IFS and Christianity
Some of you have heard of Shadow work before: this therapeutic or spiritual approach reveals that there are emotions and ways of thinking or behaving that we have come to see as “bad”, shameful, or sinful. All of us are brought up in families and cultures that prioritize some ways of being over others. Our personalities and Ego also navigate us toward certain behaviors over other, helping us to survive in this world.
So, if we were told that our sexual feelings are sinful, for example, we will do our best to shove them away, behind us. When we do not face these parts of us with wisdom, compassion, and courage, they just end up being forced into our Shadows. And like shadows, they are behind us where we cannot see them, but they have not gone away. Our Shadow holds great power over us because we cannot see it. And if religion is particularly controlling and oppressive, these “sinful” parts hold us hostage, making us feel worthless to our core.
Shadow work gently helps us look at what we have shoved down. The anger and rage at being called names by a trusted adult when we were a kid. The shame of being bullied. The grief we couldn’t acknowledge because “boys don’t cry”. Integrating your Shadow instead of demonizing it is freeing.
IFS (Internal Family Systems Theory) is like Shadow Work on steroids. Developed by Dr. Richard Swartz, IFS comes from the direct experience of thousands of patients over decades of work. Simply put, IFS states that each and every one of us has a family system inside of us, composed of many parts. Some of our parts help us manage our day to day. Mine are great with motivation, getting me to the gym, and they LOVE a calendar! I call these managers “3” (based on my Enneagram number), and they have done such a good job for me. But being 3 is all they know how to do.
Some of my parts are protectors. They jump in when they think I’m being threatened. Most of my life I have had the “freeze” and “fold” instinct and often felt guilty that I couldn’t have stood up for myself better. And usually hiding behind them all are little girl versions of me paralyzed by shame and feeling unworthy.
These beautiful parts are doing the best they can. And sometimes, when we are really unhealthy, they jump in and cause us to do some really crazy things. But they aren’t bad. They are immature, limited, young, terrified, and exhausted. And they are not all that we are.
IFS teaches that within every single person is a Self. This Self, no matter who you are or what you have done, can be unearthed. This Self is courageous, compassionate, wise, creative, collaborative, and to connect. It doesn’t have to be taught how to be this, but we do have to learn to connect and find our Self. We can do this by having a trained IFS guide lead us through the IFS process. We do this when we meditate or in moments when we are creative and feel fully alive. And once we have access to this Self, we can literally go to our parts and listen to them, unburden them, love them, and heal them. And thus ourselves.
What is powerful about this in regards to Christianity, is it flies in the face of Original Sin, which states that we are inherently crappy and there is nothing good we can really do. God is external to us and we may only have God within us IF we are baptized or belong to the right religion or so on. But that isn’t true. IFS, through lived experience of thousands upon thousands of clients, reveals that actually, we are inherently good. And what we have called “Sin” is the very human condition of our parts imperfectly and sometimes destructively running the show, because they/we didn’t know we had a Self who could do it.
While this requires so much more conversation, suffice it to say, IFS affirms a very different spirituality. That our Self is good and available if we know how to reach it. That we are not sinful and bad, but rather have wounded parts that need healing. That religion causes spiritual and psychological harm when it burdens these parts with shame, guilt and fear, exiling them further. That religion aids in our healing when we learn to greet all parts with the unconditional Love we say God Is.
You don’t have to believe me. You can experience this for yourself as I have. And I hope you do. Do and your parts deserve it. Much love.