Compassion
(the main one?)
There is a short bit in the sketch comedy Little Britain that always cracks me up. Over footage of the Royal Family walking to church, a "royal correspondent" is making ridiculous comments about the various family members. When he gets to the late Queen he simply says: "That's the Queen. She's the main one."
I think that way about the “C” of Compassion: she's the main one.
With each piece I have written in this series, my mind keeps moving into the connections between each of the “C’s.” How they work together, how they support each other. And it seems to me that all “C’s” lead to compassion.
Compassion allows us to see and feel more deeply into our inner world. It lets us see beyond our thoughts and behaviours to the pain our parts are carrying. Rooted in compassion, we can hold everything inside of us without overwhelm—and compassion is also the healing balm that alleviates pain and suffering.
The genius process of IFS unlocks our natural, always-present compassionate potential.
Until I encountered IFS, I had one of two experiences: therapy experiences where I was deeply present to my pain in a way that was all-consuming and overwhelming, or therapy experiences where I had an intellectual understanding of my experience, but was not in touch with my pain.
In IFS we get direct. We are willing to suspend our everyday point of view and inquire directly about our part's experience. This will often not match our grown-up, developed perspective.
In our daily lives, we are most in touch with our manager parts—the parts of our system that are functional and interface with the material world. They are genius and necessary, but they are also often involved in not only making our lives good, but keeping us away from anything inside that feels bad.
When we are able to go directly to what feels bad, we hear the story from the part’s perspective—from the version of us who had a bad experience that made it feel bad and believe bad things about itself.
These parts of us are often young and very sensitive.
Their extreme feelings and beliefs can be incomprehensible to our more adult, functioning parts. Our adult selves have context; they see other people and how they have managed, they have perspective, and they know about the suffering of the world. They say things like: "Yeah, this bad thing happened. But that is normal. Bad things happen to everyone. I was loved. I had a roof over my head. Other people go through far worse. This is a first-world problem." These parts give us perspective and mature points of view, but unfortunately, they don't address the real pain our sensitive, young parts are carrying.
When we are able to appreciate our managers for keeping us away from the pain—when they feel our compassion for them and the vital roles they play—they open up space for us to bring that compassion to the vulnerable parts inside of us that are holding pain.
As we approach those young parts with that compassionate presence, we are able to really take in what happened to them and how it felt for them. A child in fear, terror, loss, grief, shock or pain has no reference point. They don't have a large adult body and nervous system to hold and process what is happening to them. They don't have life experience to put things into context; they just have feelings they don't understand. They feel bad, and almost inevitably, in order to keep some sort of order in their universe, come to the conclusion that there must be something bad about them to explain their terrible feelings and what happened to them.
With compassion we can take all that in without overwhelm or getting lost in the pain. We stay connected to our prefrontal cortex without it overriding the emotions. We are present with all of our resources: mind, body and heart.
Our compassionate presence starts to open up a healing path for these—and all—our parts. The patience and simplicity of our compassion gives our parts the resource they need to know what they really need on the inside. A healing conversation and process emerges naturally, because healing and repair is a natural process. It is natural for our body, and it is natural for our psyche.
It takes courage to tap into our compassion. Our compassion will open us up to deep, intense and even extreme feelings. Our compassion demands that we look past the beliefs and judgments of the world around us to truly centre our own experience—without qualification.
We are big. We have endless capacity. And we can live in a world where we count our precious blessings and also feel what needs to be felt and respected inside of us to heal.
A big thank you to all of you who have been reading along! If you would like to explore trauma-informed ways of leaning into gratitude without bypassing other emotions, please do consider joining me in this online workshop at the end of the month. Spaces are limited, so please do sign up now if you want to join us.