Experiments in Ifs
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For the record, I am not an expert on internal family systems, known more concisely as IFS. I’m just a baby therapist incredibly fascinated by it, so I read the book eager to understand … and I hated it. I didn’t get it and I was skeptical that it wasn’t all, to be frank, woo-woo bullshit. Dick Schwartz (founder of IFS) might say my skeptic part was blended with my Self, but I wasn’t there yet.
And then I started working with clients, and I started to see the different parts in the room. They don’t announce themselves, you just start to notice a shift in tone, language, and communication style. You can see a facial expression that doesn’t fit with what’s being shared, or a pause that feels loaded. And for me, the parts became real when they show up in conflict with one another. The part that wants closeness butting up against the part that fears it. The angry part puffing it’s chest to cover the scared, little part reliving it’s loneliest, most traumatizing years. the protective parts that control, distract, disconnect, and the ones that chastise for doing those things. parts that act, urgently, to escape, to conceal, to prevent overwhelm of the whole system. the wounded parts stuck in time, in trauma, often so much younger than the person sitting in front of me. parts that seem to help us in ways that confuse us, or hurt us, or keep us isolated.
So I went back to ifs like an ex trying to understand what went wrong. People I know and respect love ifs, and I’m starting to see parts in sessions, so I did what I do best—I found a course, and I started to learn more. In my opinion, this work is best learned experientially. Plus, I never like to offer something to a client that I haven’t tried myself first (or am not sufficiently trained in). So I learned my basics, and then did it on myself. I don’t necessarily recommend this—there’s a whole process of building stabilization and Self-energy that needs considering beforehand. And, fwiw, I bring these mini-journals into my own therapy to talk about and explore further than I can do on my own.
But with each time i do an ifs session on myself, well, let’s just say I am now a believer. A fangirl. A diehard. I’m still learning, still exploring, but i have gotten to some wild places. I met one anxious part that ruminates to protect us, though I’m not yet sure from what. I met my 13-year-old self, highly self conscious and feeling left out again for existing in a larger body. Each time it is fucking weird as shit. No, like really fucking weird, so there is my disclaimer on the micro-journals (part poetry, part prose, part fever dream) that you are about to read. this will not be everyone’s thing. but man when it works? hoo-boy.
Read at your own discretion: Three self-ifs snippets below:
7/12/26
sometimes I get anxiety, and i do double breathing. and then i start to calm down enough to be like, “ok, i think we can go back to normal breathing now.”
and then, i panic.
i do not, in fact, remember how to breathe normally.. actually, i never knew how and i’ll be stuck double breathing for the rest of my life, slowly increasing my carbon dioxide levels hour by hour until i pass out and my brain kicks in to resume it’s normal functioning.. unless, of course, i pass out face down into a pool and drown, or into a pillow and suffocate, or maybe i vomit while passed out lying on my back, choking into death. better yet, maybe i was standing and i hit my head on the way down, and ok, so then my head could have a massive brain bleed that kills me, or perhaps i lose my memories, or my ability to speak, or my personality radically shifts, if i wake up at all or or or
you get it.
this is my anxious part.
the one that spirals, that feeds an obsessive thought pattern by catastrophizing and ruminating, endlessly, until it tires itself out.
today though, i looked through some previously unexplored rooms in the house that is my body, and said, gently:
hey, i hear you, i do. could we maybe not
keep going down down down this spiral
what do you need from me to stop?
and an androgynous, little boy-creature developed in the left corner of my mind (think: a large amoeba, about the size of a basset hound). he was light blue-green, like eyes that can shift in the light, with a cartoonish angry-emoticon face and a prominent muscled arm. With the elbow bent and the hand in a tight fist, he was moving it back and forth as if marching. he was clearly frustrated. i’d say he was pacing, if not for the fact that he was floating and shapeshifting back and forth
he didn’t see me.
he was so dedicated, so focused.
so, so frustrated.
and i felt it, like a wave,
instant coffee
my whole body softened, butter
i even felt my delight in this small, young, desperate creature-boy who is trying, so hard, to distract us by doing what he knows how to do: thought spirals and rumination and catastrophe.
when i say soften i mean
my heart rate slowed
my breathing steadied
my shoulders released their tension
and with it, the heaviness
and i felt so calm, and so much care
for him
he’s so young, he’s trying
he doesn’t know any better
i have to help him learn who we are now
show him i can protect us both
7/25/26
Lucy Dacus of all people didn’t have inclusive sizing of her merch. This is not normally a huge deal to me, I am so used to not finding things “in the wild” that fit, but maybe it was the vibes or the fact that I saw a few people I went to high school with or a suggestion iIget a non-clothing item instead (aka the fat-girl consolation prize). Whatever it was, this time I felt a shift and a deep sadness overtake me.
So I looked inward, and she was right there waiting for me: me at 13, so clumsy and uncomfortable
in her skin, in her body
She was there, devastated yet again that this time was no different than every other time. That she expected it to be different because it was Lucy. And that betrayal was especially painful.
And so we hung out for a bit, and I asked her how old she thought we were (“13, but idk you look older like 20 or something”). I blew her still-developing mind when I said almost 36. She fried me for being old, as all good 13 year olds do, and then she confessed she feels lonely. And I told her I had to go soon, but if she wanted she could come hang with me at the concert
And the warmth I felt through me … it was better than the sweatshirt i would have gotten. And we listened to the opening act together, holding hands.
8/7/26
It started with a startle
A moment I was not expecting
heat in my direction, an intensity i felt unprepared for at a time
when I felt calm (safe)
and I descended quickly into dissociation
a near total shutdown that felt embarrassing
I am an adult, after all I can handle
an argument, a bit of roughness
but I wasn’t hurt by the intensity of words
I was terrified of the anger
frozen
When I got inside, I hid in my bedroom and cried. I did my double breathing and rocked myself back and forth, bouncing and cooing to myself
A baby floated through my mind and she was so small, so scared, so alone
So i held her, and I rocked her back and forth until she settled down and I almost felt calm, but then I could hear Jill talking in the other room, and the baby startled awake and screamed.
A dark blue fiery figure (similar to No Face from Spirited Away) appeared, obscuring my view. I almost ran, a distractor part pulling my focus, loosening my grip, slowing my swaying and quickening my breath. But I asked this other part to step back for a minute, I could not leave the baby. I held tightly to the baby, and the flame transformed from a darker blue to a soft, radiant orange glow.
I’m not sure how, but i knew it was my suicidal part. I spoke with it and told it about me. How loved we are, how fulfilled we feel. How strong this part has been, but also how tired it must still be. and above all, I told it that I loved it. And I meant it.
The orange glow slowly evaporated to show me the baby again, back in my arms, nuzzling up to me. I rocked her, and told her I know I wasn’t always there, but I am here now. I love her, and I am here. I will always be here.
I felt her drift asleep in my arms as I fluttered my eyes open, tears still damp on my cheeks.
This piece is written by Mel Fielding (they/she), Yoga to Cope Board Member. Mel is a queer, non-binary, poly, MDD-girlie (non-gendered, cries a lot) in the process of obtaining their Master's in Mental Health Counseling & Wellness. They are super passionate about working with queer, poly, and gender non-conforming individuals to process and heal from trauma (both personal and systemic) and develop new ways of relating in the world. Check out more of their work here.