What Are "Parts"?
Have you ever felt torn between two conflicting desires? Maybe a part of you wants to step into something new, while another part feels frozen, holding you back. It’s like different voices inside, each with its own needs and concerns. These are what we refer to as "parts."
In Healing Inner Conflict (HIC), we explore these parts as aspects of your inner world, each with its own feelings, beliefs, and motivations. It’s not that you’re fragmented or broken—far from it. These parts all belong to the same whole, part of you. They’ve been shaped by your experiences, especially in childhood, and their primary job is to protect you, even when the strategies they use no longer fit your life as an adult.
The Origins of Parts: The Protectors
As children, we develop certain parts to help us survive in a world that may feel overwhelming, unsafe, or confusing. These parts learn to shield us from pain, fear, rejection, or trauma. For instance, if you grew up in a chaotic home, a part of you might have learned to stay quiet and invisible to avoid conflict. Another part might have developed into a high achiever, striving to gain approval through success and performance.
These parts developed strategies that worked at the time—they helped you cope with difficult emotions and navigate challenging situations. In Healing Inner Conflict, we call these parts "protectors" because their mission is to keep you emotionally safe.
The Problem: Outdated Protection
The difficulty arises when these protective parts carry their methods into adulthood, where the situations that once required their protection no longer exist. The coping strategies that once kept you safe as a child may now limit you as an adult. These protective parts, though well-intentioned, may still see the world as dangerous, even though you now have the capacity to handle life differently.
For example, the part of you that once protected you by avoiding conflict might now stop you from speaking up for yourself in relationships or at work. A part that learned to numb emotions to shield you from pain might manifest as overworking, addiction, or emotional disconnection.
These parts are still trying to protect you, but the environment has changed. As an adult, you have different strengths and needs. The protective behaviours that served you well in childhood may now block you from living the life you truly want.
Intervening with Love: Internal Intervention
In Healing Inner Conflict, the aim is not to reject or fight against these protective parts but to intervene from a place of love and compassion. This process is called Internal Intervention. Here, you learn to step into the role of your Associated Adult, a grounded, wise part of you that can face these protective parts with strength and understanding.
These protective parts, at times, may try to intimidate or control you into compliance, believing they’re still keeping you safe. But with your Associated Adult present, you can intervene, not allowing them to generate fear or make decisions for you. Instead, you bring compassion to these parts while also giving yourself permission to feel emotions like anger and sadness—emotions they may have been trying to protect you from for years.
In Internal Intervention, the Associated Adult reassures these protective parts that they no longer need to use outdated strategies. By doing so, you help the parts recognise that the dangers they once feared are no longer present. The Associated Adult allows space for these emotions to be felt in a safe and healthy way, without suppressing or fearing them.
Embracing the Associated Adult
The Associated Adult is not some far-off ideal, but a very real and accessible part of you. This is the part that can step in during moments of internal conflict, bringing clarity, love, and understanding to the parts that feel threatened or out of control. In Healing Inner Conflict, we guide you to connect with this inner wisdom, helping your parts see that they no longer need to act out in the ways they once did.
Instead of letting these parts run the show, the Associated Adult leads with calm, compassion, and strength. The parts that once protected you can begin to trust this adult presence, knowing that you can now handle life’s challenges with new resources and a greater capacity for emotional expression.
Giving Your Parts Permission to Feel
A significant aspect of this process is acknowledging and validating the emotions these parts have been protecting. Often, parts work to keep us from feeling vulnerable emotions like anger, sadness, or fear. They believe that if we allow these emotions to surface, we’ll be overwhelmed, just as we might have been as children.
Through Internal Intervention, we give these parts—and ourselves—permission to feel. Anger and sadness are natural and important emotions that deserve space in our internal world. By allowing these feelings, without letting them dominate or intimidate us, we bring balance to the parts and their protective impulses.
Healing Through Integration
The goal of Healing Inner Conflict is not to eliminate these parts, but to integrate them into a healthy internal system where each part can play a new role, aligned with your adult self. The protective parts can soften their grip, trusting that the Associated Adult can handle the complexities of life.
When you can compassionately intervene with your protective parts, you empower yourself to move forward with confidence and clarity, no longer held back by old patterns that no longer serve you.
So, what are "parts"? They are the parts of you that have been working tirelessly to keep you safe, even when their methods no longer fit. By intervening with love and compassion, and allowing yourself to feel the full spectrum of emotions, you can create harmony between these parts and live from a place of wholeness.
In Healing Inner Conflict, we remember that every part of you has value, and with the guidance of your Associated Adult, you can find peace within, without needing to battle or silence any part of who you are.
By Jacob Montoya
