Reflection is a key to supporting your own mental health this Summer

Consider taking some time to Reflect (one of the 5 R’s) in a whole new way.

Thanks for reading Raising Good Humans on Substack! My first book, The Five Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans is now available for purchase here.

In this excerpt from Chapter 4 of my book, The 5 Principles of Parenting, I get into the Internal Family Systems Model, and the ways in which we can look inwards to better understand our parenting behaviors.

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Make Friends with Your Inner Multitudes

Just as it’s important to remember that all feelings are welcome (and all behaviors are not), the Internal Family Systems model encourages us to remind our inner voices that all parts are welcome, even when all behaviors are not.

We can make friends with even the most shameful-seeming parts of ourselves. A helpful exercise here is to sit down with some time, some calm, and a notebook. This is not so much a goal-oriented exercise as one in which you build your Reflection muscles. Remember: Reflection isn’t self-indulgent; it’s one of the Five Rs.

Let’s say you’ve read some new research on yelling, and you’ve decided that you want to break that cycle in your own family. That’s your manager making that decision. But let’s say yelling is wired into your experience of how authorities in your family communicated with you. In making the decision not to yell, that decision essentially exiles your inner yeller. The key here is not to approach any of these parts of yourself as “bad” or even “irresponsible” but, rather, as a neutral part of yourself whose feelings and survival skills are welcome but whose go-to behaviors might not be welcome anymore.

The Internal Family Systems model tells us that all these inner voices are normal, and that we can make huge steps toward healing and integration by acknowledging them, accepting them, and even having conversations with them. This way, you’re not approaching the particular internal voice as bad. You can picture the exiled part of yourself believing that yelling is the only way to get the results you’re looking for. This part of you isn’t bad; it may simply have learned through trauma that violence is a reasonable way to communicate disappointment. Alternatively, if you’re focusing on shopping behavior, remember that this part of you isn’t bad, or even irresponsible; it’s just a firefighter trying to save you from another emotional hardship.

Explore Your Inner Parts

Here’s a process to experiment with if you’re interested in working with one or more of your internal parts, as embodied in the Internal Family Systems model. Pick one of the parts and walk through these steps, talking to that part as if it were a whole person:

1. Say—out loud if you can—“If you overwhelm me, I’m not going to be able to help you.” This reminds these parts of yourself that if they keep overriding your internal managers, you’re going to continue to have a hard time integrating them.

2. Say the following, as a request: “Please just sit here with me without trying to take over. When you’re ready, let me know who you are, what you’re trying to protect us from, what your positive intent is, or what you’re afraid of, and I’ll write that down.” This lets your inner yeller or inner shopping maven know that you’re willing to accept them, and they don’t have to act out so much to get your attention. For instance, maybe your inner yeller is afraid that there is shame associated with children who don’t quickly comply. Maybe your inner shopper hopes that new business shoes will make you feel more in charge.

3. Make note of all the parts you have noticed during this exercise and what, if anything, they had to say to you. If you tend to be a visual thinker, you may even find it help- ful to draw little pictures of an internal manager, an internal exile, and an internal firefighter. Write little captions to let each of them express what they’re afraid of, how they feel about you as a whole, or what they need to feel safe. (If this feels too goofy, don’t do it! Definitely not required.)

Make notes about what you notice when you acknowledge and even converse with these inner parts of yourself. You don’t have to “do” anything with these notes, but notice as you return to them from time to time whether your internal parts are resorting to fewer drastic act-outs as you begin to engage with them and show your acceptance and your willingness to work with them in more loving and regulated ways.

Meet Your Parenting Archetypes

A similar way of reflecting on the multitudes we contain comes to us from the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. He conceptualized the personality as consisting of our persona, our shadow, our anima/animus, and our true self. If we adapt his thinking to focus on ourselves as parents, we might view our personal archetypes as being a parenting persona, a parenting shadow (which mirrors the Internal Family Systems model of the internal exile), a parenting anima/animus, and our parenting “true selves” (which aligns with the Internal Family Systems model of core self ).

It’s not always safe or practical to let our weird “true selves” shine in a public context that may or may not accept a mother who likes to sing songs from Hamilton at the top of her lungs while dancing on the see- saw, but the more integrated we can become as parents, the healthier we’re going to feel emotionally, and the more available we’re going to be to ourselves, our children, and the other important people in our lives. But let’s consider the other archetypes.

Parenting persona: Our parenting persona is the parent we are out in the world. Are you stricter or more lax when you’re in public with your kids? Do you show the neighbors a perfectly put together family at the same time you feel like a chaotic mess on the inside? Do you ham up imperfections that aren’t even real, just so no one will feel intimidated? No judgment. Just reflect.

Parenting shadow: Our parenting shadow represents the parts of ourselves we’re ashamed of but can’t seem to shake. Were you raised being told that children should be seen and not heard? Do you have a fear of carbs that you don’t want to pass down to your kids? When your brain goes to your shadow parent, try putting your hand on your heart and sending a silent message to yourself that says, I accept the part of myself that feels this way. You don’t have to act on your shadow urges in order to accept them as part of who you are.

Parenting anima and animus: Most of us bring our personal ideas, cultural norms, and family experience of gender roles to our parenting. What would you bring to your parenting if you identified as another gender? Is there anything you’d like to do with your kids that you feel aren’t your cultural or gender role? What would happen if you did them anyway? Again, no judgments or criticisms here—just reflect. 

A quick reminder to buy my first book, The Five Principles of Parenting, and write a review from wherever you order. Reviews really help to get the book noticed, and to spread the word. Please especially rate and review any books purchased on Amazon (it shockingly really, really matters!). Also, when you receive the book, snap a quick pic with it and post on social media. Share one thing you love about it and help me to get more copies into the hands of parents in your community. Tell a friend about the book, or about something you found helpful in the book. Parents look to each other for advice, and I’d love to be a part of the support you pass on to your loved ones.