How To Heal Your Inner Child with Internal Family Systems

I'm Lightstone, a human excellence coach who leads legal psychedelic healing journeys here in Boulder, Colorado. It's a pleasure to welcome you to the Stone Protocol, a channel dedicated to providing the tools necessary for all of us to achieve human excellence. Today, we have a question from one of our viewers. Mass Jones asks, how does one heal their inner child and deep trauma that has been locked up for extended periods? Mass Jones, this is a perfect question.

Some might say that is the ultimate question of trauma healing. So many times in our lives, we have had traumatic experiences, particularly as ACEs, adverse childhood experiences. When we are young, that affects us profoundly on a core wounding level. It can be challenging to integrate these experiences into our conscious minds as an adult. I practice internal family systems, and it is a beautiful modality, not only to conceptualize how this trauma operates but to be able to go and heal these interwound children. They are us -- these are our parts.

So, from this perspective, I do this during my coaching practice and healing journeys at thestoneprotocol.com. We first go, and I create trailheads during a session. And I understand areas a client may wish to explore to understand themselves better. There may be some tension in places where there may be anxiety; this is a body-based practice, and so the trauma is stored in our bodies. As it's said, our bodies keep the score. We can feel where those traumas are based on how we respond to our external environment. So, by going in and establishing these different trailheads, I can go in with a client and first create a map.

Now, very, very, very important when we want to go and explore these more profound aspects of our psyche, it's critical to understand that when we have what's called an outcast, and that's the wounded childlike part, We have a series of intermediary protective components and these protector parts are compelling and have been keeping us the conscious mind and the conscious kind of driver of our body system. Protected from the pain of these wounded childlike parts that within internal family systems are called outcasts, it's very, very, very important before we even first try to find, let alone unburden or heal, the outcast to take a look. These protective parts and there are usually layers of them. These parts are essential to us. They are us. And they've been working so hard over typically many years, sometimes decades, to keep us safe through a learned coping strategy of Pushing these outcast childlike parts of us out of our conscious experience.

Now, some clients say, yeah, that's great. They've been keeping me safe. I don't want to be safe from this anymore. I want to feel this pain. I want to integrate it. I want to learn. I want to grow. I want to evolve. Makes sense. I'm right there with you, and that's my job to help you do this. These protective parts can sometimes have a different perspective on that entire process. They are like a wall and have been like a damp, just holding the line for years. From their perspective, Their only role is to keep you safe, and often, we get into this during our sessions. It's very, very, very interesting how it plays out.

They don't know how old you are. So for me, I'm 38 years old. When I first made contact with them, some of my protective parts thought I was still 9, 10, 15, 17. And when I started to integrate them and work with them, I found out that they had a... An adaptive, and I would say now adaptive, protective strategy from when I suffered that trauma. So, the first thing we do is find the defensive parts. We make contact with them. Once we do that, we do a lot of deep, integrative breathing and breath work in this practice. We breathe into our hearts. When you live in your heart, you put what IFS called self-energy throughout your entire body system. Some systems call it prana, chi, kundalini, and energy.

I don't know what words you want to throw at this. I like to call it just heart energy. So, we breathe into our hearts, and then we send that heart energy to the protective part along with gratitude. For some people, these protective parts can be a little destructive. I used to be aggressive when triggered and bold with my environment.

That was my coping mechanism for keeping myself safe in my family of origin and then in a boarding school, where I was severely abused. I won't go into those details today, but I had to and still do have to send gratitude to those protective parts that have kept me safe for so many years. And even when those protective parts have some maladaptive coping mechanisms, they still operate from the perspective that they're trying to protect us and protect themselves from all elements of the same body system. And so, by sending them gratitude, we build a little bit of good faith. And that good faith goes a long way, saying thank you. Thank you for doing your best to keep me and those childlike wounded parts safe.

This goes back to this question that you have, Mass Jones, because when you asked, it's been locked up for more extended periods, these protective parts, that's what's keeping it locked up. Okay, so we've made contact, sent gratitude, and started a dialogue. I want to ask that the protective part is the worst that could happen. If you let your guard down a little bit and let us see through and see that wounded childlike part that you are protecting us from, what's the worst that can happen? Now, clients will often say in their conscious mind, nothing, nothing horrible could happen.

That's not, I think, honestly true. The worst that can happen from this protective parts perspective is death and enslavement, losing all your friends and family. I mean, it is a nightmare scenario from the perspective of that part. And so we must acknowledge that that is the intensity these protective parts bring to this experience. From their perspective, they are protecting us from death. Usually, when we have ACEs or adverse childhood experiences, also known as developmental trauma, to the child, if this trauma is coming from a caretaker such as a parent or a guardian, a teacher, or even someone in a position of power or authority, and that could just be someone physically more significant than you, out in the wild these people if they don't protect you, you could die. So, that worst-case scenario is genuine and very valid.

