Are We "in" Self?

Awhile back, when I really started getting into IFS, I read every book I could get my hands on, listened to every podcast, joined every social media group, and practiced as much as I could with my own system and with others’ systems. Somewhere along the way, this very hard-working manager picked up the idea that Self is superior to parts and that the goal of IFS was to be in Self as much as humanly possible. This part would notice online debates where people would accuse each other of not being in Self. It would pick up on people asserting that they were coming from Self, so others shouldn’t be so upset by what they said or did. (This didn’t feel too Self-like to my system).

This hard worker wanted to get it right so badly that it enlisted another part that likes to figure it all out. Together, these parts took up the task of determining whether or not I was in Self. My hard working manager would list out all the parts it could find in my inner world regularly. My get-it-right part would spend a lot of energy trying to figure out what was Self and what was a part. It would engage in philosophical debates about the nature of Self and would interrogate me somewhat relentlessly about how I could ever be 100% sure that I was in Self. But here’s the thing. In the roughly 9 years since I first learned about IFS, I can say with complete honesty that I am rarely completely, if ever, in Self energy. I’m still not even sure I can say that I’m coming from Self. My get-it-right part has had to learn to be OK with this. In fact, IFS founder Dick Schwartz has said that the only times he’s felt completely in Self is when he’s done psychedelic psychotherapy. I'm not sure most ordinary humans can, or even should strive to, be in Self most of the time.

A part of me even bristles at Dick’s use of the phrase Self-leadership. I don’t generally experience Self as an energy that takes the lead. My parts tell me that they don’t want to be led, anyway. They want to be connected to, listened to, cared for. If anything, the times when I feel most Self-embodied are when I am actually doing very little, like lying in bed, or holding space for others. In my experience, Self just is. Even when my Self energy feels strong, my parts are still very present. In fact, they’re attracted like magnets to Self energy because they want to connect to Self’s warm light.

For me, Self feels like an opening to a deep reality, one that is always there but often just under the surface of awareness. For me, Self is a holding energy. In this opening, I truly have no agenda and feel attuned to the present moment. In this space at its deepest, I can access all of the knowledge that I have ever held, and sometimes, I have been able to access knowledge I don’t know how I knew, what Jung calls the collective unconscious. When my parts know they’re held in Self, I move spontaneously and intuitively without any effort. Different parts of me take the lead as needed. I also am able to stay engaged if it turns out that what felt like the right move didn’t land well in someone else’s system. But my experience is that it’s my parts who are making the moves, my parts who are leading, not Self. My parts can move easiest when they feel connected to Self. Self gives them the confidence and courage to act, especially when they know that compassion and care will be there when they need it. Instead of saying that I’m in Self or that I demonstrate Self-leadership, my system resonates with saying that it wants Self-connection.

I’m curious about your experience. How do you experience Self energy? What is your parts’ relationship to Self? What has it felt like to you when you’ve really been in the presence of Self? Do you feel like you're "in" Self, like you're connected to Self, or like Self is leading?