Learning to Love All Your Parts

I’m learning to love all my parts.

The perfectionistic/inner critic part which shows up often, telling me I need to work harder. Do better. Compare myself to others.

The unworthy part that tells me I need to keep going and that it’s unsafe to stop. 

The worrier part that always thinks about the worst-case scenario and is convinced it will happen.

The people-pleasing part that tells me I need to act in certain ways to be worthy of love and acceptance. 

The part that keeps me small and quiet because I’m terrified of judgment and what others will think. 

And many more. 

I always thought the work was talking myself out of the parts, ignoring them, or “mindsetting” them away when in fact the real work is learning to love and accept them.

They want safety, love, and validation- not avoidance and rejection. 

“I see you.”

“I’m here.” 

“I’m listening.” 

“What do you need?”

Every time we give a part what it needs, we integrate it a little more. And we become more free, more balanced, more whole. 

Why Do We Self-Sabotage?

Why do we self- sabotage?

We get the job we always wanted. We have a chance to explore a relationship with someone who initially seems great. We have the opportunity to make a lot of money. And then...

We don’t follow up. We ghost. We turn things down. Then we get mad at ourselves for messing things up. Or, we wonder why nothing in our life is changing. 

It’s important to note- there’s nothing inherently wrong with you! 

We self- sabotage because 

1. There are parts of us that are scared and hold us back because they are trying to keep us safe. These parts are usually created in childhood, when we created a survival strategy in order to feel safe, because we didn’t have the capacity to process emotions or understand situations like we do now. 

2. We were programmed by society (our parents, teachers, media) to have certain beliefs or ways of doing things, and these are playing in our subconscious. Programming might look like “money doesn’t grow on trees!” Or “You’re a big boy- don’t cry!” Or “If you buy these clothes and do your makeup like x, you will be more attractive.”

As we bring awareness to these parts of us that we may try to repress or hide, we can begin to unshame these parts that served an intelligent purpose at one time- to keep us safe. 

We can start to find acceptance for these parts, knowing that they get to exist but they no longer need to run the show. 

We can reprogram limiting beliefs using subconscious reprogramming techniques.

This allows us to feel more liberation in our system, as all of the energy that was spent repressing parts of ourselves can now be channeled into creativity and expression, allowing us to fully embrace our gifts and who we came here to be. 

“All We Ever Do- Is All We Ever Knew”

(Currently singing The Head and the Heart song…)

Most of us are running on autopilot, based on our old beliefs and patterns that we took on from caregivers and those around us, especially from ages 0-7, when our brain is like a sponge absorbing everything we see and hear, and taking it on as truth. 

We go through the world, operating on these outdated programs and beliefs, and it can feel REALLY uncomfortable to change them. When these beliefs are challenged, we may get triggered, feel resistance, and go back to what we know to feel safe. Our body is highly intelligent and our subconscious will try anything to keep us in the same loops, because it’s trying to protect us and keep us safe. 

AND

These programs are keeping us stuck and limited. It can be difficult to grow, change, and expand because there is so much resistance to doing so. 

The goal isn’t to resist the resistance but rather lean into it, listen to it, work with it, and integrate it. 

Some ways I have done this are though: somatic work, inner child work and parts work, subconscious reprogramming, breathwork, and energy work. 

How Do We “Let Go?”

We live in a society where we are taught to let go, move on, start new. Forgive.

People say “Let it go”, as if we should just visualize whatever we want to let go of drifting away, out of our bodies and our minds. Sometimes this is all we need. But sometimes it doesn’t work. And let’s normalize that.

While yes- it’s unhealthy to hold onto these states and emotions for long periods of time, it’s also unhealthy to shove down and ignore the emotions coming up around the situation.

Sometimes letting go is a process, not a decision.

Our body holds onto trauma. “Trauma” could be one time in our childhood when we were yelled at, or witnessed something we couldn’t process, or felt left out or embarrassed. It’s not always a major event.

During these moments, our body created a way to stay safe, because our bodies didn’t have the capacity to process what was going on. Sometimes we may have created coping mechanisms as a way to stay safe- people pleasing, avoidance, overworking, etc. We may have learned to suppress emotions.

We can “let go” in our minds, but if we haven’t processed the emotions and integrated the parts of us still stuck in survival strategies, we are still going to feel lingering emotions in our body around the situations that are keeping us stuck. This can lead to passive-aggressive behavior, resentment, and avoidance. And stuck emotions can also cause physical symptoms.

Letting go is a process. A process of awareness- of becoming aware of the parts of us that are creating resistance because letting go doesn’t feel safe. A process of establishing more safety in the body so we can let go of deeper layers. A process of fully feeling the emotions that come up. A process of allowing our bodies to release at the pace and timing that is best- knowing that this process is determined by the timeline in our body- not only our mind.