Where Would I Be Without You

I’ve been doing more on my own individual work and diving into Internal Family Systems. In that journey, I’ve found some amazing, hurt, fun, beautiful, protective, highly motivated managing, helpful, and faithful parts of me.

I’m learning how to see the part, ask questions, tend to what’s there, and discover what it’s afraid of or needing.

It’s been insightful, deep, precious work that I love working on with clients and decided to take my own work a little deeper.

I’m finding parts of me that have long been in hiding, from one situation or another, one event or conversation or moment in time.

I love how Jenna Rieresma explains this work in her book, Altogether You. I also love Alison Cook’s books and her way of explaining our internal world through IFS. I highly recommend buying her books! So much personal work can be done on your own with the resources available to us online and through medias of books, youtube and podcasts.

Back to Altogether You… The middle of the book talks quite a bit about the faith and spiritual parts of us. I realized I have two of those parts. One of them is faith and she’s real, love’s God, has always known God loves her, and has always, always trusted that he has her best in mind. She never questioned, never worried, never felt afraid.

Faith had amazing experiences in youth group, kids camps, and Sunday school that filled her with joy, reminded her of truth and helped her grow in Jesus.

She was also a little naive in thinking that everyone took their relationship with God as seriously as she did.

She was wounded when she realized that she was often alone in her steadfastness, her willingness to walk a narrow path, give her life to ministry, and believe in things like holiness, faithfulness, and godliness.

She was hurt when she was made fun of for not engaging in certain things, watching certain things, or thinking that spending time with God every day was important.

She was easily swayed by the winds of friendships, relationships, and whatever belief someone else might have about something.

She was deeply scarred when the most important person in her life started playing devil’s advocate with beliefs and standards. When that person made fun of her teaching style, daily time with Jesus, or said she took it all too seriously. After all, their relationship with God didn’t work like that, God didn’t speak like that, and God’s word didn’t come alive like that.

She was further scarred when close people in her life were judging others, gossiping, making rules and regulations that caused harm because they always, always felt they were the most right of all and everyone should think like them. It was very confusing when that same person defended toxic and destructive behaviors because that was family and you need to love and forgive to protect relationship.

This faith part of me was exiled when ministry was a weapon by toxic leaders, when life was a fishbowl, and there were multiple lonely experiences that felt very unsafe.

I had so many stacking experiences of judgement and even spiritual abuse, creating pain in the deep spaces of my soul. My faith part felt unsafe and my spiritual part took over.

This much more spiritual part of me stepped up to manage and just keep things going. Act the part, be the spiritualizer that more people want or can handle. Don’t over do or over achieve or over share.

This part told faith to stop sticking her neck out there for people to step on.

This part needed faith to get small, back off and let other people have the opinions. This part minimized sinful behavior, in me and in others. This part learned that less is more, if you don’t see it or know it then you can’t get worked up over it.

Intertwined with faith and spiritualizer, I have a pretty solid and strong part with a lot of righteous anger and sense of justice. When she gets worked up, both faith and spiritualizer get exiled.

All of the things people say, comments and judgements and hurtful questions brought about the firefighting storm for these parts of me. The storm is adrenaline running, cortisol through the roof, and nervous system on high alert.

You might be reading this and thinking, “What on earth is she talking about?” or, “This sounds crazy. How does she have different parts?”

We all do. We say it every day when making a decision or choosing an outfit or planning meals. Part of you wants to eat healthy, fit into that old pile of clothes in the closet, and make sure you have time for exercise. Another part of you says the comfy, stretchy clothes are wonderful and ice cream sounds so much better than going for a walk. A part of you wants to sleep in but another part of you tells you to get up and get to work. A part of you wants to go to the store while another part of you says you can do that a different day.

We all have these conversations in our heads ALL the time. The biggest stress happens when all of these voices are talking at the same time. A huge ball of stress fills your chest and a headache comes on.

Will they all just sit down and stop talking!?

No, they won’t and they can’t. Not without some inner work and curiosity. It takes learning who they are, what they want, why they’re hurting, and what they can do to calm themselves. This is the beautiful work of internal family systems.

For me, I’m realizing that these amazing faith parts of me desperately want to be safe and heard and allowed to flourish. I’m also realizing that this part can sense toxicity a mile away and it’s okay to trust it.

I’ve gone through some drastic changes over the past few years to say no, stop the intensity, and build safety. I had to wisely find people who would hear me, understand what was going on, and help me choose healthy over chaos, peace over toxicity, and God over man.

I wanted faith and spiritualizer and the sense of justice to play nice and work together the way God intended them to be. I want to be healed and whole.

One of the biggest voices that I have to calm, regulate, and quiet through truth is the part that has been so desperately harmed by people’s words.

These voices push on imposter syndrome. They bring confusion, doubt, struggle, and tension to my inner world. They have caused me to back down, let go of who I am, stop doing what God has called me to do, and lay low, all in effort to get them to stop talking at and about me.

Voices that have said things like, “How do you think you can do what you’re doing?” They gossip behind my back saying things about me that aren’t true about a situation that most know nothing about. They aren’t coming to me, either. They are digging in to what they think they see or have heard. It’s a juicy story after all… how can I possibly be doing what I’m doing when I’ve been through a divorce!

They are making a situation equal fault when abuse is never equal. Ever. Watch this. It does not take two, there aren’t two sides to the story, it’s not 50/50. One side is heavily weighted more than the other.

They have long questioned my ability to write, speak, and teach but now their is proof that I must be unqualified, broken, going crazy, or just off doing my own thing for funzies.

These voices are unfortunately very real and still talking.

But, although some of this is said tongue in cheek, I’ve realized through this inner work that again, God’s voice matters so much more than all the noise swirling around and about me.

I say “again” because other parts of me have had to do this same work over the past five years. Keep God’s voice front and center. Follow his lead, his voice, his way, his heart. Always. In every single thing. Audience of one.

Even marriage. Even faith. Even church. Even ministry. Even close relationships.

Put on my armor, take every thought captive, and shake dust off my feet.

God’s voice is the most important thing. His word is my guiding light, my anchor in the storm, and my path for living out a life I never, ever imagined living.

He is my reason for teaching, coaching, helping, and ministering. I can walk in his confidence and calling on my life. He is the most important voice and he is quietly whispering, “Go, sweet girl, go! Lead, help, teach, speak.”

I was reading and writing a bit in my journal about these parts and realizing there was a blog post in this work. There’s a post to be written, a story to tell, and a journey to give voice to because there are so many other women like me.

I can share, encourage, help, and give resources for healing, space to work through their own story, and cheer them on in growth, next steps, and their path forward.

I paused and heard Lauren Daigle singing in the background. Her words jumped into the conversation I was having on the paper in front of me.

Her song, Thank God I do, was playing and ministering to these hurting parts of me. If you have warring parts within you who just need to hear from Jesus, read the lyrics below:

Thank God. Thank you God for being in this whole journey, for guiding and leading through a valley that I never imagined being in. Thank you for hearing, saving, healing, refreshing, restoring and redeeming me. Thank you for a ministry to women who just need someone to walk this journey with them. Thank you. I really don’t know who or where I’d be without you.

For all the parts of me, God is my safe place, my hideaway.

He’s my saving grace, my steadiness, my shelter.

If you are walking a road that feels all bundled, twisted, and rolled up inside of you, I’d love to walk that with you. The unblending of your inner world is precious, merciful, God-intended work.

If you’ve never heard of internal family systems, dive in.

Because I really don’t know where all the parts of me would be without his help.

I don’t know who I am without his imprinted identity on my soul. Thank you, God. Thank God, I do have you.