Intensity
People often tell me I'm intense. They also often tell me I'm very chill. About the various parts humans have, and when and why they come to the fore.
Certainly there are times when I am very intense. My voice gets louder. My energy zings this way and that. These days, though, the intensity usually gives way to a more peaceful energy when I feel more connected to Presence.
The truth is, as Walt Whitman wrote,
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
This is true of each human. The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 4:5) says that
‘Adam, the first human, was created as a lone figure in order to teach us that if one destroys a single soul, he is as guilty as if he destroyed the entire world, since every human being is descended from one person: Adam. Since a single soul can create an entire world, anyone who sustains one soul is credited with sustaining the whole world.’
Jewish Journal, Each Person is a World
Parts Therapy
You’ve probably heard of ‘split personalities’, people with what is now know in the field of psychiatry as dissociative disorders who exhibit different personalities under stress at different times, and can become dissociated when a part arises to the point that other parts may be totally unaware of what that part said or did.
Most people are not this extreme. However, because each human is a world, not only in the generative sense of having a procreative line, but because each of one has many parts that arise, a variety of therapies have arisen to help both people with severe dissociation and the rest of us.
Four of these modalities are ‘Internal Family Systems {IFS} by Richard Schwartz, Ego State Work, by Watkins & Watkins, 1997, Gestalt Therapy by Perls, 1973, and the Structural Dissociation Model which was designed for clients with dissociative disorders and post traumatic stress by Nijenhuis, Van der Hart & Steele 2005.’
Gridlock
While like Jimi Hendrix we may experience other people as the source of our gridlock and crosstown traffic jams, parts therapy shows that often it is conflicts between the inner parts that becomes a barrier to forward momentum in life and ongoing healing.
Do you ever feel stuck in your life? You want to move on from something, whether it is a trauma that you are seeking healing for, or a relationship you cannot let go though you know it is holding you back, or some other attachment. But something inside you is stopping things.
Inner parts don’t necessarily want the same things. When what various parts want are in serious enough conflict, ‘gridlock’ or traffic jams occur, and there is a feeling of blockage or stuckness.
A good parts therapist stays away from thinking of people as difficult to treat or with problematic parts that need to be kept in line. Rather, the approach is to honour and provide space to all the parts within the person in front of the therapist in an embodied way, in order to help them better understand how their ‘internal family system’ has been trying to protect them from hurt, but has gotten bogged down and needs help.
In order to navigate life, people frequently suppress or even repress parts of themselves. These parts arose as a response to real and important experiences that if not listened to can create tremendous issues down the road.
Your Inner Child
The concept that each person has an inner child that needs to be heard, understood, and loved in order for healing to occur has become fairly well known over the past decades. Actually the situation is usually more complex. Strident parts can arise from a variety of ages through childhood and adolescence, as a result of different woundings, so there may be an inner baby or toddler, pre-verbal, as well as inner children at several ages and stages, and a inner adolescent or two.
Therapists speak of an internal family system because in addition to various parts of yourself in the past, those people who are closest to you become a kind of template for other parts, which model upon or mimic their personality traits and characterics.
Exiles, Managers, and Firefighters
Schwartz’s approach to Internal Family Systems Therapy posits three main categories of inner parts. Exiles are younger parts that are unresolved and ignored, in exile because they remain unheard. Managers send them into exile and maintain them there so you can keep going and continue to function, and as such may be healthy or unhealthy. Firefighters are a kind of manager but extreme. They act in a desperate attempt to shut down any pain or ‘fire’ thus also keeping exiles at bay, through addictions, dissociation, and self-destructive behaviours.
I’ve often referred to the dichotomy between false and True self in my posts here. The terms originally arose from Dr Winnicott’s writings, but have been fleshed out in various ways since his initial paper on this in 1960, including the Christian contemplative approaches of Thomas Keating and Thomas Merton.
