Your weekly positivity tip
Nov 10, 2025 2:01 am
Your Inner Peace Isn’t Gone — It’s Waiting
Have you ever noticed how quickly your calm can disappear? One moment you feel grounded, centered, and clear… and then something happens — a tone of voice, a deadline, a look — and suddenly, there's the reaction, the tension before you even realize it.
If this feels familiar, you’re not alone. In the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, we all have a wise, grounded Self — the part of us that is patient, compassionate, curious, and steady. But we also have “parts” that jump in when life feels stressful, uncertain, or emotionally charged. These parts are trying to protect us, even when their strategies don’t feel helpful.
Our nervous systems weren’t designed for constant notifications, decisions, productivity pressure, and emotional demand. When life moves at this pace, our internal system stays on alert, scanning for what could go wrong. And when the system senses threat — even a subtle one — our protective parts jump in to help. It's not a flaw. It’s a survival system doing its job.
Most of our protectors formed in childhood. They learned how to keep us safe, accepted, or out of trouble. Even as adults, the world praises many of our protector strategies - working hard, saying "yes" to more, keeping it together, being responsible. But our parts tend to take these qualities to extremes in their efforts to be helpful.
The Good News
Self never disappears.
It’s not gone — it’s just sometimes overshadowed.
Every time we:
- Pause before reacting
- Take a breath instead of pushing through
- Notice “a part of me is upset” (instead of I am upset)
We create a little space.
And in that space, Self slips back in.
The next time you feel yourself react, try softly asking:
“What part of me is showing up right now? What is it trying to protect?”
Not to fix it.
Not to judge it.
Just to understand.
That curiosity is your Self — already leading you to your inner peace.
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