The Beautiful Bubble of Numbness
Why our parts need updates
Last week Aris, my 14-year-old, needed a ride to an impromptu playdate. (He loves when I call it that)
A part of me thought: Perfect! I can use that time while he’s busy to work on my book about numbing and the presentation I’m giving at the IFS conference.
Another part was clear: Nope. Not today.
I live near New Hampshire’s Seacoast — our tiny stretch of coastline separating Massachusetts from Maine. What keeps me going during firewood, snow, and mud seasons are the glorious summers. My mind shifts into vacation mode, and sometimes I just want to have fun and not work.
So I dropped him off and headed to the beach instead.
If you’re new to The One Inside, I’m an Internal Family Systems therapist. I want to make IFS available and understandable to people who don’t have the privilege or luxury of therapy. You can do this work on your own. In fact, you have to do a lot of this on your own, whether you’re in therapy or not. That’s why I wrote my book, The One Inside: 30 Days to Your Authentic Self, and why I started podcast.
In IFS we talk about “parts” of us. These are the different sub-personalities in all of us that carry our feelings, memories, and beliefs. Some parts protect us. Some hold our pain. Some help us lead. Some are highly reactive, showing up with behaviors that can be shunned or shamed — both by the rest of our system and by society.
Today, I want to talk about one type of protective part: the numb part. Numb parts have an important job in our inner world. They shield or block us from feelings or thoughts so that we can survive, function, and just make it through the day.
Here’s what I noticed on the beach:
When you’ve been in a long season of numbness and then something new happens in your life, your parts might feel confused. They’ve been wrapped in this soft, protective bubble of numbness. If they aren’t up to speed on what’s changed in your life, they can’t adapt. Worse, they may be locked in the past or so far removed from the present that jumping into current reality is scary, jarring, and creates its own sort of activation. That’s what was happening for me.
I spent an hour sitting on a bench with my eyes closed, listening to the waves, simply updating my parts. I told them:
• What was happening a year ago is not what’s happening now.
• We’ve already tended to the grief and heartbreak, and those parts are okay.
• We’re in a new season.
What I heard in response, over and over, was:“Oh… we just didn’t know.”
My sense is that numb parts create this cushion that blocks out a lot. It’s their way of protecting us. But while they’re doing that, other parts stay stuck in time. They don’t get the memo when life changes. And when those parts finally get triggered, the reactions can be bigger, more intense, and more confusing. They’re responding to an old reality.
What surprised me is that I’ve been doing this work — personally and professionally — for more than a decade. I spend a lot of time with my own system, and this came as a fresh discovery.
If you can’t imagine doing this kind of “parts updating” with yourself yet, that’s ok! It takes time and practice to get there. Even being able to pause for a moment and unblend from an activated part — to feel some space between you, your Self, and the reaction — is progress. That’s a huge win.
Befriending numb parts is pretty new for me. I’m presenting about it at the IFS annual conference next month, along with my co-presenter, Jeff Schrum. Our session is called Why Check In When You Can Check Out: A Self-Led Approach to Numbing Parts. This idea about needing to update parts due to numbing is another big piece of it…and it just came to me unexpectedly, right there on the beach.
By the time I left to pick up my son, I felt more connected to my system. I was grateful for the protection my numb parts have given me, and grateful for the parts who were willing to hear the news: Here’s what’s happening now. Here’s what’s not.
I’m here for all of it — the confusion, the hurt, the anger, the numbness, the curiosity.
Have you ever had a reaction that didn’t seem to match what was currently happening in your life? Maybe a part who didn’t know what was going on until you told it? What happened when you updated it? I’d love to hear in the comments.
Don’t miss this week’s episode of The One Inside podcast where I interview Bob Falconer, Chelsea Odhner, and Jonathan Rose about their new book, Opening The Inner World. I absolutely love, love, love the book that they wrote. I love the format, I loved our conversation, and I cannot wait to have them back on.
I'm not sure if this is related to numbing or not, but I have noticed a struggle with a part lost in shame. When I tried to sit with him, it was hard because he was really angry at me. And it took me time to see how his anger came from being silenced and feeling like he must be bad. That my discomfort with his anger just made it worse. And that what he most needed was to have his anger celebrated. So I brought my inner poet to meet with him, to put it into verse and celebrate his right to tell his furious truth.
I wonder what would happen if I gave my parts the luxury of an hour. Often I tell a scared part that I'm an adult and she doesn't have to be afraid. But she knows it's a manager telling her that and it doesn't help her at all. I don't think I often give my system the gift of enough time to check in with ALL the parts, starting with ALL the managers. Managers and Self-like parts do the check in and other parts rarely roll out the welcome mat for them. I am going to try to follow your example and give everyone plenty of time, and also tell them it's not a command performance. Thanks so much for this post! Hugs.