And of course the concept of there being a false self which stands as a barrier to the True Self is a much older concept than just the past 6 to 7 decades. Arguably all religions and philosophies as they struggled to come to terms with the inner contradictions of being human have wrestled thoughout millenia with false vs True Self, in a ton of different ways, shedding more or less light on the subject.
As a Christian contemplative, I have found both Keating and Merton very helpful as I have sought to understand my false self better as well as more fully to connect with my True Self.
But from the perspective of Internal Family Systems, just as it is simplistic to speak of just one inner child when a person may have multiple juvenile exiles vying for attention, it may be too limited to think of it as one false self rather than a bunch of exiles, managers, and firefighters in conflict within, at times to disastrous effects.
Inner parts are there to attempt to protect us but they may end up burning our lives down to the ground.
Resolving Inner Conflict
Perhaps you are struggling with internalised aggression. It may be that when you were a child, it wasn’t ok to be angry. I wasn’t allowed to be either angry or sad, so I locked all that down behind a big smile and clown behaviours.
Empty chair or gestalt therapy is a way to allow the angry exile to ‘sit down’ with you and have the floor, perhaps for the first time since childhood. Maybe as you listen to the exile, you will realise you’re not angry at yourself, but God, society, or a world that didn’t keep you safe. Rebuilding a sense of trust will be essential to the healing process. I was introduced to empty chair work over 20 years ago by one of my therapists and have found it a rich approach.
Maybe you are struggling with a profound sense of shame. You feel that you are fundamentally wrong. Shame is not the exclusive property of the Catholic church, though religions and institutions have done a number on billions of people over the course of human civilisation, weaponising shame to keep people in check. Instead of hunching over or making yourself small, standing straight and tall may be a beginning to the healing, as you slowly start to reconnect to the basic goodness of the True Self.
If you shock yourself by suddenly behaving like a two year old having a temper tantrum, it may be an instance of regression in time. Asking how young or old this part that has suddenly kicked itself out of exile to spill its guts all over the floor can be a way in to being the mature and compassionate adult to that part, comforting it, and coming to terms with the kinds of life events that activate it, including anniversaries of past wounds.
Perhaps the problem is perfectionist pressure. It’s ok not to have everything together all the time. Humans are messy, imperfect, and wacky. So a way in might be trying to do something imperfect, even if it feels scary.
Kintsugi is the ancient Japanese of repairing broken pottery with gold so the new vessel is even more beautiful than the unbroken version of it. To quote Jay Wolf:
“The story of kintsugi—this style of pottery—may be the most perfect embodiment of all our trauma-shattered lives... Instead of throwing away the broken beloved pottery, we’ll fix it in a way that doesn’t pretend it hasn’t been broken but honors the breaking—and more so, the surviving—by highlighting those repaired seams with gold lacquer. Now the object is functional once again and dignified, not discarded. It’s stronger and even more valuable because of its reinforced, golden scars.”
Circling back to the beginning of this post, I think I get ‘intense’ for a variety of reasons. It feels like the energy of an exile that very much wants to be seen and heard, so my voice gets louder, I wave my hands more, and I press my points harder. I interrupt the other person more, impatient to be heard. I listen poorly. This week, the intensity seems to be coming out of a place of unusual stress and fatigue. But it will require spending more time with that part of me fully to unpack it. And who knows? Something beautiful may emerge.
Where are you in your personal healing path? Have you benefitted from the insights of Internal Family Systems or other modalities that support healing fractures in your personality? If this is newish to you, does it make any sense? Feel free to comment and share your thoughts., if you wish.
Nicole thank you. This is like reading the theory behind my stories. When I started them I had no idea about inner children and parts. But working with M my therapist I am learning through experience. This was so really helpful
Great exploration of the intensity paradox! The IFS framework really clairfies how different parts compete for attention, and that gridlock metaphor is perfect. I've noticed my intense parts usually emerge when I'm scared that quiet me won't be taken seriously enough. It's ike each part has its own strategy for being heard.