We need to acknowledge that. And so we have to feel deeply in ourselves, our conscious minds, and our body systems. That fear of the worst that could happen is that we die. Now we know as adults, or even there may be some adolescents watching this video, that that's not the worst that will happen. You're not going to die. You can be safe with help. If you are in a dangerous situation, there are phone numbers that you can call emergency lines that you can call, and you will be safe. As an adult, we understand that we can't be abandoned. We are our guardians now. But that protective part protects a wounded childlike part still locked in the same age and mentality as when we suffered that initial trauma. And so, from this perspective, it is a life-and-death scenario. And we then have to communicate with our conscious mind to that protective part; It's no longer life and death. We are safe. We are okay. Under normal coaching circumstances, that can be a complex communication to have.

Our conscious mind dominates our daily experience. We need to drive to the store, we need to get gas, we need to plan our day. That's all conscious mind behavior. And this protective part and the wounded childlike part that we're trying to unburden and heal is usually below the surface of our everyday awareness. That's why I utilize psilocybin or magic mushrooms, some people call them, but psilocybin assisted coaching and trauma healing which is legal here in Colorado.

You can learn more at www.thestoneprotocol.com. But when taking psilocybin at efficacious doses or the appropriate dose, it allows us to see this interaction between these three parts, our conscious mind, our protective part, and our outcast child-like part, and begin actually to communicate between these parts of ourselves. We can start negotiating and healing the protective role from this perspective before getting to the childlike part. And that is very, very, very key for childlike and inner child healing. So, once we've made contact, we've allowed this protective part to know that we sincerely want to go and access this part of ourselves that's wounded, that was injured in our youth, whatever the trauma might be.

Some people think we must have these vast, grandiose traumatic experiences like childhood sexual abuse. I unfortunately have suffered that as a child, but you don't have to have that level of trauma to have a deep childhood experience, traumatic childhood experience. Instead of just being lost at the mall or breaking your leg and not receiving the comfort that you need, many trauma experts state that trauma is caused not by the traumatic experience itself but instead is caused by not being supported by our community, where that's parents, teachers, or friends, to help us and let us know that we're safe. In those instances where we don't feel safe, we have this outcast part that is pushed away and rejected from our conscious mind and body system. And the thing that is pushing it out and leaving it is this protective part because this wounded part is so much pain; there's so much discontinuity that our conscious mind just can't handle it. And so we fissure off, create these parts, and push them away. So once we've made contact with the protective part that's the gatekeeper, we send it gratitude; we say thank you for keeping us safe all these years to these outcast parts.

Thank you for expending so much energy, energy by the way, that when this protective part lets its guard down, we get back into our body system. This defensive part doesn't just disappear or go away; it gets to find a new job. We get to negotiate with it again about utilizing that new energy. Once that's done, it lets its guard down. Let's see what's behind the veil. And we take a little peak, and it's like looking into a room or looking in through a window into an experience that we had as children that was incredibly painful. Once we can see that wounded child-like part of us, we then get to make contact with it. In my experience doing this coaching for many years, it is vital. To then go in and send that wounded part of our love. And how do we do that?

First, we have to muster it in our hearts. Through breathing exercises, you can feel it. Some people call this the heart chakra. Some people call this the soul. Some people call it the body-mind. Again, I don't care what words you want to use. For me, I call it the heart or the heart nexus. It doesn't matter. We feel that energy in our chest and then project it to this wounded part. And that injured part often is in so much pain. But by maintaining the thread of our conscious adult minds, we are able now because this protective part has let its guard down if the gate has lowered.

To feel the pain we had as children, and every single time with every client I do this with, your conscious mind can hold the pain that that wounded childlike part had. And sometimes, these wounded parts are babies. If you've suffered from prenatal or very early childhood trauma like I have and like many of my clients have, including my beloved wife, We hold those babies as an adult, and the baby may not even be able to talk if that's the wounded childlike part and we just have it. And we send it love.

Some of my clients don't know how to hold a baby, so I teach them. I'm lucky enough to have a daughter, so I love holding babies. Before I had a daughter, I didn't know how to do it. I had younger brothers, but I was a little like, how do I hold this baby? When you have a baby and love it, It just flows out of you, and you can keep that little part of yourself in the same way with love, appreciation, and ultimate safety. Maybe that part of you is an adolescent or a grade-schooler.

They may be wounded and hurt. Whatever their situation, we send them love and hear their story. We talk to them, literally have a conversation in English. Sometimes, it can be through images or sensations, but in my work, usually, they talk, and you have an inner dialogue. You can do it through breathwork by building up that heart energy in your chest, sending it to these parts, and facilitating communication. And we hear the story.

That part of us being able to talk and share with us how it's hurt, What happened is a huge, huge, massive part of what's called the unburdening process in internal family systems. Now, when we hear that story, we want to receive it and listen deeply. Interestingly enough, as the story progresses, the coach's job is to help mediate and navigate. Sometimes, the client can become, and we call this blending, blended with that child-like part. When this occurs, the coach can do direct access, where the coach will interact with that child and then help bring the client's conscious mind back into the situation. That's fine. And that kind of dynamic can be very effectively navigated during a session.

