Family gatherings, particularly with relatives we’re hoping to maintain a relationship with but feel conflicted about, can be fraught with tension. You may want to approach these interactions with neutrality, but it can be hard when past emotions, unresolved issues, or triggering behaviors surface. Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy offers a powerful tool for navigating these tricky dynamics, helping you process internal reactions and show up as your best self in these situations.

Before heading into a family interaction that feels challenging—like a dinner with a relative you care about but also need to stay neutral with—taking a few moments to check in with yourself can make all the difference. The key is learning to work with your inner parts, the different facets of yourself that hold various emotions, beliefs, and reactions. Here’s a simple visualization exercise inspired by IFS to help you prepare emotionally and mentally before you see that person.

Step 1: Visualizing the Encounter

First, find a quiet space where you can focus inward without distractions. Close your eyes and visualize the person you’re about to meet. See them in a room with you, at a comfortable distance—just far enough that you don’t feel overwhelmed but close enough that you can sense their presence. Allow your mind to settle and observe how you feel towards them. Pay attention to any emotions that arise.

In IFS, these initial feelings are part of your “parts”—different aspects of your internal world that may be carrying past experiences, fears, or expectations. These feelings are often a mix of past wounds, protective instincts, and genuine desire to connect. Whatever emotional response emerges—be it discomfort, frustration, defensiveness, or even warmth—is valid, but it’s important to acknowledge that this reaction is just one part of you, not your whole self.

Step 2: Checking In with the Part of You

Now, ask yourself: What is this part worried about? What are you afraid might happen in this upcoming interaction? What does this part of you think is at stake in the relationship? Take a few moments to tune in to any physical sensations or thoughts that arise as you ask these questions.

It’s essential to give voice to whatever this part is feeling—whether it’s fear of judgment, anxiety about conflict, or a desire for approval. The more you listen to this part, the more you can understand its motivation and its role in protecting you from emotional discomfort. Acknowledge that this part is trying to help, even if its methods aren’t always in line with your greater goal of staying neutral.

Step 3: Creating Distance

Once you’ve acknowledged the worries and emotions of this part, ask it to step behind a glass wall. Imagine this glass wall as a safe barrier that allows you to keep the part’s feelings and reactions in view without letting them overwhelm you. This barrier helps create the space you need to remain grounded and neutral, while also maintaining compassion for yourself.

Next, do the same for any other reactions you might have to the person—whether that’s resentment, guilt, or even affection. Each reaction or part can be stepped behind the glass wall, creating more emotional distance until you can clearly observe each one.

Step 4: Gaining Perspective

After you’ve moved all the parts to a safe distance behind the glass, check in with your overall emotional state. What do you feel now? You might notice a shift towards neutrality, curiosity, or even compassion for the person you’re about to see. This is a powerful indication that you’ve processed the parts of you that were contributing to conflict, and you’ve created space for a more balanced, open interaction.

It’s important to notice how you feel internally once these parts are no longer front and center. With no part needing to step in between you and the person, you may find that you feel lighter, calmer, and more open to the possibility of connection. The relationship is no longer defined by your internal emotional landscape; it’s defined by your ability to be present and neutral, while still being true to yourself.

Step 5: Embracing Neutrality or even Compassion

By the time you meet this person, you’ve cleared away much of the emotional baggage that could have clouded the interaction. You’ve given each part of yourself a voice, allowed them to be heard, and then created the space to step forward with compassion and curiosity. This doesn’t mean you have to ignore past hurt or grievances, but it does mean that you’ve processed those feelings enough to show up with intention and openness.

The beauty of IFS is that it allows us to create harmony between our inner parts, so we can navigate difficult relationships with clarity, presence, and, when possible, genuine connection. By using this approach, you can approach family interactions with a sense of peace and emotional neutrality, helping to foster healthier relationships and a deeper understanding of yourself.

A Note on Safety

While this visualization exercise can be a helpful tool, it’s essential to prioritize your safety. If the person you are interacting with has a history of physical or verbal violence, these techniques may not be appropriate. You are not obligated to engage with someone who poses a threat to your well-being, and your safety should always come first.

Disclaimer

This blog is inspired by Introduction to Internal Family Systems (IFS) by Dr. Richard Schwartz. It is not a replacement for therapy. If you are struggling or feel you need additional support, please seek help from a qualified mental health professional.

