When a Firefighter Quits Its Job

Hello IFS friends!

One of the things I love about my IFS learning and practice groups is that my parts start thinking about the topic of the upcoming gathering once I schedule it.

In this way, my groups are a partnership between me and my parts, because they give me insider information that makes the classes more insightful.

This month’s Sunday class was “Zoning Out on Purpose: When Sleepy or Foggy Parts Take Over.” It was powerful!

Not only was the demo an amazing illustration of exactly how nuanced these parts can be, our discussion unearthed a lot of fascinating information about firefighters.

I shared how my main foggy firefighter, Koala, has gone through tremendous transformation in the lead-up to the class. I think it’s a combination of thinking about the topic beforehand and the impact of my car being totaled.

Firefighters love having a car because, in general, firefighters are the ones who drive. They like the freedom, spontaneity, and physicality.

So when I lost my car, my firefighters’ options were suddenly curtailed. They can’t go to the thrift store on a whim to distract our system for a few hours because it takes more effort to get there now.

Losing the car set off a chain reaction inside me. Not just the firefighters—every part was affected.

It led me into more contact with a very deep part called cobra, who carries survival terror.

Even though I’ve known about this part for over a decade, my system never felt resourced enough to stay in much contact with it.

As a result, it was known, yet not known. It lived all alone in a room with very little contact with anyone.

It’s a sad truth of IFS that, despite doing a tremendous amount of inner work—connecting with many parts and unburdening hundreds of times—there can still be parts that live in the deep shadow of our current capacities.

Finally rescuing cobra and bringing it out of solitary confinement created a huge shift.

Within a week of initial contact, cobra was able to unburden a very deep reservoir of worthlessness it had been carrying my entire life. Whoah!

Unburdenings often have intense consequences for protectors, because afterwards they don’t have as much to protect.

In this case, the last remaining substance my firefighters used to get me a little high—bubbly water—finally lost its appeal (due to the unburdening) and disappeared as a tool they could use as a distraction.

So my firefighter, Koala, was feeling the walls closing in.

No bubbly water? No car? No spur-of-the-moment thrift store jaunts?

That’s a lot of hits for a firefighter to take in a short time. In a profound encounter with all this change, Koala decided to give up its old role.

“I don’t want to do this job of being foggy and zoned out and dissociated anymore. I want to go to IFS rehab and re-skill for a new job: helping us to go to bed on time and stay on track with our schedule throughout the day, because that’s exactly the opposite of what I used to do.”

Wow.

That’s how an unburdening can lead to a major protector deciding to give up a longstanding pattern.

Cobra is no longer alone. Koala is re-training for a new job.

I’m amazed that something I initially experienced as a cataclysmic loss (my car being totaled) is creating so many positive changes!

My gratitude continues to deepen for the gifts that have come from losing my car. Koala and cobra are relieved, amazed and delighted!

To accepting the gifts of the universe, even when they don’t appear to be gifts at first, Melissa