Return to Relationship

How parts are born, why they protect, and where they heal

Let’s talk about something I think we often overlook in parts work, and I believe in most personal development work.

Healing is relational.

Photo by youssef naddam on Unsplash

If you’ve done Internal Family Systems (IFS) work, you know it can feel deeply personal. You sit with yourself. You name your parts. You start to hear their voices more clearly. You offer compassion. You learn to un-blend. All of it is incredibly internal.

If you have never done any of that, but have explored the personal development and mental health world, you have nevertheless stumbled upon the reality that there is a lot of “Solo-work,” as part of the process. Even the title of this publication, Self-Study, hints towards the very personal nature of the practices that will get us closer to our essence.

But what is the point of getting closer to who we are if— unless to you move to a monastery to become a monk— we are meant to exist with one another.

In fact, when I look at the exploration of Parts Work and IFS I have been doing in the past few years, it becomes clear that our parts weren’t born in solitude.

They were born in relationship.

In response to what was modeled.

In reaction to what was withheld.

As a survival strategy to stay safe, loved, or even just tolerated.

This is also the reason why some people evoke different parts of, why some feel safer, and others regress us. Our parts, often are stuck in the moment they were born, and similar experiences to that time, can activate our system and send it into overdrive.

So if you’re doing parts work and finding that you keep circling the same material—or you’re curious about parts work and want to understand why parts exist—this post is for you.

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The IFS Model, Briefly

IFS gives us a map of the internal system. It begins with Self—the calm, clear, compassionate core of who we are. When Self is in charge, we feel grounded and present. But we're run by parts when Self is not in the lead.

Here’s how it typically breaks down:

• Managers are protectors who try to prevent pain. They’re strategic, controlling, and future-focused.

• Firefighters are also protectors, but they jump in after pain is triggered. They’re reactive, impulsive, often trying to numb or escape.

• Exiles are the tender, vulnerable parts that carry old wounds. They got the message that it wasn’t safe to be who they were—so they were pushed aside.

Managers and firefighters exist because exiles exist. The whole system is doing its best to keep those exiled parts from feeling pain again—or from flooding us when they do. It is fair to say that protectors are both protecting the exiles and protecting us from the exile.

What I want to offer today is this:

Those exiles were not born in a vacuum.

They were formed in a relationship.

And so were the protectors who rushed in to keep them safe.

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The Enneagram as a Map of My Parts

I’ve found that the best way I can make sense of my internal system is through the Enneagram.

(And yes, I’m working on a full essay soon that will break down how I integrate the Enneagram and IFS—stay tuned for that.)

For now, I want to tell you about one of my most enduring protectors.

She’s an Enneagram Type Eight.

Fearless.

Independent.

Strategic.

Forceful.

A “bad bitch” if there ever was one. .

This protector was born out of growing up in an emotionally and sometimes physically violent home. I witnessed my father be abusive toward my mother. I became her literal protector. And at the same time, I made a vow:

I will never be like her.

I internalized her sensitivity and her vulnerability as weakness.

And I exiled the parts of me that looked/acted like her.

That protector has helped me survive so much. She got me through life at home, immigration, leadership roles, motherhood, entrepreneurship. She’s been my armor. And for a long time, she had to be.

But it came at a cost, and here’s the briefest example I can provide.

Once upon a time— On the trip in which I discovered the Enneagram— I sat down with my best friend and told her for the first time in over a decade that I didn’t feel prioritized in her life. I told her:

“I feel like I am always the one you feel comfortable cancelling plans with, and that hurts.”

And my sweet, funny, and innocent friend, looked me in the eyes and said:

“I didn’t know I had the power to hurt you.”

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The Exile I Sent Away

So who is my Type Eight Protecting? What was so scary that I would choose to be strong rather than known by the most important people in my life?

In Enneagram terms we have our main types, and then there are all the other types to which we have some level of access, but there is a particular dynamic in the enneagram symbol that helps me envision the relationship between my protectors and my Exiles.

