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Welcome back to our No Bad Parts Read Along. Can you believe we have made it here to chapter seven The Self in Action. I'm really excited to talk about this chapter today, and to dive further in into what it means to connect to the self and be self-led.

So it's really popular on social media right now to talk about attachment theory. And if you're not familiar with attachment theory, it's a basic idea that how we attach to our primary caregivers affects later how we attach to others in our life, romantic, platonic, and otherwise. And you can have a secure attachment, which means you are okay and comfortably attached. And if the person goes away and they come back, you can reconnect with them.

There is anxious attachment, which is when the person goes away or starts to pull back. There's a holding onto and this might be a person that gets called quote unquote needy, which of course is a sort of derogatory way of looking at what's actually a survival technique. But that's a person who's grasping, always trying to bring people in closer and closer, and is fearful of losing them. You also have an avoidant attachment, which is that person who kind of pulls back and pulls away, and they might stay detached and they might never fully show themselves to others. And if someone goes away, they might say, well, I don't care, I didn't need you anyway. And there's also the idea that we can have a disorganized attachment, which is sort of a combination of those two.

It's important to understand that it's normal for attachment, to flex and flow in different relationships and in different situations, and based on what's happening in our lives. So it's not like a Myers-Briggs test where you can just say, I'm an anxious attacher and that's that. But it's important to understand going into this, that IFS and that connection with the self takes this idea of attachment and brings it inside where the self or the adult consciousness, as we call it in NARM, gets to figure out how to build that good, secure attachment to those internal parts who might be anxious, or who might be avoidant, or who might be disorganized.

And this is really, really exciting because it means that we can start to repair and rebuild from those environmental ruptures we may have had with our caregivers, our teachers, our peers, or even in romantic or platonic relationships later in our life that have left us feeling uncertain and disconnected. We get the opportunity here to reconnect with the self who holds our secure attachment to these other parts. And as these parts start to trust the self and become, we become more self-led and more internal.

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We might actually find that our attachment patterns externally to people around us may start to shift little by little, as those neurons fire in a securely attached way that those pathways may become available to us in other relationships. So it may go from internal to external. And that's the coolest thing in the world to know that we have the capacity and the agency and the choice and the flexibility to start to pattern this by becoming the “good parent” or “good caretaker” or whatever it is that we never had in the first place. We get to bring in those young exiles who never got to be seen or held. We get to connect with the inner critic, the intellectuals or the perfectionists, the firefighter part of us that dissociates us. Over time, we get to become the primary caretaker of these parts, and that means that we no longer have to rely on other people to try to take care of these parts.

Now, it's important to understand we're meant to heal in relationship. We're meant to heal and connection. And so it's normal and expected that when you're in therapy or a relationship or whatever it is, that that person is part of your well-being and part of your regulation. But what can happen is subconsciously, at times, we look to other people to try to heal these parts of us. And while they can play a role in it, we also need to be connected to these parts of us as well. And so we can start to connect to other people relationally more from our adult consciousness, more from our self. And it can be really hugely shifting to relationships.

When the person, the therapist, or whoever can be sort of that secondary caretaker as Doctor Schwartz calls it, to those parts instead of the primary caretaker. Right now, for many of us, that might be reversed, where we're looking to others to try to fill that hole. Now, again, I want to say I'm not one of those people who's like, you have to love yourself to have others love you. I firmly believe we are meant to heal in connection and in support with other people. But if we are not consciously aware of these patterns, of these survival strategies of these parts of us, then our relationships may continue to feel unbalanced where we are all in or where we're very pulled back and it feels anxiety producing and it feels scary and we feel disconnected. And so we might never get to feel an authentic, balanced, connected relationship. And again, that can feel so dissatisfying. It can build up resentment. It can build up anger and sadness and fear. So this is such a cool opportunity not only to change how we relate internally, but externally as well.

This is also why in therapy, sometimes it can feel unbalanced. If you're working with a therapist who doesn't understand the parts or the child consciousness of developmental and relational trauma, because the therapist can get hooked in with their parts and think they need to fix you. And by doing so, they may unintentionally take your agency away from you where they come in as the fixer of time and time again. That might feel good to some parts of you, but it doesn't lead to you over time. Connecting to your agency, your choice, and yourself. You might also be labeled as disruptive or self-sabotaging, or like you're not really trying because you might feel really resistant to this person who's trying to fix you.

And so understanding that when you go into therapy, that person can hold space and be curious and be a stand in participant in your nervous system, meaning they can lend their nervous system and their self to you while you're exploring. They cannot, nor should they be the one who fixes you, because that doesn't lead you to becoming a self led person who can, who can walk through their life with agency and connection and authenticity and curiosity and neutrality and all of those things. So if you've had that experience in therapy, just know that you're not alone. And it's something that can happen as therapists, systems and parts and bodies and minds can get hooked in unintentionally as well.

A big part of this chapter is dedicating to Doctor Schwartz going through a session with Ethan and Sarah. And in this he is exploring connecting to these different parts in each of them. Where Ethan is exploring a part of himself that he calls the destroyer of injustice. And this part is very fiery, very justice driven, all about being deeply committed to protecting the planet and trying to fight systemic oppression. But it was manifesting in a way that created some tension in their relationship. For example, his partner was wanting to build an addition to their small house, and that was so activating to this part in Ethan because he wants to live smaller for the earth and talks about there being homeless people out there who don't have anything.

But it was creating a lot of disharmony in the system between Ethan and Sarah, and making her feel like she was unable to have her needs met as well. And I think this is a valuable read or listen if you want to go back through and listen to the full session, but it's such a cool opportunity to notice what it's like connecting to these parts and how some parts can have really important things, like, of course, fighting for injustice can also get burdened with other experiences. And as this session unfolds, Ethan is able to connect to this part of himself, burdened by the grief and guilt of losing his father to a drunk driver, and that that loss really left him rejecting everything around him that could be considered superficial and pushed him towards this intense drive for justice.

And as Ethan was supported in exploring this from an IFS perspective, he found that this part actually held this belief that he was somehow responsible to his father's death. This old belief about a childhood decision to skip a basketball game his father invited him to. And what a burden. What a burden that this part had taken on, and that driving through this injustice, this singular focus, with the real difficulty connecting emotionally that left him disconnected from those around him. And as he was able to release this burden, he could connect to some compassion and understanding and find the dual role of this destroyer of injustice. Protecting, of course, Ethan's all for the earth and driving him to act, but also isolating him due to its intensity, and by unburdening that grief and guilt carried by that part, bringing that self in to be self-led and listened to that justice driven part, that he could find a way to honor his purpose and his drive without letting it take over and isolate him.

It's a really interesting and fascinating, fascinating session. If you'd like to go back in and read the full session, you can really feel this reconnection between Ethan and Sarah and space for each of them to feel