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Explore a sample system

Starting from the body

Begin from a tension or ache, get curious about it as you would a part, and ask it what it wants you to know. If nothing comes, it may be only the body, and that is fine.

14 steps, drawn from 18 books on IFS.

Checked: each step was read against the book passages it rests on, and stays inside them.

Read every step first
  1. Starting from the body. A tension, an ache or a heaviness that does not quite feel like you can be a way in to a part. This does not assume it comes from one: it may be only physical. If a doctor has not looked at it, see one first. Like every walk-through here, it does not go to the hurt parts that protectors guard.
  2. Land first. A few slow breaths, only to arrive in the room you are in. This is not for pushing anything away. Whatever is loud can stay loud. Skip it if it does not help.
  3. Find a place in the body. Look for a spot that does not quite feel like you: tension, pressure, congestion, an ache, tiredness. If you live with a condition, you can start where it shows. Take a moment to find one.
  4. Stay with it. Place your attention on that spot. Just openly notice it.
  5. How do you feel toward it? Notice how you feel toward this place in your body. Frustrated, worn down by it, wishing it gone: all understandable. Answer with what is true rather than what sounds right, because this answer decides what comes next.
  6. Ask what it wants you to know. From that curious place, ask the sensation what it wants you to know. Then wait. Any thinking parts that want to guess can relax. If no answer comes, that is fine.
  7. Did anything come? A word, an image, a sensation. Or nothing at all, which is a real answer too.
  8. Treat it like a part. Then stay with the sensation as if it were a part of you. Write down what it let you know, in its words if it had any.
  9. What is it afraid of? Ask it: what are you afraid would happen if you did not do this to my body? Wait for its answer rather than thinking one up.
  10. Where did its answer point? Sometimes a protector's fear is about now: the argument, the deadline, being let down again. Sometimes it points further back, at a younger part of you that got hurt and still carries it. Both are worth knowing. Only one of them is for today.
  11. What it needs from you. It may be protecting you, and you can thank it for that. Or it may only be trying to get a message to you. Ask why it feels it has to use your body, and what it needs from you so it does not have to.
  12. How loud is it now? The same scale you used at the start. A drop is worth noticing, and no change is fine too: you know it better than you did.
  13. Give it a name, if one comes. A name can help you notice it sooner next time, before it pulls you all the way in. Any name will do. If none comes, leave it blank.
  14. Before you go. Thank it for whatever it shared, if it shared anything, and let it know this was not its last chance: you plan to come back, so only say that if you mean it. Then shift your focus back outside. Feel your feet, look around the room, and take a breath or two if that helps.
  15. Get to know the one that keeps stepping in. That is all right. Today, this is the part to get to know. Ask it what it is afraid would happen if it let you get closer to the first one. Then wait for its answer instead of thinking one up.
  16. Seen, and not today. If a younger part showed itself, let it know you noticed it, and that you will not forget about it. You are not going to it today. If you want, make a note to come back to it. That may be plenty for one sitting.
  17. Stopping here is allowed. When a part will not step back, stopping here is fine. It does not mean you are failing: it may take more time for it to trust you. You can use the time that is left to hear what it is worried about.
  18. Maybe it is only the body. Nothing came, and that is fine. It could be just a physical thing, not a part at all. You can still thank it for letting you look. If it keeps troubling you, it is worth a doctor's time.
  19. Ask the other part for some room. Turn toward the part that does not like the first one. Ask it whether it would give you a little room, just for a few minutes, so you can get to know the first part. It does not have to leave. If it worries the first part will take over, let it know you will not let that happen.