We need to see our difficult parts differently
Feb 23, 2025Reframing our Inner Parts
Our human nature is to fear and reject anything unfamiliar, different or intense. We push away the strange and uncomfortable because that helped us survive in the past.
Doing our inner work however, we need to over-ride that tendency. So many parts of us - old emotions, negative beliefs, traumatic memories - show up in confronting ways. Avoiding or suppressing them will only prolong our symptoms and suffering.
Therapy is a messy, uncomfortable process because we are unpacking the endarkened parts within us. It is not for the faint of heart. Yet by facing our wounds with gentle acceptance, reframing them as hurt rather than bad, we shift the stuck energies.
Once freed of the burdens, these parts reintegrate. Our inner children come home.
So next time you notice yourself judging a part of yourself - a thought, a feeling, a behaviour - pause to remember every part of you is important.
Once reframed as not negative, but a scared, shamed, angry aspect of yourself crying out for help, the healing begins.
“Parts are little inner beings who are trying their best to keep you safe.”
Richard C. Schwartz, No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model.
