A part of me believes I'm cursed

The other day, I was coming back from a walk when I noticed it looked like I’d left one of my car windows open. When I inspected it up close, I found that someone had smashed the entire window out; broken glass littered the parking space beside my car. My glove box was hanging open and empty, and it became clear what had happened: someone had broken into my car.

It’s been a hard couple of years for me when it comes to my car. First, I found a bullet hole in my windshield, apparently from a stray New Year’s “celebratory” shot, and found the bullet sitting in my passenger seat. A few months after I replaced the windshield, I got into my first-ever car accident, which drained a painful chunk of my savings to repair. My windshield is cracked again (because of course it is), and now, thanks to the break-in, I’ve got another broken window to worry about.

In the next few days after discovering the damage to my car, I noticed myself sinking into a familiar negative headspace. It felt distinctly different from how I experience life on a regular day. I could’ve just written this off as a bad mood triggered by a bad day, but it felt familiar, like a pattern I had experienced before. At first, I felt numb. Then, I started feeling irritable and short-tempered. I got lost in spirals of negative thoughts, and I started feeling hostile toward the people I loved.

That emotional pattern, and others like it, is one I’ve come to recognize. And lately, I’ve been exploring a different way of understanding it through a therapeutic model called Internal Family Systems, or IFS.

IFS, also called “parts work”, is a trauma-informed therapeutic model based on the idea that our inner world isn’t one unified voice, but is made up of many different “parts”, each with its own emotions, beliefs, and roles. These parts develop in response to pain, especially early trauma, and can sometimes pull us in conflicting directions. At the core of IFS is the belief that we have access to something deeper: a calm, curious, and compassionate “Self” that can help us understand and care for our parts. The goal isn’t to control or eliminate these parts, but to build trusting relationships with them, so they don’t have to take over to protect us.

Depending on how strongly a part shows up, we might become blended with it. That’s when we become so merged with the part’s emotional state that we forget it’s just one part of us and not the whole truth of who we are. When we’re blended, it becomes harder to access our core sense of Self. Instead, we might lash out or spiral.

It took me a while to realize that the negative feelings I had after this experience meant that I was blended with this part. Eventually, the intensity and familiarity of this particular flavor of anger and cynicism made it clear what was happening. The tricky thing about being blended is that it can creep in gradually and distort your perspective without you noticing. Once I recognized what was happening, the next challenge was finding a way to create some distance between myself and these feelings. That distance is what makes it possible to engage with a part directly, although getting there isn’t always easy.

Despite how much this approach resonates with me, I struggle with it a lot. There is something about the IFS process that feels metaphysical, even though it’s not meant to be. Sometimes it feels like I’m supposed to believe there are tiny versions of myself running around inside of my mind with different jobs, like something from a Pixar movie. It brings me back to my occult phase when I would try to surface my subconscious desires through intuition or sit with a Ouija board hoping to receive some cryptic message from the beyond.

I have to remind myself that I’m not conjuring something imaginary. I’m not trying to channel a ghost or invent new personas. I’m tuning into something that’s already there - patterns I’ve lived with for years, emotional voices I’ve pushed aside, protective strategies I know intimately, even if I’ve never gone out of my way to name them. I did realize, however, that being out of tune with my emotions can make this seem a lot like channelling spirits. Sometimes I can easily name an emotion, while other times, I feel more detached, wrapped up in the external world instead. When that detachment shows up, I need to sit with myself and observe what is going on inside.

Stillness does not come easily to me. For a long time, I misunderstood my ADHD symptoms - I thought “hyperactivity” meant physically bouncing off the walls or being unable to sit still. My mind, not my body, is the hyperactive one; it is always in motion. I crave and enjoy mental stimulation, and I feel happiest when I am engaged in doing something, whether that’s learning a new skill or working on a project that is meaningful to me. Sitting quietly and observing my inner world, by contrast, feels immensely difficult.

I find comfort in measurable progress. If I’m writing, I can track word count or even just admire the amount of space that a paragraph takes up on an empty page. If I’m building a new skill, I can follow milestones. There’s usually something tangible that proves I’m moving forward. But when I’m just sitting with my feelings, observing my reactions, listening to the noise of my thoughts, it feels like …nothing. Like I’m wasting time, or slacking off. I have to remind myself that sometimes, the most meaningful progress is invisible. Over time, though, that quiet work has started to yield something more tangible, a clearer connection to my inner world.

This work gives me a baseline from which to connect to my emotions and notice which ones are most present and accessible. The ones I can clearly mentally or somatically visit, often point to the parts that are available for dialogue.

After unblending, IFS usually recommends following a protocol of interviewing yourself about a part. Sometimes this is called The 6 Fs. These are questions like, “Where do you feel this part in your body?”, “What does this part want you to know?”, “How do you feel toward this part?”, and “What is this part afraid would happen if it stopped protecting you?” The goal of answering these questions is to get to know this part of yourself better and eventually to befriend it. But this is where I tend to hit a wall.

