The armor

I was going to write a post about IFS, but this YouTube series by Lucas Forstmeyer explains it so well. Retreating to the same ground feels like a waste of time. Also, I’m lazy.

But then I remembered I could just link to it. You should watch at least the first one before reading this post. That’s your homework! I’ll wait.

Wow! Back already…

That was so interesting right 🤯?!

Maybe that’s just me. It just brings up so much that I find fascinating and I want to talk about it forever.

I wanted to talk briefly about my experience with IFS so far, from a person who was a skeptic and got converted.

Before finding a therapist, I even tried it by myself a little. I followed some guides I found online like this one about drop-ins into the right mindset and this one about questions to ask. I had some good experiences with those.

It always goes a bit the same way. At first, I feel like I’m just pretending, and nothing is happening, and I’m just playing along, imagining parts. Then the parts start saying things that not only surprise me, but that I know instantly and intuitively that are true. It is quite a bizarre sensation.

Even talking about it now, I feel it in me, a resistance. I have a hard time accepting that I’m associating with this. It feels like some kind of guilt by association, but guilty of what? The thing is, IFS is really working for me, so I couldn’t dismiss it, but the resistance persisted.

As I mentionned in my post called Do what you hate, I initially got into IFS because I was looking for a type of therapy I would hate. I liked.. the pluralistic view of its theory of the psyche (see Willpower), but I really didn’t like the new-age sort of spiritual vibes I was also getting.

I have come to call this resisting part of me : the armor. It’s that part of myself that wants things to be logical, rational, secular and most importantly justifiable. I want to have one narrative for my life, no contradictions. I want to stay cool-headed in arguments. I want no drama in my life. I want to rely on nobody. I want not to show weakness.

It reminds me of the robot scene in one of my favorite shows of all time: Ping Pong the Animation. The coach is bullying Smile on the table to throw him off his game and teach him a lesson, accidentally reminding him of the time his classmate locked him up in a locker as a kid.

I need to rewatch that show, it’s a masterpiece.

I feel like the armor is something like that to me. I have come to associate a lot of my avoidance with that part. That part represents both things I like about myself and others I wish to change. I was just talking about how annoyed I was by this part and how I wanted to change it with my therapist the other day. She proposed that I close my eyes, take turns between myself and the armor, and have a conversation.

I hated that, but I did it.

At first, I played both “roles” with the therapist’s guidance. It felt performative, even fake, but I kept going. Then it turned into a heated debate. It felt like a real discussion. Then at one point, something changed. I was just filled with so much care toward that part of myself. The therapist asked me what I wanted to offer that part, and I said, “It’s ok for you to be who you are”. “I’m just happy just to have a conversation.”

I even surprised myself by saying that. I was just saying a moment before that it was wrong and that it should change, and now I was saying the opposite. Like, where the f*ck are those words coming from?! But again I couldn’t argue against them, they felt true. In that moment I understood that part and it felt right to just fully accept it as is. It’s doing the best it can. It’s also what you should do to the people you care about.

Reminds me of this quote :

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen. - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

I don’t know, it just felt meaningful.