About the Author: Annabelle Denmark (she/they), MA, LPCC is a therapist based in Lakewood, CO, They specialize in individual therapy for neurodivergent adults. Annabelle utilizes parts work, EMDR and sensorimotor psychotherapy to support people on their healing journey.  

You can find them at www.renegadecounseling.com

Yet, for many of us, no matter how old we get, we still feel like a little kid sometimes, complete with snide remarks, holding our breath, and pitching temper tantrums. It could be during an innocent conversation with a friend, and s/he says something that for whatever reason, feels “bad” and suddenly, the room closes in, the heat turns up, the heart skips a beat or starts a double-time march. Perhaps a distinct memory from childhood comes up, or not. Whatever happens, there is a creepy sensation that you feel instantly six again, or eight or twelve years old. The person you’ve been talking to looms over you, or at least keeps nattering on without the slightest recognition of her/his impact at that moment. Maybe you feel confusion, resentment, anger, or defeat. One thing is for certain though, you do not feel capable — grown up — or adult enough to stop the conversation, draw a boundary, admit the impact, or even just leave the room.

The good news? … You are not alone.

The not-so-good news? … Yep, “adults” have been faking it just as we’ve always suspected (and I speak as an adult).

This is not, of course, new news, given the hype of “embracing our inner child,” since the 1990s (or was it 2010s?). While the concept began with attachment theory in the 1950s, it took a while for it to become mainstream and now seems to be more recognized than ever. Basically, the idea is we all still have a little kid inside of us who is petulant, exacerbated, wholly subject to whims and meltdowns, who often doesn’t know how to use words, or if the little tyke is of speaking age, shouts things like, “I hate you!” “You’re mean!” “Leave me alone!” And if the child is a bit older, just flips the proverbial finger.

How this “inner child” plays out nowadays in society is broad. Take the educational realm, with students requesting spoiler alerts from teachers to know ahead of time if a book, text, or movie they are about to engage with has any emotional, physical, or psychological harms portrayed that would impact said student such that s/he might be thrown into reliving harms, harms that likely stemmed from some kind of childhood trauma (capital “T” trauma being physical or sexual abuse, war, poverty, natural disaster, and small “t” being everything else). Or, if said student was not traumatized, and instead lived a very sheltered life (a different kind of trauma, I would suggest), s/he had no reason to process intense reactions brought on by difficult, horribly ugly behavior, and thus has no experience to deal.

Whatever the case may be, it seems we are now inundated with immature reactions to mature issues. I suspect the “greatest generation” and up to and including “baby boomers,” the typical, osmotically learned way to deal with gruesome events/emotions was either to emphasize achievement, becoming Type-A personalities and going for success in business and personal life while shutting down everything else; or to go Type-B and drop into an alternative coping strategy of becoming a hippie, doing drugs, TM, yoga, or joining a cult. (I realize this is a narrow representation, and there may have been many other paths like joining a religion, being of service/volunteering, or becoming a soldier.)

And while the most recent generations (X, Z, Millennial, ??) have been given descriptors of sensitive, and easily triggered, I postulate that perhaps they aren’t any more sensitive than previous generations. Only, the recent ones have the means and capability of talking about it more openly, or at least sharing about it via social media. It is becoming more known via the gender space, that someone can feel feminine in a male body, and masculine in a female body. That correlates to me being in a 61-year old body, and feeling six when I’m with my mother, twelve when I’m with my brothers, 25 when I’m with long-time friends, and yes, my current chronological age when I get out of bed in the morning.

Which all leads to the recognition that at different times, in different situations, different little ones, hurt and injured parts of ourselves, take over. Those little rapscallions, no older than eight or six or even three are the ones making decisions for us; in careers, relationships, food and drink choices, when buying cars, clothes, houses, and even where to live. And for those who suffered trauma growing up, it makes sense that harsh material triggers them because those parts that got abused are still living on the front lines of our lives and can not help but be re-traumatized.

It does not have to be like this. What we find out on the spiritual path is that there is something greater than these parts, something eternal that is wise, compassionate, clear, courageous, calm and confident which is much more capable of navigating the world than are young, hurt, abused children. In Yoga, we call this True Nature, the inherent goodness that is present when we drop out of the stories we tell ourselves about how scary, cold and isolating the world is. It’s also called Buddha-nature, or Christ Consciousness. Personally, I like the term, “That Which Animates,” which makes it completely amorphous and doesn’t seem to offend anyone.

