What we have in common

Dear ones,
What’s one thing most humans have in common right now? We're so polarized about the content of who is good/bad, right/wrong about vaccines, covid, variants, climate, finances, media, politics. How do we find common ground?

My loves, all of us want to be safe. This is a driving force behind many, if not all positions on just about any inflammatory topic.

And many of us are riding high waves of fear, whether we are conscious of it, or unaware of it in the background.

Our fears are unique to each of our own selves - and they are shared in all of us in the strong pull of safety.

It’s pretty normal that we attach fear to an issue, to a person, to blaming someone. I do that on a regular basis with my husband. If I slow down to notice the process unfolding, first and unconsciously, a fear pricks at me, tickles and grows on my insides, parts of me look around for a reason, my husband is a target, and then I launch into the blame game. My husband is just a convenient and close excuse.

Most of the time, he's not really the reason or the cause for my discomfort. My own feelings and my fears are the source of my discomfort.

When you notice your fear, or its neighbor, blame, I invite you to try the You-turn. Instead of our very normal reaction of pointing fingers and shaming and blaming others, take a look inside yourself. Let’s get comfy and make some warm, loving space for the fears that you carry.

Your fears matter. And being with your fears brings about the most human of healing and transformation.

It is very seductive to believe that if [xyz] people would just [abc], then I won’t feel afraid or feel this bad. And sometimes there is some truth in that. We all know of real scenarios where bad things happened to us because another person did something to me.

There is no guarantee of safety in life. We cannot make people agree with us. I know you, dear human, are a wise person, with many great ideas on how to make this a world a better place. But alas, we will never have unanimous agreement about anything. And that actually isn't a problem. Diversity of thought and opinion are valuable and needed in every arena of life.

You have power and control to help yourself. This is real power, and you are more powerful than you might now know. Being with the parts of you that are sure you're right, and being with the parts of you that are afraid. Unblending from both will bring space and healing. There may be anger, grief, sadness, despair, memories, feelings, sensations too.

Being with fear, facing your fear, sounds simple. And it is a powerful, timeless practice that many spiritual teachings have pointed to over and over.

Finding loving space for our fears can bring healing inside ourselves that have ripple effects far beyond what we are facing in politics and in health. Being blended with fear often leaves us feeling the only options are good/bad, right/wrong, us versus them. Healing fear opens up space for creative problem solving and ways to cross lines and find common ground.

It may not be instantaneous. It will take regular practice. It might even take dedication. I personally am finding the results to be so worth it, for me and many people I know. I am discovering a bedrock of myself that far outweighs the safety of group agreement. I am in boundless joy at times, that defies logic or reason, even at this heightened time of pressure.

I am attracted to those people who have also found this bedrock of calm, deep, joyous knowing. People who do not blow with the tides of popularity or oppositionality or proselytizing, but are filled with the truth of themselves and the compassionate connection to all humanity. Yes, to ALL of humanity. These people inspire me, and are the people I hope will shine forth from this challenging time.

It is a choice you can make right now – turn outward with blame, or turn inward with courage to face your own fears and bring about a different kind of healing.

With great love and joy,
Marta

Resources

Here are some resources that are helping me navigate these intense times. I invite you to share with me any resources you’ve found especially helpful and uplighting.

Morning and evening grounding exercises
I do these grounding exercises every day, and they are very helpful in staying grounded and not swept away by the energies around you, whether that’s parenting, work culture, or polarizing topics.
Grounding for intensity
This is one if you’re feeling the intensity in the air these days.

If being with your fear calls to you, and you’d like some help and support in this endeavor, please respond to this email for a free call to see if we’re a good fit for one-on-one healing support.

I plan to start a weekly free meditation in the fall, incorporating practices from inner parts work, energy healing, and somatic exercises. Sign up here to be on the weekly invitation list.

What is IFS?

What is IFS?

IFS, Internal Family Systems, is a method of healing.

It is a way of sticking your finger in your unconscious and stirring it up, towards the good and the healing.

It is a path to know yourself better and deeper, to build trust in yourself, to heal old wounds, to live in the present.

IFS is one option among many for healing.

