Every day more people suffer from anxiety, and it is time to realise that little changes to lifestyle like exercise, meditation and diet alone are not the full solution.
There is, unfortunately, plenty of misinformation around mental health and anxiety. Many articles I read from the media are rather mediocre and are written by people who do not have the depth of knowledge needed to describe such an important topic.
There are more people suffering from anxiety around the world than from any other disease or condition. If we continue like this, anxiety will become the norm, not the exception, or maybe it is already the case.
To improve mental health and anxiety, you need to wake up to what is really going on, and you need to start trusting people and information that are written with your best interest at heart.
I am writing this article because I have helped myself and many people deal with anxiety during my career. Having trained and studied many types of interventions, I find that IFS is the most efficient.
Using IFS to deal with anxiety
IFS is a type of therapy developed quite recently and it offers a very promising tool to deal with anxiety on two levels
1- the inner level: how anxiety impacts our emotions and thoughts
2- the outer level: how we behave when we have anxiety
IFS believes that there are different parts to our psyche and that what we call “anxiety” is the result of a combination of parts that hold beliefs and habits from the past. As a consequence, each person suffering from “anxiety” has got their own combination of parts that are activated and cooperate to create that suffering.
IFS teaches you how to deal with these parts and to find in yourself the strength to become the leader of your inner world. Once that happens, dealing with problems and pressure from the external world becomes much easier.
How to heal anxiety with IFS
The first step to healing mental health issues with IFS: finding the Undamaged Self
The very first principle of IFS is that we are more than the different parts of us. We can, with the right support, identify and heal these parts. IFS teaches us that.
“We can connect to a state in which we feel that we are not damaged. If we can embody this state, we can feel calm and compassion towards the parts of us that need healing”
IFS calls this state “Self”, but I have come across similar ideas in many cultures and theories. Some people call is the “Higher Self”, or other call is “Flow”. Whatever you want to call it, it is possible to experience this state with the right guidance.
IFS helps you reach this state by identifying different parts of you and by helping you create some “space” from these parts. Once all the parts of you that hold trauma and suffering step back, you naturally connect to this state called “Self”.
If anxiety is very strong and has a powerful hold on you and all your aspects of your life (which is what happens with OCD or PTSD for example), it might take a little while to experience some separation from the parts of you that are very anxious.
The second step to healing mental health issues with IFS: connecting to the suffering parts
Once you have connected to that state that we are calling “Self”, and that you have a sense that the anxiety is a part, and not all, of you, you can start the second step of IFS healing.
You will start to create a relationship with these different parts of you. For example, if there is a part of you that is anxious about work, you will be able to understand this part of you better and better. You will find out why the anxiety is so intense, what triggers it in the present and what events from the past you need to work on and heal.
Experiencing parts of us is quite unusual at the beginning. It takes some practice, and everybody I have met takes a different time to experience them. Take your time with this.
We can experience parts in different ways
1- As sensations in the body
2- sensations around the body
3- images
4- sounds
5- ideas
6- anything else
An IFS therapist is well trained to guide you though becoming familiar with your parts and, what is most important, to connect with them.
The third step: getting to know the parts
Once you have established a good connection with your parts, you will be able to have dialogues with them. You will be amazed at the wisdom these parts of you hold. The IFS therapist will guide you on how to understand key information
1- why this part is holding so much anxiety
2- what does it achieve for you by being anxious
3- what it is scared would happen if it wasn’t anxious
4- when the anxiety started
5- if the anxiety is protecting some other, more vulnerable, parts
It is at this point that you might come across some other parts of you that you were not aware of. IFS calls them “exiles”, which usually hold childhood trauma and get triggered by current circumstances in the present.
Reorganising parts and living a more balanced life
By knowing your parts from that state that we call “Self”, you will experience a natural improvement of your life. This process takes time and some parts might require more time and care to heal than others.
Every time you connect to different parts of you from that Self, your entire system balances up. Clients usually improve and change behaviour in many ways without making a conscious decision or without effort.
Resistance to healing is the norm!
Getting to know yourself is not easy because, in the majority of cases, you do not want to listen to the messages that your psyche is sending to you.
There might be parts of you that are there to make sure you do not get these messages, because, if you realised what really is causing your anxiety, you would have to change your behaviour and make choices that you have been trying to avoid for a long time. These choices would allow you to be who you truly are without compromises.
Healing cannot happen simply by taking a journey in your inner world. Even powerful techniques like IFS lead to no results if there is no willingness to listen to the wisdom inside of you and have the courage to take the actions needed to improve.
It is because of these remittances to healing that it is important to have a therapist, a friend or someone else you trust who can tell you the difficult truth and can show you how you are not going to heal because you do not want to do what is in your highest interest.
Conclusion
I hope this article has given you some insight into what we call anxiety. Please feel free to share it with other people you know and to browse my website with more free articles on mental health.
Remember that you are in charge of your life and you deserve to live anxiety-free.
Alessio