Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a model of therapy which understands the human psyche as an “internal system” made up of multiple parts, very much like an external family or system. The Internal System includes a Self, Protective parts, and Vulnerable (or exiled) parts.
So you and/or the people you work with already have an Internal Family Systems informed (IFS) practice, and you have become blissfully aware that you are made up of not one, but many “parts”, all of whom ultimately have your needs in mind.
One of the greatest blessings of your IFS practice includes acceptance that you have wide ranging and sometimes conflicting beliefs, thoughts and feelings. You have come to understand that many of your parts, even the ones who can cause you distress (like the parts who drive unhealthy behaviors, anxiety, anger or depression) are in fact acting in defense of pain and intensity, which at one time was intolerable.
Even though you are learning to “un blend” from your parts, and seek more support from that growing well of “Self-energy” within you, you still HURT sometimes, and feel stuck in patterns that don’t serve you.
You want to deepen your practice further and involve the whole-body mind system in your healing.
Menstrual Cycle Awareness (MCA) is the practice of understanding and connecting with the different phases of the menstrual cycle, and be empowered to live in harmony with your cyclical nature. It involves paying attention to physical, emotional, and mental changes throughout each phase and with this knowledge, to make informed decisions about daily activities, self-care, and overall well-being.
As a woman with many years of practice tracking my own cycle, and a Clinical Psychologist and IFS therapist with a special interest in the role of the body in therapy, I have come to learn how beautifully these two healing modalities complement each other.
Just as you might already track your parts, notice when you are blended versus in a state of Self-energy, witness your parts’ fears, and identify areas for healing by attending to your internal family, MCA supports you to notice which parts are more likely to be activated, and how much access you have to Self-energy in response, according to the phases of your cyclical body.
Cycle tracking provides a guide for following and understanding the two key energy shifts that many people experience throughout the menstrual month; while your IFS practice makes sense of why you are more likely to blend with protector parts, versus younger, and more vulnerable exile energies, in the respective cycle phases.
Adding MCA into your IFS practice will give you a theoretical framework for:
If working in this way appeals to you, then you can request a free consultation to consider what it might be like to work 1:1, guiding your therapy from a genuine place of mind-body integration.
I have developed this framework in partnership with Dr Lara Owen, who is recognised internationally for her pioneering and continuing work on menstruation. Together later this year we are offering a 4-day training retreat, where we will present these ideas and concepts publicly for the first time, to a small group, in a beautiful unspoiled countryside retreat. The workshop sessions will be supported by a range of optional activities including swimming in the pool and lake, walks in the surrounding woodland, and restorative yoga, insuring that learning and self-discovery can occur in an optimal rested state. You can read more and book your space here: https://laraowen.com/trauma-and-the-menstrual-cycle/
So you and/or the people you work with already have an established cycle tracking practice, and you have become blissfully aware that you have different needs and gifts at different phases of your cycle.
One of the greatest blessings of a cycle awareness includes acceptance and validation that we are not supposed to be the same all the time, and that its natural and actually helpful to experience these changing states throughout the menstrual month.
What is Trauma?
Through my many years of study and practice across a broad spectrum of emotional distress and mental “disorder” in NHS and private settings, I have come to hold a very broad concept of “trauma”. You can read more about my position, and the associated complexities here: https://thebodyinmind.co.uk/2023/01/26/can-i-call-it-trauma/ but to summarise, it is my belief that in fact, we all hold the imprint of traumatic and adverse events occurring perhaps years or moments prior to, during and/or post our births into this world. These events shape us into complex and interesting individuals. Navigating adversity is part of the human experience, and whilst often difficult and sometimes devastating, traumatic experience also offers up rich opportunity for growth, resilience and hope.
Perhaps becoming more aware of “the body in therapy” is an idea you have heard lots about in recent years and with which you agree in principle? However, as a potential therapy client or even an interested professional, you still don’t necessarily feel you have a complete hold on – why and how does the body actually matter in therapy?
Most of us ask and answer the question “how are you?” several times each day, but how often do you really give yourself the space to find the deeper answer?
Most of us are aware that non-verbal behaviour like posture, eye contact and movement greatly influence how others perceive us.