In any case, over the past three years, I’ve been working with a new therapy protocol called Internal Family Systems (IFS). The brilliancy about this modality is that not only does it work with the inner child, it introduces the inner child to the Self, to that eternal-ness of True Nature, Buddha-nature, Christ Consciousness, Divine Intelligence, That Which Animates. Not only do we re-parent the inner child in a way that heals that child so it never has to fear being triggered again, we find we can be Self-led (IFS terminology). What does that mean? We can be courageous, confident, creative, compassionate, clear, calm, curious, and connected as we interact with the world. We can be grown up, without being old; we can be adult without losing a sense of child-like wonder.

What one quickly learns in IFS, is that we aren’t re-parenting an inner child, rather, we are re-parenting an orphanage of young ones that have been abandoned by us at critical moments in our lives. (We couldn’t help it. We were too young and physically immature to do the job.) And while it might sound overwhelming, it isn’t. A critical difference of this modality versus other therapies is that you can ask the hurt, young one to not overwhelm and s/he won’t. How it got your attention was to overwhelm you. Now that it has your attention in this work, it doesn’t need to do that. In fact, it wants to heal. Such an open window of tolerance (trauma therapy term), negates the need for a triangulated attachment. The client attaches to her/himSelf, to the Self, leaving the therapist to simply ask questions and guide the client home to their True Nature.

And if that weren’t enough, it turns out that diagnoses such as manic depression, anxiety, addiction, ADHD, bipolar, and dissociative identity disorder are simply a collection of parts, parentified children, who’ve taken over in certain circumstances. Hearing the story of how Richard Schwartz discovered this methodology is heartwarming. As he worked with a young woman with an eating disorder, she agreed not to cut her arms anymore, and instead showed up the next week with a gash on her cheek. Dr. Schwartz said, “I can’t fight you anymore,” and the part of her that cut said, “I don’t want to fight.” And Dr. Schwartz asked, “what do you want?” And the part said, “to stop her from feeling pain.” (The pain here being emotional and psychological from years of physical and sexual abuse.)

All parts of ourselves, the addict, abuser, tyrant, submissive, jokester, thief, hedonist, narcissist, couch potato and all the rest have one thing in common — to protect us from pain, the internal pain of childhood traumas. Dr. Schwartz’s most recent book, “No Bad Parts,” explains that all these parts have been given one job to do, it’s a shitty job but they’re going to do it (name that movie?). Knowing that behind the sometimes destructive behavior a part is genuinely trying to make us feel better is revelatory. It’s what Gabor Maté also discovered in working with addicts, in which he thanks that part for keeping a person alive, often overriding a suicidal part. What becomes clear in IFS is that with the healing and transformation of parts, they become helpful rather than debilitating. Have a perfectionist part? Once it is healed and embraced, it often becomes one with gentle reminders sans the steroids of standards.

There is no question in my mind that IFS is a therapy modality that directly uncovers and empowers what spiritual practitioners have been seeking for thousands of years, the Self, True Nature, Divine Consciousness. I’m not saying give up sitting. What I’m saying is add IFS to your toolbox and discover the truth of, “we don’t sit to become enlightened. We sit because we are enlightened.”

About the Author: Beth Hinnen came to the spiritual path from the corporate world. After experiencing impermanence and greed, she left to study Yoga and has over 1,000 hours in Yoga teacher training, and ended up specializing in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, spiritual scripture that closely aligns with Buddhism. From there, she studied Zen Buddhism for over ten years, including in-person, month-long monastic retreats, until she earned certification, in January, 2023, as a Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. Currently, Beth is a co-leader of the IMCD Council, and on the Teachers Collective, as administrator. She hosts a Meetup group called Yoga Meets Buddhism, and for the past three years, has held an online Dharma Wednesdays class that discusses the Yoga Sutras while also bringing in Buddhist teachings, along with Sufi poets, Christianity, Judaism and other spiritual paths that reinforce the words of Sri Swami Satchidananda, the founder of Integral Yoga where Beth studied. “The truth is one, the paths are many.” More information about Beth is at www.samayaco.org.