Hi everybody. It's Steve here again, and I'm back for my fifth audio in the Multiplicity of the Mind series. Previously, we've touched on the concept of different parts of who we are, sub-personalities. And we've tried to understand that mostly through the framework of Internal Family Systems therapy. We've talked about the different types of parts and self-energy. The way protectors can work differently to help us in some way, but perhaps inadvertently, causes difficulties or conflict or problems. We've learned more recently about exile parts; parts holding pain or trauma. And I linked that a bit more to common exile types that one might have with ADHD. Hopefully it's got you thinking and looking within a bit more.

I was asked the other day what this audio series was looking to achieve, and I think it's important to manage expectations really. It's not like the CBT series where we've gone into a lot of strategies and ideas and concepts and more practical things and solutions. This was really just a short series to help further your understanding of yourself. To maybe nudge you a little further along this path of trying to discover who you are and trying to accept who you are. We believe that that is absolutely integral in coming to terms with our condition of ADHD, for example.

So, coming back to conflicts, I want to think about how you might be conflicted about something. In the first audio I mentioned a common conflict I have is the part that wants to eat sugary based things. And another part of me that's quite irritated with that, that just wants me to exercise and make healthy choices. That's a classic firefighter versus manager dynamic. Many of you will probably relate to that in some way. But there are many things we can be conflicted about, aren't there? Maybe you are conflicted about your relationship. Parts of you feel very safe in a relationship. There's another part that's really irritated by something that they do. Or there's a part that wants to run away from that relationship or always runs away from relationships. And if you do that, is there another part that then feels alone and do those patterns continue? Maybe you are politically conflicted. Part of me likes this policy from this party, but another part of me feels morally aligned to another party altogether. It's just not as simple as us being mono-minded, and it's okay to be conflicted.

What I've learned over the years in therapy is that society wants us to place things in neat boxes, to categorize, to summarize, it’s for convenience, I think, more than anything. But one thing I've noticed is that things like gender identity, sexual identity, spirituality, these things are far, far more fluid than I think is convenient for these systems and these pressures to categorize. And I believe that that has a lot to do with parts. I think we can have parts with differing sexual needs or sexual interests. Parts with different genders, spiritual parts, non-spiritual parts, practical parts. It's a fascinating minefield, really, isn't it? I could just talk about that, for ages. But just keeping you on this audio content for today, we're thinking about these conflicts and what they call in IFS, polarizations.

And I suppose a polarization is defined by two parts that battle one another to determine how a person feels or behaves. And maybe that part believes that it must act in a certain way to counteract the other one. In IFS, in therapy, we would work with that very specifically and individually. But just for now for this series, really, I just want to get you noticing just for the sake of being a bit kinder to yourself, understanding yourself a bit better. So maybe have a think about this concept, which we call in IFS the ‘two hands concept’, where you just notice a polarization within you. Hold the perspective of that part in one hand, and then notice the polarization, the polarized part and put it in the other and sit and observe it in as much self-energy as you can muster. Conjure as much natural curiosity and compassion as you can. And see past maybe the potentially extreme ways in which these parts are trying to protect you. And try to see where it's coming from, and what their motivations are. Can you try to see the other side to it from the perspective of the other part? And I guess we just try to take as much self-energy to that and observe, and hopefully some depolarization can happen, some healing, some self-understanding. Maybe it will help you come to a decision.

Anyway, try it out. See what you think.