Have you ever felt like you had different parts inside competing for control?

Have you sabotaged yourself and wondered later why you did that or felt conflicted in

a way that you had trouble reconciling?

In this episode, we are going to talk about those parts and what might be going on.

Welcome back to Savvy Psychologist.

I'm your host Dr. Monica Johnson.

Every week on this show, I'll help you face life's challenges with evidence-based approaches,

a sympathetic ear and zero judgment.

I believe we all have the sense that we have a myriad of parts inside of us.

We contain multitudes.

We say things like having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, or we tell our friends

that one part of us wants to leave our partner, but another part is afraid.

All of the parts swarming inside of us can get in the way of connecting to others and

having compassion for ourselves.

And it can dampen our creativity and remove any sense of internal peace.

Today we're going to borrow from a therapy modality called Internal Family Systems or IFS to

help you get a deeper understanding of the types of parts that may exist inside of you.

It's important to note that you can sense your internal parts in a variety of ways.

For example, physical sensations, emotions, the roles that they play like caretaker, or

images that come to mind that represent the part, like our five-year-old self.

In IFS, parts are separated into three categories, exiles, firefighters, and managers.

We will start by describing exiles.

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