Right from the start, I struggle with these questions. The first - locating a part in the body - is a common entry point for many people. They might describe a tightness in the chest or a knot in the stomach. I’ve never been great at identifying sensations in my body. I tend to live in my head, overly analytical and somewhat disconnected from my physical experience. Most of the time, if I feel anything at all, it’s an ambient, low-grade discomfort, hard to pin down to a specific place. I’m working in other ways to try and reconnect somatically to my body, but in the meantime, I skip this step (after checking in, just in case something does stand out).

The next step - describing the part - is also tricky for me. People with a more visual or imaginative bent might draw it, visualize a color or shape. I suspect I may have some degree of aphantasia; I’ve always struggled to summon clear mental images, and sometimes I can’t picture anything at all. So, instead of trying to force a visual representation, I’ve found that the most natural and effective way for me to connect with a part is through language. I let the part speak by listening to my stream-of-consciousness thoughts. Sometimes I’ll write them down, but other times I just listen.

Going back to the car break-in, this is how I would describe the stream of consciousness that happened as a result of the part being activated.

The universe is targeting me. I’m being tested. Things always go wrong - why wouldn’t they? Other people get to live smooth, easy lives where good things happen to them without effort, but not me. What is it about me that attracts this kind of energy? It feels like I’ve been marked somehow, like there’s something fundamental about me that draws in bad luck like a magnet. I should have known something like this would happen. I’m an idiot for expecting things to go differently

At first glance, this monologue sounds pretty juvenile. That’s normal; a lot of our parts are frozen-in-time younger versions of ourselves that are holding a lot of pain and negative beliefs about the world around them. Even though it may sound silly and dramatic, these thoughts feel real in the moment, which is why meeting them with curiosity instead of judgment matters so much; it would be easy for me to brush these feelings off as unimportant and stuff them down, but that would be the antithesis of IFS.

From this little bit alone, we can learn a few things about this part. We can learn that it sees this series of problems not as random misfortune but as confirmation of a deeper, more personal narrative: that the universe is hostile, and I am its target. To this part, disappointment isn’t just painful - it’s humiliating. Vulnerability feels reckless, and hope feels like a set-up. Its logic is clear in its own way: if I expect the worst, I can’t be blindsided by it. If I assume everything will go wrong, I can avoid the sting of being caught off guard. In its attempt to protect me from emotional shock, this part adopts a worldview that feels bleak but safe. And while that worldview can feel overwhelming when I’m blended with it, recognizing that it comes from a place of protection, not the truth, is the first step toward engaging with it differently.

There are two main categories of parts: protectors and exiles. Exiles are parts of ourselves that hold deep, emotional pain, usually from past experiences rooted in childhood trauma, rejection, shame, or fear. These parts carry the burdens of those wounds, and because their pain can feel overwhelming or threatening to our system, they are pushed away or “exiled” from conscious awareness. Despite being hidden, their unmet needs and unresolved emotions still influence us in subtle or powerful ways.

Protectors, on the other hand, are the parts that step in to feel the pain of those exiles. They work hard to manage our emotions, behaviors, and relationships to minimize the risk of those wounds being reactivated. There are two main types of protectors: managers, who work preemptively to keep things under control (think perfectionism, people-pleasing, inner criticism); and firefighters, who react impulsively when the pain breaks through (think shutting down, lashing out, overeating, substance abuse). Though their methods may not always serve us well, protectors are ultimately trying to keep us safe.

Like most things in this type of work, the lines between categories can get blurry. If I had to classify the part I described earlier, I’d probably call it a firefighter because it flared up in direct response to a triggering event. But it also carries some managerial traits. It doesn’t just react to pain; it tries to prevent future hurt by keeping me in a state of despair and hypervigilance. In that way, it’s both reactive and preemptive. Something I’m continuing to learn through IFS is that parts aren’t always easily labeled, and many carry hybrid strategies they’ve developed over time in order to protect me the best way they know how.

I’ve only written about one part here, but it’s normal to have many. There’s a part of me that always feels like a burden. One that never feels safe. One that shuts down any urge to cry in front of others. Another one that helps me navigate grief by keeping me busy. I have an analytical part too - the one that loves structure, clarity, and labels. It struggles with this kind of work because it wants to map everything out, to categorize each part like files in a drawer. And when it can’t, because this work isn’t linear or easily defined, it wants to scrap the whole thing and walk away.

The theory behind parts is that they exist the way they do because, at some point, they helped us survive. Their emotions, beliefs, and behaviors aren’t random - they are strategies developed in response to pain, danger, or unmet needs. Their job is to protect us, and often they fear that if they were to stop doing their job, we wouldn’t be able to survive. That fear may have been accurate at one time, especially when we were young and helpless, but it often lingers long after the threat has passed.

