Do you ever experience an extreme emotional reaction–and wonder what caused you to have that impulse? Here’s a small window into what may be going on inside of you, through the lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS).
Have you ever noticed that you have a strong reaction to a certain situation or particular person? Or maybe you’ve surprised yourself by how intensely you judged someone—even if only in your own head.
If a friend didn’t text you back for several days, how bothered would you be on a scale of 1–10? If you were stuck in horrible, unexpected traffic, how much would it affect your mood? Or maybe you overate one night at a wedding. Did you then beat yourself up afterward?
The bottom line is this: “If it’s intense, it’s yours.” This is a famous line from Dr. Richard Schwartz, the founder of Internal Family Systems (IFS). IFS teaches us that when we have an intense reaction, an extreme response, or feel highly reactive, it is often an indicator that something inside of us has been touched.
There is a real reason why some people are more affected by being ignored than others. How you interpret a particular situation reflects your own inner wiring and the messages you have internalized over the years. While what happens to us certainly matters, the meaning we attach to those experiences often determines how intensely we react.
If someone doesn’t respond to your text, one person might think, “She must be sick,” while another immediately thinks, “She must be mad at me. What did I do wrong?” The event is the same, but the story we tell ourselves is completely different.
When your response is disproportionate to the situation, it’s an invitation to do what we call in IFS a U-turn—to turn inward. We do this with curiosity. Curiosity replaces our natural instinct to shame and criticize ourselves or others, which is often our second reaction.
First, we get stuck in unexpected traffic. Then immediately we’re so angry that we start blaming our teenager for distracting us before we left the house, causing us to forget to put on Waze. Or maybe we turn the anger on ourselves: “I’m always late. I never get it together.”
Instead, we can pause and wonder: Why is it that when things don’t go my way—or when I’m late—I get so bent out of shape? Why is overeating, being thin, or eating healthy such an emotionally charged issue for me? Why do I feel so easily insulted or hurt when people ignore me?
Notice that the “why” is asked with a tone of gentle, open curiosity—not with contempt or harshness.
You may be surprised to learn that we don’t have to be angry at ourselves in order to create change. There is a common myth that the harsher we are with ourselves, the more we’ll improve. But believe it or not, it’s much like parenting a child. You may be able to whip a child into shape or scare them into listening, but the change is usually short-lived. Lasting change comes through understanding, not punishment.
The next time you have an intense reaction, pause. Do a U-turn. Instead of immediately reacting to the outside world, become curious about your inside world. Ask yourself, What is this situation bringing up in me? What is this reaction trying to protect me from?
Beneath the intensity, you may discover a vulnerable feeling, an old belief, or a younger part of yourself that has been carrying a burden for a very long time. As you begin to understand your inner world with compassion rather than criticism, your reactions begin to make sense. And from that place of understanding—not judgment—real and lasting change becomes possible.
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