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Podcast 4:3 Calming Rage with IFS: Helping Protective Parts Relax​​​​​​​

[00:00:00] [00:01:00] Welcome back to Parenting Without Power Struggles. I'm Susan Stiffelman. I'm so glad that you're here. In our last episode, I talked about firefighter parts using the internal family systems or IFS model. How these are parts of us, protective parts that just flood in fast. Sometimes they have us saying or doing things that we later regret, but if that episode landed for you, if you can relate to that kind of heat and storm and intensity of an emotional reaction, maybe you've been a little more aware this past week of some of your reactions, and that's great.

But I've noticed that when we start paying attention to our reactivity or our patterns, something sometimes happens alongside that, which is that [00:02:00] we develop this heightened awareness of what's going wrong , and that's not a good thing, um, because it means we hardly register the things that are going well.

And it, it leaves us really lopsided, and it can lead to a lot of discouragement and, and shame and all kinds of negative emotions that don't really help us take on new ways of responding to our kids or to anyone. If we're always feeling that we're failing and we s- just become more aware of the times we lost our cool, that's not the goal here.

So I wanna talk about why that happens and a mindset shift that can really be fundamental to breaking some of those patterns of reactivity, rage, the ... You know, I talked about being blindsided by rage, and for many of us, it does feel that way, that this storm comes out of nowhere. And if, if you heard that episode, and if you haven't, go back and [00:03:00] listen, um, you'll understand some of the mechanics of that and what that's

why that happens. Anyway, you're here. I'm so glad. I hope you'll check out all the offerings that we have here in this podcast series. There's many, many, many episodes with wonderful people, as well as visiting susanstiffelman.com where you can get my newsletter and stay in touch. Now, let's get started. So let's say you have 20, 30, 40, 100 interactions every day with your child.

Who knows how many it is. If it's 20, 19 of them go pretty well. Nothing to write home about, kind of ordinary. Here's your lunch. Make sure you take your dish to the sink. You know, where are your shoes? These, you know, maybe there's hundreds of them, and then one of them goes sideways, and you just get irritated.

You snap. You lecture. You threaten. You yell. Your voice gets sharper than you meant [00:04:00] it to, and that's the one that sticks with you. You might even replay it in the car after you've dropped your child off at school, or when your head hits the pillow at night. You know, "Oh my gosh, I lost it again." And, you know, you're just wondering, "Why can't I get this right?"

And I hear this all the time in my coaching practice. You know, parents tell me about their week. So sometimes I meet with people once or a couple of times, and sometimes for a little period we meet every week, and, and when that's the case, they just start with the problems. And of course, that's what they're paying me to help them with, so I, I don't, I don't...

I understand that. But they start with the list of things in great detail, when they lost their patience, or their child just ignored them or was defiant. And then if I say something like, "Well, can you tell me a couple things that went well?" There's often a long pause, not because things didn't go well, not because there [00:05:00] weren't sweet moments.

They eventually unearth them. Um, but because those things don't really register. They didn't really get filed anywhere, just the, the, the times that things fell apart. And again, I know they're coming to me for help with the problems, but it speaks to a larger issue, and this is not a, a flaw, by the way.

It's really how we're set up. You may already know this, that we're wired for survival, and that means our attention is naturally gonna magnify the threats, and the problems, and the things that are going wrong because from a survival standpoint, missing a threat is way more costly than missing a pleasant moment, right?

You, you definitely wanna review at the end of your day if you're in, in very, very, kind of prehistoric times, the saber-toothed tiger that almost attacked you versus the little bird that landed on your rock. So that wiring is what kept us alive. It's just not [00:06:00] as useful in current day circumstances because most of us We're not in that level of danger.

We have other dangers and threats, but in, in terms of the intensity of that primal part of our brain, the primitive brain, which is all about survival, we are, we are at the mercy of that impulse sometimes. And, you know, the more we learn and the more we practice and get support and, and reconsider and start becoming more aware, changing what we focus on, noting what's going on, the, the more we can break some of those old reactive patterns.

So we're talking in this season about internal family systems, and by the way, if you wanna come on for some coaching, drop, drop me a line at support@susanstiffelman.com and you, you're welcome to join. I'm gonna fold some sessions into this, this season's series. These parts that react [00:07:00] so quickly that we've called firefighters, remember the firefighters, they come in, a real firefighter breaks down a door, breaks a window, pours water all over your nice furniture because they're just there for one immediate purpose, to put out a fire.

That part of you that reacts that intensely is putting out an emotional fire. And just intellectually understanding them, "Oh, hmm, now I know what that's about," is not gonna make that process stop. Because the, the firefighter part inside of you and inside of me that leaps with, you know, guns blazing and all the hoses and the hatchets and everything, they need proof that you, your grown-up, wise, capital S Self can be trusted to handle things when they get hard.

