Today I want to talk to you about some parts of us that also help us survive..
Because if I talk to you about hunger, fear and anger are parts of you that have to do with your physical survival, you will recognize them easily. However, We also have other parts whose function, as we grow, is to help us survive successfully in our social environment.
During the first years of your life there were answers, when you were a baby, that activated the 'caretaker' parts’ from your parents. These parts that were initially intended to keep the more maternal and paternal parts of mom and dad close to ensure your survival., we internalize them in such a way in our brain and in our character until we turn them into parts that we could call “approval seekers”.
Meanwhile, our mother and father could begin to try to get us to develop parts that would help us be independent of them, so they started wanting us to pee in the bathroom, that we ate certain food and at specific times, that we would fall asleep when it was time and that we would play at specific times. The way in which they did this work and responded to our behavior, They were decisive in the development of some parts of us: management parties who know what is safe for us to play at home and what is not, what can I say and what is better to remain silent, what is “bueno” and “place”, what makes me “a good girl” and what makes me be “a bad daughter”, what behaviors make mom look at me, take care of me, listen to me and which ones cause her to withdraw her affection.
After those years of having all those interactions, it developed in us that we had learned the lesson well from all those experiences and that we became judging parties, criticisms and moralists in our internal system.
These parts are similar to what Eric Berne in Transactional Analysis calls the state of “critical father”, and it is similar to what Freud calls the “superego”.
The critical parts, those who judge us develop within us because they try to get the approval of others.
These parties have learned what the expectations of the world around us and now they send us those same messages without the need for anything from outside to activate them.
This harsh critic and judge inside you is, often, protecting very vulnerable parts of you that can be easily hurt if they perceive that someone criticizes you or rejects you.
Those vulnerable parts carry a lot of guilt and a great feeling of shame.
To balance our internal system, most of us have one rebellious part that fights against all those critical messages internal and external. These parts tend to be especially active and strong during our adolescence..
What do you think is its function??
While the part of you that criticizes and judges you has the function of trying to help you adapt to the family and social norms that have affected you., The rebellious part wants to help you fight against those social and family expectations so that you can develop a autonomy and own identity.
One of the goals we seek when entering our inner world using the model of Internal Family Systems (IFS) is to achieve balance in our internal system.
Promoting the recovery of the ability to feel safe within our bodies, creating a secure attachment to ourselves.
This doesn't happen by magic.
It requires a process in which little by little we arrive at that place where we feel safe and confident..