IFS is a way to enliven, to wake up, to access the healing energy that is within all of us. A therapy framework, with methods and processes and questions, but at its source, it’s about yourself healing yourself. Maybe with help from a trusted guide or partner or support person along the way.

IFS is a way to transform your personality. Bringing healing to our most vulnerable parts frees up our personality in ways that are hard to imagine until the shifts start happening.

IFS is a way to become even more of YOU. The true, deepest essence of you.

It can be done with another person, or in a group, or by yourself.

A core belief is that we all have Self Energy, and Self Energy is naturally aimed towards healing. Accessing our innate Self Energy allows the healing to happen. Allowing a part to be bathed in Self Energy brings shifts and changes. Self Energy has no agenda, and it cannot be damaged. Maybe it is our soul? Maybe it is universal energy? Maybe it is qi?

A practitioner can help in this process partly because of the Self Energy they bring to the session. Two people’s Self Energy, aligned in the intention of healing, resonates and amplifies.

Some people find just one session of IFS to be what they need. Others, like me, are drawn to it as a lifestyle and a path for living. Many are loving online videos and blogs and podcasts and books. And every option in between!

If you are curious to try IFS, I’m offering a free, full hour session right now. No strings attached. Just an offering of love and support. Because we all could use a little more love and support in our lives right now.
Marta@InnerArtistry.space
773-793-0864

Pandemic - nervous system overload

My nervous system has really been an intense mess during this pandemic. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. My parts have exploded, as I think has been true for every living human, and they need a lot of attention and help. Plus my four year old and his internal parts need extra these days too. It’s a lot. We’re all dealing with a whole lot right now.

This post is about one specific internal shift that has helped me, but at the bottom are some other ideas that have helped my nervous system.

I'm working towards a fuller internal democracy, including my firefighter parts, inviting them all to show up exactly as they truly are. I thought I had welcomed the firefighters in by allowing myself to eat as much chocolate as I wanted, and sometimes eat a lot of cookies. But it turns out that was like a halfway invitation, and they were still being smothered by the managers most of the time.

This invitation for the firefighters to stand up more fully has been interesting and hard. On the one hand, my firefighters are like, ”it’s about damn time we get to stand up tall”. But it’s been very hard for my managers to step into this new space. It's like a trust fall. Everyone’s managers are afraid of firefighter parts. They feel so out of control, so wild, like they’ll break the rules.

And firefighters do break the rules! Manager parts are not crazy to worry about this. They are spot on, firefighters don’t give a damn about the rules.

But they bring other qualities to the system – creativity, comfort, rest, passion, fresh thinking, rebellion. I feel invigorated and excited to have more of these qualities in me!

Today, my son and I watched The Croods, an animated movie about cave dwellers. The dad was a rockstar at survival. His motto is “new is bad, don’t ever break the rules, don’t try anything new.” Gosh, my manager parts related to that so hard! And then their world came crashing down with an earthquake and he was forced to try new things. Gosh, my parts related to that as well. Pandemic, earthquake – forced change either way!

Of course, the happy ending for the The Croods is that trying new things can be magical and life saving. My manager parts sure hope this is true for me internally as well.

And it has been true. While my nervous system still goes into overwhelm many days, with this new relationship between me and my firefighters, and me and my managers, I have way more space to be with them all. I can feel really terrible and really great at the same time now. It’s a strange and new experience for me and I love it. It feels like magic.

I suspect the reason this shift has helped my nervous system is because each group of parts is more aimed toward me rather than towards each other. In IFS terms, my Self energy is connecting to the managers and connecting to the firefighters, and they each have a way to get heard. (My firefighter parts roll their eyes at any IFS language!! They hate it!)

There’s something so exhausting about when my managers are constantly battling to keep my firefighters under control. I think it provokes adrenaline. It feels like mini battles being waged all day long. So when I can separate these two energies and connect with each of them, relief happens. Even if I’m flooded with some big feelings, at least I’m not engaged in a constant internal war.

And yet, today, despite the separation between the firefighters and my managers, I had a really, really hard nervous system day. So it’s not like this internal shift fixed everything.