And [00:08:00] that's the whole work. That's the beauty. I love this model, internal family systems, so, so much because even in my own personal life it is m- massively changing so many important things about old patterns and reactions that I intellectually understood. But when you bring your Self self, and that's the work, if you're part of our membership you see me doing this with members sometimes, we bring that to those firefighters, not to talk them off the ledge and get them to stop being so reactive and yelling at the kids, but to explore what is it they are...

What's their job? What is their... Why are they so active? And you will find as you do this work that the firefighter, that intense reactive part, is a protector that is devoted to a younger, more vulnerable part of you that once upon a time needed that kind of [00:09:00] fierce protection I-- you might wanna rewind and listen to that part again.

So it's there for a reason. It usually came on board a long, long time before you had kids or before this s- current, present-day circumstances. But it's still quite active because it, it doesn't know how old you are. The firefighter protective part is operating as though that young, vulnerable part of you is still at risk, and the update and the work is in you starting to inhabit your self self, your grown-up self, your captain of the ship self, in an authentic way that is grounded, that is solid, that is competent and capable of handling hard moments, difficult moments.

As Glenn and, and, and Abby and Amanda talk about in their podcast, we can do hard things. But our protective [00:10:00] parts aren't always updated. They don't know that, so they're still coming out with their, you know, fists going like, "Danger, danger," uh, even when you're really not in danger. So remember, i- i- this firefighter part is old.

It doesn't want you to re-experience old pain. So it might have been pain of feeling invisible, unimportant, disrespected, powerless, unheard, unappreciated, and when it gets the feeling that that is potentially happening in the present day, it comes out to keep you from re-experiencing that old pain. However, as a grown-up, right, we have other resources.

But from the part, the perspective of that protective firefighter part, it's been doing its job for maybe decades. It's not gonna loosen its grip just 'cause you [00:11:00] listened to a nice podcast or you read a, you know, a good book about IFS It needs to know, it needs to be made aware over and over that the captain of the ship has logged many successful moments and can actually take the wheel and handle things without the ship sinking and without, you know, bringing out the cannons.

So pause for a minute and I'm gonna just kind of review what I've said. We have this part inside. We have many, many, many parts if you're, uh, aware of this IFS model developed by Richard Schwartz. Many parts inside, protective parts have a job to do, and that job is to protect us. Some of them do it by managing our lives, some of them do it by withdrawing, some of them do it by, um, being perfectionistic.

S- but the, the fierce ones do it in the way a firefighter. That, that [00:12:00] level of, of protection comes when a very vulnerable young part of us it believes might be, might be threatened with an old deeply painful reactivation of a wound. The way we can start to work with that and lessen the reactivity isn't to just make promises that we tend to not be able to keep in the moment It's

to help that part, that firefighter protective part, witness us, well, in the, in the bigger sense, witness us working with that young exiled part, and that's more, more one-on-one work, deeper work. But it also starts to calm down when we point out to the firefighter, "See how I handled that? That got... That moment was a little iffy, you know.

James was, you know, telling me he had fed the dog, and clearly he hadn't, and he was coming up with all [00:13:00] these excuses, and I could feel this anger rising up, and, and, you know, my grown-up self sort of took a beat, put my hand on my chest, put my arm on the count- hand on the counter, excused myself for a minute, came back and said, 'Buddy, you wanna rethink what you've said about feeding Fluffy?

'Cause there's really... Looks like Fluffy wasn't fed.'" So once you log that, wow, today I didn't explode in anger about James not feeding Fluffy, or today I, I managed to kind of divert a storm that was happening when, you know, Eleanor couldn't find her favorite T-shirt and was able to kinda handle that moment without losing it.

When you start logging that, bringing that to the attention of these parts that are like, "Let's get going here and fight," it starts to [00:14:00] trust you that you can handle those moments. Um, but if all you ever notice and register and log are the moments when you hit this big wave and things fell apart or you sailed into the storm, then you don't accumulate that kind of proof.

So This is one of the ways that we can start to manage those s- very strong reactive forces inside that are legitimately there. They have a reason to be there, or they did. And again, the, the deeper beautiful work, which is generally more one-on-one work, is... And I just did the 91-hour training for therapists in internal family systems.

I'm now a level one therapist. It's, it's such a beautiful process. But that work is healing that young exile inside so that it doesn't need the protection anymore. But, um, you know, I've seen this play out so many times. I've worked with parents even recently who have this long-held [00:15:00] pattern of screaming, yelling, threatening.

They're convinced that this is temperamental. They're never gonna change. It's how they're wired. But it isn't, and it's exhausting, and it costs you something in terms of safety, and closeness, and connection with your kids, 'cause they can be a little bit, you know, on edge. And one of the first steps is to start noticing what's gone well.

Notice the moments when you met the moment with grace, with understanding, with compassion Calm, confidence, clarity, connection. Curiosity is a big one. So those are ways you can come back into your wise, grown-up self when you're starting to teeter on the edge of a reaction. You come back from, "Gosh, I'm- I, I just wonder what's going on here that is activating this, this anger in me."