The purpose of getting to know a part is to build a relationship with this version of ourselves that wants what we all want: to be taken seriously, acknowledged, validated, and loved. Of course, this is much easier said than done. It takes time, consistency, and patience. Like gaining the trust of a frightened animal, it can’t be rushed or forced. The ultimate goal of IFS is to help these parts trust you, to trust that you are strong enough to handle life without their constant intervention.

One of the core practices in IFS is something called unburdening. The idea is that every part carries a burden, whether it’s a painful belief, an overwhelming emotion, or a self-protective role it took on out of necessity. Through the process of being heard, seen, and understood, a part can begin to release that burden. And when that happens, it doesn’t go away; it transforms. It’s reassigned to a new, more supportive role, one that still uses its gifts, but no longer operates out of fear. The goal isn’t to get rid of any part, but to help it let go of what it was never meant to carry in the first place.

An example of this might be a part that developed a hyper-critical voice. Maybe it learned to criticize you relentlessly to keep you from making mistakes and getting hurt, because being “perfect” felt like the only way to stay safe or accepted. That part is doing its best, but its strategy is harsh and exhausting. Through IFS, you might learn to understand and reassure the part, and eventually, it may no longer feel the need to criticize. Instead, it might take on a new role - like helping you stay organized or offering constructive insight when you need it, without the shame. Its core strength of discernment gets preserved, but the pain driving it gets released.

If you read a book on IFS, you’ll find that many include “real” session transcripts where someone turns inward, finds a part, has a vivid conversation, and by the end of the session, that part is healed and unburdened. These examples are edited for the sake of demonstrating the full process of IFS from beginning to end. When you contrast this against the reality of a messy, non-linear internal process, you might feel like you’re doing something wrong. I know I did. Well, you’re not. It takes time, sometimes a lot of time, and, ultimately, the experience varies for everyone.

IFS stands out to me for a variety of reasons. I love that it’s non-pathologizing, meaning that it avoids labeling emotions or behaviors as “wrong” or “sick” within a person. IFS instead sees distress and inner conflict as natural, understandable responses to life experiences, especially pain, trauma, or unmet needs.

This approach promotes healing not through force or correction, but through listening to and understanding the parts of us that are struggling. It stands in contrast to the common instinct to go to war with our inner world - to coerce, punish, or shame the parts we find undesirable. IFS rejects that kind of internal aggression, and I think that’s something worth deeply considering, not just personally, but culturally.

The “systems” part of Internal Family Systems is a reminder that humans don’t exist in a vacuum. We are always part of something larger, whether that’s families, schools, workplaces, communities, or cultures. Systems thinking invites us to consider how our environments shape us: how context, conditions, and relationships influence not just how we behave, but who we believe ourselves to be. It’s about recognizing that these parts of ourselves don’t form in isolation; they form in response to the systems we’ve moved through and continue to move through.

IFS’s core belief in the inherent goodness of every part stands in stark contrast to many of the messages we absorb from Western culture. We’re taught, implicitly and explicitly, that selfishness is our default and that shame is necessary for growth. Dick Schwartz, the founder of IFS, speaks in his book No Bad Parts about how we learn to relate to ourselves in such hostile ways: “Neoliberalism is based on the belief that people are selfish and, therefore, it’s everyone for themselves in a survival-of-the-fittest world […] This economic philosophy has resulted in massive inequality as well as the disconnection and polarization among people that we experience so dramatically today. The time has come for a new view of human nature that releases the collaboration and caring that lives in our hearts.”

I used to live inside a deep, all-encompassing depression, one that I was taught to believe stemmed purely from a chemical imbalance in my brain. From a young age, I was labeled with all kinds of pathologies, and each diagnosis seemed to confirm the same core message: that something was inherently wrong with me. Long before I discovered IFS, that outlook began to shift. I started to question the idea that my suffering was purely my own fault. I began to consider the impact of my environment and culture, the systems I was growing up in. And slowly, I became convinced that I was not the problem.

It’s possible that, before I even knew IFS existed, a deeply wounded part of me was unburdened after learning this.

While I’ve found IFS to be incredibly helpful, I also recognize that it’s not a perfect fit for everyone. For others, it might work best when paired with other therapeutic approaches or guided by a trained professional. Like any modality, it’s a tool, not a cure-all, and it’s worth experimenting to see what resonates most with your mind, body, and nervous system.

I still have a lot of work ahead of me, but I’m beginning to relate differently to the parts of me that once felt impossible to sit with. IFS hasn’t erased my pain, but it’s helped me meet it with more curiosity than fear.

If you’re interested in learning more about IFS, check out the following resources. You can probably find the books online for free if you look carefully.

• No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Richard C. Schwartz
• Self-Therapy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Wholeness and Healing Your Inner Child Using IFS by Jay Earley
• Integral Guide is a free, wiki-style resource.