Other things I’m doing that are helping my nervous system:
• Alone time is strategy number one
• Walks in the park or the woods
• Epsom salt baths or foot soaks
• Creating something with my hands – usually painting or embroidery
• Herbs and vitamins – nettle leaf tea infusions, increased magnesium, skullcap tincture
• Meditation, sometimes with legs up the wall
• Therapy, connecting with my parts every day, Listening Time

What’s working for you and helping your nervous system? Sending so much love and support and connection your way during this stressful, pressure cooker time!

Under Pressure: A Love Letter to You

I'm sending love to all performers – not just performers on a stage, but anyone who feels that they are being scrutinized, labeled, and judged. What comes to mind are auditions, asking for a raise, pitching an idea, looking for investors, going to a party, meeting new people. May I take a guess and say that most of us have felt like performers at one time or another in life?

We all want and need approval of some kind from the other people in the room. Getting the job, finding your tribe, belonging - all of this creates some amount of internal pressure. These are real and legit needs. We can not exist alone, we are designed to be in community, giving and receiving support to our fellow humans. So when that support even hints at being threatened, our bodies react.

It is not your fault if your body gets triggered into fight/flight/freeze/fawn when under pressure. You, my dear, are human. This is our biology. This wiring in our bodies is good. It is protective. It is helping us stay safe. This is what we do when our bodies and our nervous systems do not feel safe.

This stress response wiring in our bodies is older than bones – it is observable in cartilaginous fish and thought to have evolved before bones evolved. Gosh, that bit gives me comfort, knowing that my body's automatic functions are a production of such a long history. 

This stress response might show up as adrenaline, shakiness, sweating, feeling out of control, feeling sleepy, feeling frozen, incapable, non-responsive, thick tongue, dry mouth, fingers heavy, unable to be and feel authentic.

No matter the conditions that led to fight/flight/freeze/fawn, it is the body’s stress response, saying “I do not feel safe.” The body does not lie - this is an automatic and unconscious reaction. If your nervous system feels stressed and unsafe, that’s just the truth of the moment and that is normal and ok to feel that way. (And of course, other energies inside us might hate that it happens, and that is normal too.) It might be a signpost to pay attention to, a trailhead of further inward exploration if you feel so called to explore and heal.

We might look at this nervous system response as energies or parts within that do not feel safe, but it is not our whole being that feels this way. It feels comforting to me to separate these threads, so that I can witness all the conflicting energies inside me - the ones that wish to be in the situation and those that wish to be hiding under a blanket. 

There are a few things we can do to feel safer in a high pressured situation – like practice and prepare effectively, get the support you need to feel as good as possible, give your day enough space to feel unhurried. This might save you from a certain level of flipping into fight/flight/freeze/fawn, and the energies within that drive this preparation deserve appreciation. 

But there are so many things outside our control – our previous trauma history, our history in similar high pressured situations, our neural wiring predispositions, the way the people in the room treat us, look at us, talk to us, ignore us. And many of these are outside of our cognitive awareness, which makes it overwhelming to deal with in the moment.

It is so, so hard to feel triggered, tripped, flipped. I’ve been met with judgment for simply feeling nervous, I’ve been told to practice more. I've been told to focus on my breath, focus on the positive, ignore people. What else do well-intentioned but misguided people around us say and do? I’m certain I have been on both sides of this, receiving unasked for advice, and giving unhelpful advice! (My deep apologies to those I have given the unhelpful advice.)

Instead, what we deserve is love and compassion for having been flipped into the body’s automatic stress response. We deserve support people around us giving us kind listening and loving emotional space. It feels bad inside and takes energy to process and recover, no matter what circumstances led to this state.

I’m sending you oodles of love and a deep heart for those times that you’ve felt this normal, human way, for your entire being, all energies and parts within you.  

Marta

Sex, drugs, rock & roll - Appreciating Our Firefighter Parts

Appreciating our Firefighter Parts
Sex, drugs, and rock and roll suggest rebellion, selfishness, recklessness. Instead, consider these actions as a way to take care of a person's inner world. A way to find a sort of inner balance. Not a balance of zen and bliss, but rather keeping the scales balanced between painful feelings, functional actions, and rest and comfort.