And, and there can... That's a whole process, and hopefully in this series we'll go [00:16:00] deeper into that. Um, but in the meantime, because I like to keep my episodes reasonably short, I know attention spans and time are limited. Um, so you're always welcome to submit a question again, or volunteer to work with me, or suggest a topic that you want me to explore more deeply by sending a message to me at support@susanstiffelman.com.

But meanwhile, I'm gonna leave you, um, some homework, a little bit of homework, an assignment should you choose to do it, just to move you along in this process. And that is such a simple thing, but at the end of every day, I would like you either on a piece of paper or on one of the apps, if you have an iPhone there's a great app for this called Notes.

You might have another phone or another system, but somewhere in a more concrete way than just mentally. So in writing or in orally in your voice memo di- dictate, [00:17:00] I'd like you to log down five moments that went well. That's it. Today when James... didn't look like James had fed Fluffy, I, I managed to kind of pull myself back from the, the edge and use a little humor in there and say, "James, Fluffy is whispering in my ear that he is very, very hungry."

Or I left the room when Eleanor started to just go into a, a, a fit about something and, uh, her T-shirt and, you know, you start to just magnify the value of those relatively small moments where you managed to operate from your captain self We wanna highlight them. So they don't have to be [00:18:00] dramatic. It could just be, you know, holding a boundary and that was hard to hold.

It would've been easier to let your daughter stay up late with her sister, but you knew she'd just be in a rotten mess the next morning, and you just said, "Sweetheart, I know, I know, you really ... It doesn't seem fair, and you really wish that you could stay up with your sister, and boy, do I get it. And tonight, it's bedtime now."

I always try and avoid the word N-O, because it's kind of a triggering word, so there's lots of workarounds, and that's where I would usually do it. And so just, you know, log the wins. And then this is another one. If you catch yourself on your way to reacting in a big, intense way, and you step out of the room before things go all the way south, that's you at being the [00:19:00] captain, making a tough decision in a hard moment, excusing yourself.

That counts. That counts as much as staying super calm the whole way through. Catching yourself, excusing yourself, even if you have to say you're going to the bathroom or you have to make a phone call. Just pausing that, that interruption of a pattern is definitely a success, so log that, too. And over time, as you start stockpiling evidence, especially on days where you're

you know, things are a little rough. You're a little tired. Your, one of your kids isn't feeling well. Not just this vague thing, "I've been really trying," but specific. Here's the day. Here are the items that, the wins that I had. So you have a day-by-day log. That can be really, really, uh, instrumental in helping you have more of those experiences and breaking some of those [00:20:00] patterns of rage, anger, overwhelm.

Just noting the wins, acknowledging the successes, however small. Think small. You don't have to think in the big terms, just, I took a breath. Even if you fall apart and you do yell, if you slowed down and you tried and you caught yourself, "Oh, here I go, over the cliff," I would call that a win. Okay? So we're, we're making small, incremental progress.

It doesn't have to be big leaps. Little, little steps get you where you wanna go I've said this so many times, nothing pushes us to grow or grow up like raising our kids. You know, we come into this e- experience of parenting still the person that we are and have been the whole of our lives. We don't get reprogrammed with some- something that turns us into incredibly [00:21:00] selfless, patient, understanding, compassionate beings who don't mind being hungry and sleep deprived and take- taken for granted.

No, we're still the same old person that we were before we, we received our sweet child. So this is the opportunity that we have to heal and grow, and it's not just about growing up so that we can be a calmer, more connected parent, although that's a huge, huge plus. I believe that it's, it's one of the great ways that we can heal some of those unhealed, old, old painful places inside ourselves in this process.

So that's the work, and it doesn't get better in a week. It's a process, but we wanna make sure that we note progress. So again, if you wanna come on and be- get some coaching with me, obviously, you know, people hear it, so it's [00:22:00] not private the way a private coaching session would be if you wanted that. It's a whole different thing, but you can certainly change your name and, and we can do some things to, to ensure some privacy.

Uh, if that's something that you would like and you, you don't have the means to get support otherwise, you're most welcome. And please do stay in touch. If you've appreciated this series or these podcast episodes, it would be really wonderful if you would leave a rating or a review or share it with a friend or all of the above because, you know, I'm, I'm...

I want this work to be made available, and I feel that after, what, 40 something years of doing what I've done with families, that I, I wanna be able to share what I've learned. You can visit susanstiffelman.com for a free newsletter. There's over 50 90-minute master classes with people like Elaine Aron and Dan Siegel and Ned Hallowell and Gabor [00:23:00] Maté on everything under the sun from kids and money and chores and siblings and ADD and anxious kids and all of it.

So check it out, and remember as we wrap up, just take a moment here, take a breath. No matter how busy life gets, look for those moments of sweetness and joy. Stay well, take care, and I'll see you next time.