“If you think of your body as a house, movement is the large front door, swinging wide open to allow your awareness, your thinking, to enter back inside where you have always belonged”
hILLARY mCbRIDE, pHD
Orienting is a skill you already have (because it’s hard-wired into your nervous system). But you can learn to strengthen or recover it during stressful times to help to communicate to your brain and body that you are safe during times when stress and overwhelm take you back to traumatic memory or forward in anticipation of something difficult.
Orienting helps you to focus on your external environment and lean into cues around that tell you where you are now, is safe.
The popular grounding technique of tuning into the five senses uses orienting to bring you into the moment:
Name
5 things you can see
4 things you can hear
3 things you can feel
2 smells and
1 taste
You could also try:
👀 Look around you and name one item to the front, one behind you, one to the left and one to right. Add extra detail if you like by going up then down.
✏️ Choose an object nearby and describe it in detail to yourself
🤚🏽 Reach out and touch the nearest wall or surface. Place both hands on and describe the feeling in detail.
👣 Take your shoes off and stand on the earth.
Psychology is full off fancy words for natural, inbuilt strengths which we can use to our advantage. I love uncovering the brilliance in our systems. As always, these strategies are even more powerful when they’re happen in the presence of another.
My childhood best friend and I used to ask each other “can you smell your nose?” then we’d curl the tips of our noses round into themselves and genuinely investigate 🥰 I still do it sometimes and find it really soothing.
What orienting strategies do you already use or could you build on now you know the idea behind it?
Compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, humans have a unique capacity to imagine: using the evolved “thinking” brain, we can remember, make up scenarios that haven’t happened yet, and even visualise and experience things in our minds that could never be.
In this place lives great potential for creativity with which great things can be achieved: we write songs, make art, design buildings, travel into space. But there is a darker side to this creativity; when this access to abstract thinking escapes the present moment, it also has the capacity to plunge us into regret, fear, self-consciousness, anger and hatred.
Thinking in this way is primarily based in the frontal lobes of our cerebral cortex. As such, this part of the brain has grown much larger in humans than in other mammals. In this region, most of our conscious thought, higher-order thinking and executive functions (like planning, coordination and control) occur.
When we allow this part of the brain to run the show – to tell the rest of the body what to do – we can call it TOP DOWN functioning.
At this point in history – most human cultures are driven by top-down behaviour. We assert control over our bodies and our lives based on our ideas about the right way to live – the right way to be. Some great outcomes from this include reflection, understanding and wisdom. But when top-down functioning is relied upon, our bodies become mere interruptions: machines to be maintained, producing symptoms to be managed.
We learn to shut down some of our basic physiology. We direct ourselves (and our children) not to move, to breathe in certain ways, and not to feel, or at least to feel less, more quietly, with rules and restriction. This might sometimes be conscious – supressing a laugh or a cry, to hold still or to focus for longer than feels comfortable. But these habits also filter into less conscious habits like over working, over-eating and prejudicing those around us who look or behave differently to us.
Our brains find various ways (strategies) of muting or over-riding sensation. We come to operate in a kind of “sleep mode” which tells the body to be quiet and not disrupt the important work of the brain.
When more ancient brain structures and the rest of our bodies initiate behaviour – we can call this BOTTOM-UP functioning. Here we rely on information from the present, we interpret sensation and communication via our highly tuned nervous-systems using our inbuilt capacities for detection. When we practice this via mindful awareness of our body, we become aware again to the full range of information via sensation, and that listening becomes the basis for re-awakening bottom-up informed awareness and behaviour.
Its not that one is better and one is worse. They are both EPIC. Its more that we need to embrace balance – a healthy creative partnership between body (including brain) and mind.
When we practice mindful awareness of our body, we become aware again to the full range of information via feeling and sensation, and that listening becomes the basis for re-awakening bottom-up informed awareness and behaviour.
For lots of good reasons, some people are more able to feel their bodies than others.
A gentle route in is through your breath. I sit still, close my eyes, put a warm hand on my chest and follow my breath wherever it goes… in then out, at the pace my body dictates.
If that feels comfortable, I then broaden my attention by following the breath to different parts of my body (like riding on a train) and then I “jump off” the breath, landing in other body sensations.
Perhaps then I stay for a while with my heart beat, some shoulder tension or a sense of openness in my back.
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