I'm working on a tool for understanding obstacles 🚧 and overcoming them in a way that feels easy, friendly and safe. This is my work diary. Feel free to reach out with questions, feedback, ideas. 💁♀️
🇬🇧 Most of my posts are in English, but there's some in German, too.
🇩🇪 Ich poste meisten auf Englisch, weil mich Austausch über Sprach- und Ländergrenzen hinweg interessiert. Ab und an gibt es hier aber auch Posts auf Deutsch.
| Location | NW-Germany |
| Header Image | A city scene at night. Blurry street and buildings and warm white and green lights lights. On the right there's a short-haired human staring into the distance. |
| Avatar | White background, a black circle, a black zigzag line inside the circle, one end of crossing the border. |
Just a tiny comment from a country who has already tried the fascist dictatorship 🇩🇪
Today I can't stop thinking about the Oscar-nominated movie 13 Minutes, featuring the story of Georg Elser who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1939. I don't want violence to be a normalized part of politics but as a woman born into a democratic Germany I honor Elser's moral compass + courage. I guess history will tell how these events will go down.
Highly recommend the movie!
And here's a longer podcast about it that I've enjoyed recently (no endorsement on the host, don't know enough about them):
Thanks for listening, I needed to get this out today.
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There's growing evidence about IFS, if you're interested in the studies look here:
https://ifs-institute.com/resources/research
https://www.foundationifs.org/news-articles/79-ifs-an-evidence-based-practice
Böckler et al., