We often struggle and wonder why it is so hard to do deep personal healing – especially trauma work.
In the past, these difficulties were often described in terms like “self-sabotage”.
However a more effective way to view this is through the lens of Internal Family Systems.
Rather than internal saboteurs, we have protectors that are working to keep us safe.
To ensure that we are not re-traumatized, or inadvertently encounter deep wounds, traumas and their associated memories and feelings, which could have debilitating impacts on us.
These protectors have their own intelligence, and are often responsible for us surviving when we were young and vulnerable. They think we are still young and vulnerable – they are essentially frozen in time.
As we mature and recognize that we hold trauma, and want to resolve it, our protectors are at work ensuring that we don’t engage in something they think we can’t handle.
Generally, protectors want to do the minimum required, often for the shortest time required, to be sure we don’t do whatever they think is too dangerous or too painful.
They want to keep our traumas that are “frozen”, “absent” and “unremembered” just out of reach.
The key to effectively working on our deepest inner trauma is to work with, rather than against, our protectors.
To build a relationship with them.
Thank them for protecting us.
Learn their favourite tactics to keep us safe.
Explain to them the inner work we want to do, and to do that we need to deeply feel with the younger, traumatized parts of ourselves.
Ask them to “stand down” and “stand by” – at least temporarily – so we can do this important work.
And that if we successfully resolve the trauma, they can relax and go “off duty” – mission accomplished.
Our protectors have a whole toolkit that they use to “keep us safe”.
Some of these tools are listed below.
Protectors Toolkit
Mental:
Brain fog – not being able to think straight or remember
Overwhelm – feeling that there is just too much to work on
Overcommitment – never having time for deep reflection / feeling
Confusion – not being able to decide or know what to do
Distraction / redirection – often to something we enjoy working on
Sudden new priorities pop up that have to be attended to
Time distortion – being late, wrong day, schedule conflicts
Obsessive thinking – past or future, decisions to be made
Favourite excuses
Psychological / emotional:
Dissociation
Space cadet
Feeling lost – not knowing your way
Interpersonal conflicts arise or flare up
Overcome with feelings about something unrelated
Stuck on an emotion – anger, sadness, etc.
Avoidance: person, workshop, teaching, reading
Physiological:
Illness – often minor (nausea) – fleeting and strange symptoms
Exhaustion – often sudden – needing to sleep
Intense hunger or thirst – needing to get something to eat or drink
Dehydration – reducing awareness and mental / psychological capacity
Substance use – drugs, alcohol, food, etc.
Unable to speak
Manifestation:
Accidents that stop us from doing something or block our way / work
Synergistic occurrences that point us in another direction
Equipment problems / glitches that change our focus and redirect our attention
Someone “desperately” needing our help at just the time when we were going to do the trauma work
Build your own list of your protectors favourite tactics!
Ask: “What would I be focussed on if this protection wasn’t happening”
Talk to the protectors, then do the work.
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See also: Avoidance, perhaps sabotage