IFS • The Art of Untangling Triggers

Hello IFS friends!

One of the top causes of human distress is other people.

We’re often on the receiving end of patterns that friends, partners, and sundry folks impose upon us—intentionally or unintentionally. Then their patterns activate our patterns, and off to the races we go.

Many therapy and coaching sessions are dedicated to unraveling what happened in a particular interaction.

After the incident, we find ourselves carrying leftover, unprocessed emotions.

IFS is outstanding at helping us unravel these experiences because we can identify the parts of ourselves that got triggered, and we can also make educated guesses about the parts of the other person that were involved. By separating the experience into parts, we gain greater clarity about what unfolded.

One classic IFS technique for doing this is the Room Technique. You put the person—or the part of the person—that triggered you in a room, letting your parts know they’re safe from that person. You can imagine the room with soundproof walls, invisible glass, or whatever helps your parts feel protected.

Once you’re situated, you notice what parts arise in response to the person in the room. One at a time, you get a sense of everything this person triggers in you. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by a big knot of multiple parts all reacting in different directions, you end up with an orderly arrangement of individual parts, each carrying its own reaction.

If you’d like to learn—or deepen your understanding of—this classic IFS technique for working with parts that are triggered by other people or situations (world events, for instance), I invite you to join the Room Technique workshop next Saturday, July 18, from 11 -1 pm CT.

IFS to the rescue! Melissa