When we hear the story, we want to do something called a redo. And this is the ultimate pen answering your question, Mass Jones, of how do we heal that inner child? Whatever the traumatic experience was, we then hear the story up to a certain point, usually like the crux of when something horrible is going to happen, and it can be right after. It depends on the client and how they want to do it.

The coach, in this case, me, I say pause. And in this place, the client and the coach, we have ultimate power. And so we pause. And the scene freezes. And this is fantastic. And from this freeze, we can then go in and redo something that occurred that was traumatic.

Now, we're keeping our physical past the same. So, for my childhood traumas, those events still occurred. But it's this almost strange spiritual, mystical thing where we create an alternative timeline through quantum tunneling or something. I don't know. These are all big words. They don't matter. We can integrate this new version of learning that we now bring inside of ourselves to ensure our conscious mind knows we don't ever have to experience that again.

We've learned from the experience. So when the client is speaking about the traumatic experience, I'm walking down the street, and then I see a person; then we hit, we say pause, and then we bring the conscious mind into that scenario where we have the childlike part, whatever the traumatic experience was. The adult conscious mind can then step in and change the dynamic. And completely redo and rewrite that memory. Now, within the reason, this allows the person. We still remember what happened but can now integrate that memory as a traumatic experience. Many people call this memory integration. And so this happens when we're sleeping, or our minds are trying to make sense of our past experiences, but sometimes these experiences are too painful, and we have reoccurring nightmares.

I know from my childhood sexual abuse that's what happened to me. I just had nightmares and nightmares and nightmares. I couldn't access this part until I did very, very intentional psychedelic healing journeys with my wife to access those memories. And then, once I did, I could redo those memories as an adult. I stepped in with my conscious mind with help from a facilitator and my wife to feel safe enough to do it. And I was able to stop the situation. And that redo, that's where we begin to reparent ourselves. And often, those childlike parts of us want to leave the problem, and we can bring them into our hearts. Sometimes, they must leave a dangerous living situation, for me it was living in a boarding school. And so I bring that adolescent boy with me, say, hey buddy, you don't have to stay here anymore. People are being mean to you. They're abusing you; they're hazing you. Do you want to stay here?

My younger self is like no, this is horrible. I want to get out of here. It's okay, come with me. You don't have to stay here. Let's go, And that younger part of me says, well, you don't have to learn how to do stuff. Say, I'll teach you. It's wonderful. I'm an adult. Could you come with me? And then we can have a new memory where that part of us is no longer locked in the very hellacious space of that trauma. It's now free. And that freeze in our mind this entirely new path of possibility. And then what happens is that the wounded part, that childlike component, gets integrated into our heart, standard body system, and conscious mind.

As does the protective part. There's so much locked-up energy, like scrambling around being suppressed and pushed away, that now he's free to be applied to whatever we want. Whether that's to go on a run, go to the gym, or write a book, it doesn't matter. You get to apply that energy and those parts of yourself to what you choose to do. And they become your superpowers. Now, this is work that you can do on your own. There is a fantastic book by Richard Schwartz, the founder of Internal Family Systems, called No Bad Parts. But that book will help build some language around how to do this process independently. I suggest going out and finding an internal family systems therapist or a coach. I prefer the coaching modality, but fantastic psychotherapists also do this work, too.

When you have a trained, skillful, and experienced facilitator, you can go into these parts of yourself and heal them effectively. When you do it yourself and without help, it can be not easy to navigate this experience. It's possible, but usually, it's best to do it with the help of a facilitator, and then, in time, you can build the skill set like any skill where you can do it on your own. I do this internal healing work on a near-daily basis. Unfortunately, I have so much trauma in my past that I constantly have the invitation for myself and the opportunity to heal these wounded parts. The beauty of it is there are only a finite amount of traumatic experiences in our lives, and every single one can be recovered. Whether we heal them with help from a coach or whether or not we heal them inside of ourselves, we still heal ourselves. And it's always great to have support.
So, I invite you, Mass-Jones, and everyone else to dare to go and start communicating with our protective parts. And then make contact with our wounded childlike parts. Hear their stories, integrate their experiences into our hearts, and then do a redo. They don't need to be locked in those painful experiences. And then you can check in with them.

You can check in with them once a week. You can check in with them every day. That's you and sometimes the best parts of yourself that have been locked away because they've been in so much pain. You deserve to be filled with joy, love, and life. And
if you need help, you can. So, it is a pleasure and an honor to share the tools and the experiences that helped me overcome my trauma. And I've now dedicated my life to it with the Stone Protocol.

If you'd like to learn more about my coaching practice, one-on-one sessions, deep dives, and psychedelic healing journeys, please go to www.thestoneprotocol.com. In the meantime, I have such a plethora of information that I am so excited to share. So, just like Mass Jones did, please post your questions in the comments below. For the relevant questions relevant questions, I will do an entire post on it just like this. This question was fantastic, and we will come back to this process many times over the next several years. This is like the pan-ultimate process of unburdening and healing our internal child. What are your questions so we can answer them in subsequent posts? I'll see you soon!