. This is sadness, anger, anxiety, fear, shame, guilt. Say, I’m noticing this sad part is active right now. Notice if it changes or moves at all. Try to access curiosity.
Create a little more separation, just enough so you can feel their feelings and You too. As you notice the sensation in your body, also notice your spine supporting you. Also notice your feet. Also notice your breath.
If you have compassion available to you, try to let that part know that you are here and that you care. See how it responds. See if it has anything that it wants you to know. Give it space and time to respond or not. The point is to begin having a different relationship with that part so that it can feel seen, heard, and understood. We are not trying to make it go away.
You can also ask if what you are doing is helping even just a little? What can you do in this moment to help them feel a little less alone? A little less afraid? A little less angry? Do they like it when you check in on them?
With consistent unblending practice you will start to feel less distressed with familiar painful emotions and begin feeling more confidence and have more clarity.
Dan Siegal, 2006
“Where attention goes, neural firing goes. And where neurons fire, new connections can be made.”
Dr. Janina Fisher, 2006
“Every symptom is a valuable piece of information about how the client survived, adaptive instead of pathological.”
Sitting in the flame
An inside look at moving from being blended to accessing Self.
Today I am “sitting in the middle of the fire” (Becoming Bodhisattvas: Pema Chodron). I am being turned back to myself, to look inward for secure attachment. Security within allows for a sense of safety no matter what happens because I will know how to take care of myself. Even as I type my heart swells with sadness, with despair, with a sense of crumbling weakness. My limbs feel heavy and slow as tears prepare. Thoughts muddy. Oceans move deep within my heart and soul and I am unsteady.
Now I remember that I have capacity. The tears pool and fall. My throat is pushing the tightness out or rather relaxing the tension that I held in. I’m allowing it to speak, to be, to exist. My pain has a purpose. I let it inform me and I aspire to sit in its fire so that I may learn. My own burning bush, so to speak. And now I feel nauseous and spent, but lighter and I see myself surrounded by closed doors. All alone. I sit and I pray and I meditate.
Every closed door is pointing me back to me. People, lovers, friends, sponsors, therapists; no one can heal me because I am not actually broken. I am in the flame and I am turning toward it. I am becoming unnumb. I let it singe me and I smile. The burn of a closed door is good because it brings me back to myself. I abandoned myself for others and am unable to anymore because of closed doors. The world is doing for me what I could not do for myself. So, alone I sit, among the flame, encircled by closed doors and I smile and I cry because I am not abandoning myself, anymore.