Parts Therapy Exiles

We all have them " Exiles" and we know we do. The child part that gets you into trouble or more so its stemmed from traumatic childhood experiences. We do want to tame them or make better choices but we just cant figure out how to do that so we put off exploring these exile parts time and time again. We often hear our loved ones say " I wished I could quit doing this or that" but they never do.

These Exiles or problematic parts are just giving you what they think you want and you don't know how to go about getting these parts under control. You know they're there but if you can just eat one more donut or smoke one more cigarette you won't argue with this part for you agree with it too on a subconscious level.

You eventually accept that this is just the way you are and you go about your life the whole time getting sicker or in pain from these poor choices because really these exiles are trying to (again) give you what you want.

They have positive intent even though you cant see it. For example, you know fighting with the kids is just going to keep them rebelling against you but you keep on fighting with them cause this is the way you was trained to do as a child when you grew up and you say thats just a part of me, thats who I am. When in all reality its just an Exile part that has the same rebellion in it that you did have when you were your childs age.

When you learn about these exile parts and then ask them to step aside so you can get to self then you'll come to understand the intent of the Exiles.

An exile part can be that you like to drink every weekend cause that's how you came to grips with things. You know that if you continue to do this it will eventually lead you into trouble with your health or the law but you keep on drinking even though you know the negative consequences.

Again an exile could be a finger nail biting habit and no matter how many times you try to stop biting your nails you just keep at it knowing that this habit could have negative consequences and you really do mean to stop one day but you just can't seem to find a way to quit. Well thats an Exile part.

A part you picked up at a young age, although as Jay Early says- Exile parts are parts stemmed from childhood during a traumatic episode--

To me just my mom getting mad was traumatic at times when I was just a kid so I assume the nail biting and drinking to be caused from an exile.

The things we know we need not do but we do them anyway. If we follow these exiles to self and find out their true intent we will always come out a winner with less stress and Exiles to think about.

Some exiles are their and mean, angered because of situations that you have been through in life in the past. Even though the past is gone these exile parts don't know that you're not in these situations anymore so you will still have these negative attitudes that no one can figure out.

In ifs we can go to the exile and find out its intent by asking it to step aside and entering the all knowing self. Here we can come to agreements with these parts and do away with all the misconceived situations that weve been through.

Bless You

 

Interesting, Herbie. I imagine an exile as a wounded child part who is hiding out in my subconscious so it won't get hurt again. I think of protectors as the ways I defend myself. Example: I got bullied as a child so, when I feel someone is bullying me, I fight back. Or maybe I run away. Or yell for help. Or some other defensive behavior.

I love learning to access my "curious and compassionate" true self and then asking the parts to take turns telling their stories. If I succeed in helping them feel safe and appreciated they are usually happy to give up any defensive behaviors that may have been causing a problem in my life.

I expect we all see things a bit differently. It would be a boring world if we all thought exactly the same!

 

Hey Njoy, I hope that re-vision cleared the smoke. I know you know your stuff.

Bless you Njoy

 

Wow, great post. I hope to read it over and over again. Lots of stuff in there, my brain can not take it all in, in one reading. Too much for me, but wow, I get it. I feel it. Fantastic Eric!

 

Hi, Ruth. I agree Eric is fantastic! His sincerity is obvious and his enthusiasm is contagious.

Another cool way to deal with a wounded child can be found in Matrix Reimprinting (Amazon has a Kindle version of the book). If I understand correctly the adult self goes in and offers to protect the child. You can also bring in other help (a religious figure, for example; or a comic book hero; or a real person the child trusted from the past) to provide a sense of safety and even stop the abuse and tell the abuser to push off! A bit more imaginative than IFS but apparently the brain responds and the bad memory is replaced with a good one.

One of the mailing list members (she also sometimes calls in on Saturday) is a TMS practitioner in the UK and she introduced us to Matrix Reimprinting. It is not suggested you work on severe trauma w/o a trained facilitator but smaller issues are okay to experiment with.

All these techniques seem to be based on discoveries a few years ago that memories can be changed and having experienced trauma is not necessarily a life sentence of fear, anger and sadness. Some people feel changing a memory is somehow not playing fair. I don't know. I do know that 20 witnesses will give you 20 (often remarkably) different versions of "what happened". So it's all quite subjective depending on many, many factors. I am pretty comfortable with the idea of changing the emotional charge of a memory but would wonder about erasing it altogether. I feel my "scars" are an important part of who I am.

 

njoy - wow, ty for this!!! That is fantastic! I love love what you said, I have a lot of abuse from the past that I need to work on, and your post, like Eric's post will be something I need to read several times to take in.

 

Ruth_L take your time and learn like 1 thing a day or even every other day from IFS and let it sink in like the tms knowledge. In just a few weeks to months and often lesson by lesson you can really start to benefit from your intuition. Don't try to learn it other than your own style of learning ok, stay patient -- no hurry ya know. I do want to tell you that when your ready Njoy will help guide you in your questions or Direction you might need. There's also an IFS mailing list that you can join and read and learn from. Jay Early the man who wrote the book that we study is also a member of that mailing list, something special to have Njoy and the Author of the book we study. The book is called Self Therapy by Jay Early and Njoy has learned from it for years. Wishing you the best in all you do Ruth_L for the Holidays and the New Year.
Bless You

P.S there's also a 15 page summary that tells all about IFS, I can give you the link if you wish.