The short version of this post: an invitation to view our parts that 'act out' by over-eating, excess drinking, drug use, cutting, rage, compulsive shopping - to view these parts that take these actions with compassion. Firefighter parts want comfort now, and they are fueled by the pain that our Exiles hold. 

Firefighter Parts
Sex, drugs, binge eating, drinking – all of these actions are considered Firefighter parts – and the goal of Firefighters is feel better now. They are the pressure release valve, the numbers, the distractors. 

All of us have Firefighter parts and they certainly can be out of balance. The out of balance actions or desires of Firefighters is directly correlated with the amount of pain that Exile parts hold. (Exiles carry our deepest wounds, and are pushed away and covered up by protective parts, like Firefighters.)

Rather than looking at actions as good or bad, an option is to view the actions along a continuum of extremeness. In balance, Firefighters bring comfort in moderate amounts, and their own innate desires are less intense.

More extreme Firefighters might ‘act out’ by binge eating or excessive drinking or bounteous drug use. Or sexual acting out, like cheating, risky sex choices, strong attachment to pornography. Or compulsive shopping. Or cutting. Or watching TV endlessly. Or whatever feels hard to ‘control’. Those are Firefighter parts that are more extreme, and reflects a deeper pool of Exile pain.

Positive Intentions
When using the Internal Family Systems model, every single part has a positive intention. So what kind of positive intention might these parts have, the ones that take actions that are deemed socially unacceptable, risky behavior, illogical?

The intentions of Firefighter parts are to give us some relief, and they want that relief right away. Firefighter parts are the first responders to distress. They can't wait until after you’ve saved enough money, or lost some weight, or after you finish your to-do list. Not in a safe and moderate way. Comfort now is their goal and job.

I love the IFS approach to Firefighters so much because it does not pathologize the parts or the person. Instead, there is understanding and compassion for these parts. Even the most extreme of these parts have positive intentions of trying to help, trying to give rest and comfort and relief. 

But what about Firefighter parts and their actions that cause havoc, hurt people, ruin relationships? 
There is no doubt that some of these Firefighter actions can have serious consequences. Firefighter parts certainly inflict real pain and real problems internally or on other people. Especially in the more extreme roles, there is an abundance of blame and shame going on internally. And the shame and blame just keeps growing when pain is inflicted outwardly towards those we love and care about. And ultimately a person does own responsibility for any pain inflicted upon another person, and that adds to the burden for our parts to work through. 

This method of approaching all parts with compassion, and understanding that the parts have a positive intention, gives space for healing. It may be slow, it may be messy, but ultimately that compassion and awareness and understanding is the foundation for parts to heal and change. 

Firefighters, Managers and Exiles - the Inner System
Firefighter parts get into tangles with the Manager parts, who have other jobs, like saving for retirement, or practicing, or working, or adulting. The conflict between Firefighter parts and Manager parts then becomes such a fabulous way to avoid the pain of Exile parts. Arguing internally about eating, drinking, drugs, exercise, money, and so on is such a good distraction from deeper pain! And in turn, the pain that the Exile parts hold is the fuel that keeps Firefighter and Manager parts stuck in their unending patterns.

If your goal is to ultimately lessen some Firefighter activity, one possibility is to help the Exile parts. Healing the Exiles lowers the fuel in the fire, and Managers and Firefighters get more choice and ability to change how they function. 

A first step in working with Firefighters is to notice that it is a part of you taking action, it's not all of you. Any internal comments or criticisms or judgments are coming from other parts. This awareness creates space for each part to have their own process and experience, which is a step along the path to compassion and healing. 

When seeing other people’s Firefighter parts in action its so very easy to get pulled into judgment. Again an option is to see it as their parts. That their parts are working hard, and they all have a positive intention, remembering that these actions all take place within a bigger inner system.