Each enneagram type has what it’s called an “integration” arrow, in some enneagram schools this is called a “growth” arrow. It is the energy we embody and “become” when we move towards growth and integration.

It is my experience that we really don’t “become” a different type, but rather we welcome back an exile.

The Growth Arrow of the type Eight is the type Two, it is a movement from “Challenger” to “Helper.” A movement I was deeply resistant to, and then I became a mom.

My Type Two is tender.

She wants to be loved and appreciated.

She wants to be held, not just relied on.

This is the part that needed connection.

Needed softness.

Needed to feel like she mattered just for being, not just for doing.

But seven-year-old me looked around and saw the tear stricken face of a woman who embodied all those qualities and needs and decided that being in that energy was dangerous.

So she pushed her down.

And my system got to work building protectors to keep her buried. And up until the most important relationship of my life— with my daughter— my protectors were extremely successful.

One might say that when I became a mom, I was made to confront the part of me that was my mom.

Who is more vulnerable than a woman whose body has just been wrecked by the love of her life? The baby is more vulnerable, but still… The exhaustion, the fear, the sheer humanity of motherhood made something very clear to me, not only was I not invincible, I needed love, support, naps. I couldn’t— and believe I tried— do it all on my own.

So there I was a heaping pile, begging my husband to hold my daughter for an hour so that I could, maybe, potentially, go nap or cry in the shower, and I saw my mom’s pain like I had never seen it before. The softer bits of my mother— The same ones that cried in my arms after a particularly bad fight with my dad— suddenly were also mine; the need to be held and understood, to be taken care of, and nurtured.

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Healing Is Relational Work

This is what I want you to remember:

Parts are born in relationships.

They are activated in relationships.

And they heal in relationships, too.

You don’t have to do this work alone.

Your protectors were trained by your environment. They are reading this article along with every other part of your system, and they are using this information to rationalize their position.

Your exiles were exiled because of the people and circumstances around you.

Which means your healing can be co-created—with others and within yourself.

Your parts don’t want to run the show. They want to be welcomed. Seen. Befriended.

My Type Eight is tired y’all.

It is hard to be a boss all the time. She wants to know and be able to trust that Self is in charge, and that my type Two won’t ruin our lives, and for that she needs evidence, which means I get to practice being in relationship with myself and my environment, using the tools that work for me.

Building trust with my Type Eight protector has meant building my own communication systems to allow my type Two to be expressed safely; this literally looks like an email template I send to my partner which allows me to be vulnerable, ask for what I need, and protect my tender parts from the reaction they fear: rejection, ridicule, abandonment. I want to be very honest though, the emails come after a few days— and sometimes weeks— of my type Eight resisting the idea, giving the cold shoulder, planning for single motherhood.

What happens when I do that is that my Eight realizes she doesn’t have to do it all on her own, and my Two feels free to exist in my life without feeling like she is too much.

It’s taken quite a bit of energy, time, and creativity to get me to this point.

I go to therapy, and know it is not for everyone. I have a coach, and know not everyone can afford one. I journal every day, and know that some people have parts that deeply resist that work, and all of that is okay. The first step, without a doubt, is the step of acknowledging that these parts in us deserve our attention.

And when your boss, your mom, or your pet hedgehog activate your parts today, I want you to offer it one simple acknowledgment. The goal is not to make it go away, or change your behavior, to start offering your parts the attention they often seek with extreme behavior. Try doing the following:

Take three deep belly breaths and repeat to your system:

“You are trying to keep me safe—Thank you.”

Pay attention to what compassion and connectedness do for you.

Now, you get to decide what kind of safety you want.

The Enneagram is a tool that can give us language and a visual map of our system if we ever have a hard time naming our parts. If you can find your behavior at any of the points of the Enneagram symbol, I invite you to trace back the line of growth and see if the story of your exile aligns with it.

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With love and curiosity,