Firefighter parts are important to me because they are often shamed and unappreciated, maybe even hated. I know my manager parts struggle with acceptance of my firefighter activities, and it is a constant area of growth for me to notice them as parts and then work with my other parts to give them all space and care. All of us deserve rest and comfort, and our Firefighter parts are on a dedicated mission to give that to us, even if sometimes the method they choose causes discomfort from other parts. 

With love and appreciation for all of your Firefighters,
Marta

Elusive Breath

Seeking work and excellence in the arts requires focused training for our bodies to perform to the highest calibration and to highly technical demands. And yet, sometimes, even after all the training, all the preparation, it might feel like our body betrays, by losing our connection to something so basic as breathing.

It's so disappointing to be human, with inner parts of one’s personality not on board with the passions that lie close to our hearts. With parts that might especially get afraid because our artistic desires are so very near and dear to who we are as a person.

It’s so dang hard to be human!

[I guess I have the inconsistency of being human on the brain, as I wrote my last post about Embracing Inconsistency.]

This is what happens for me in those times that I've spiraled out of control under the pressure: adrenaline increases. My muscles tense in response, as I try to control the shaky feelings. As my adrenaline increases, so does the shallowness of my breathing.

Then my mind starts in on trying to fix it. “Take deep breaths. Take deep breaths. Focus on your breathing. Fix your breathing!” My head is barking orders to my lungs. My lungs are impervious to logical input. It’s like I’ve stuck a bellows in my lungs and I’m manually forcing the air in and out.

The physical discomfort takes me farther and farther from the focus of my music or collaboration.

And then parts of me are mad or frustrated, because whose body is this?!? Where did my arms and fingers go? What about my dreams and desires? Which furthers the cycle of more parts triggering each other, and moving farther from my best performing self.

Does this kind of pattern sound at all familiar to you?

If so, I have two suggestions.

First, oodles and oodles of compassion. This is so hard, and so frustrating, to be so very human in this way. To have goals, desires, longings, and our very primal needs for safety are getting in the way! Such an inner conflict. I've lived many years wanting to banish those pesky parts that are fearful. But what if, instead, we can have compassion for those fearful parts?

Can you find any amount of authentic compassion for yourself? One possible way to do this, is to see this normal body reaction as a part of you, and treat it like you might treat a fearful child. Fearful children do not get less fearful by yelling at them and blaming them. They get less fearful by treating them with love and support and safety, and setting up the right circumstances for success.

You do not need to quit performing just because one part of you gets scared! But if you can find out how those parts might like more support and what can make them feel safer, then maybe you can meet those needs.

For example, maybe you bring your own pianist to the auditions that you most care about. Or schedule a rehearsal with the hired audition pianist. Or maybe you’d like to create a sacred ritual before you walk on stage that is calming to your nervous system.

What creative ways might you find more safety for your scared parts?

Secondly, try looking inward to see what happens at the time that you lose your breath. As much as you can slow down your process and notice what triggers what, the more awareness you bring to your unique system, and the more specific you can get with your preparation.

Some possible questions that you might explore: When do you notice you get off track? What happens for you when you’re off track? Was there something that precipitated getting stuck? What came just before the stuck breathing, or the rush of adrenaline, or whatever it is that you notice in your body? What are the thoughts, words, or sentences that go through your brain? How does adrenaline affect your body? What feelings do you notice and where do you feel them?

In my most recent IFS training, I did some cool work with adrenaline as a part of me. I was able to create some space and separation between me and the adrenaline parts.

Adrenaline is triggered by the unconscious, I can’t control it. And yet, when separating from it – IT no longer controlled me. I had adrenaline coursing through my body, lit up and shaky, but there was a deeper sense of control. I could connect to the adrenaline and learn from it and hear it’s story, but it wasn’t in charge. AND I could deeply breathe.

Since breathing is both voluntary and involuntary, taking a multifaceted approach will help you find your best way to dealing with this issue. There are many resources out there for approaching the physical aspects of breathing, including good voice teachers, Alexander and Feldenkreis teachers, yoga classes, etc. Investing in good knowledge and good practice with your body is a very useful way to get to better breathing when under pressure.  

Sending you all my compassion for the times when your body doesn’t perform the way in which you hold the vision for your best performing self!
Love, 
Marta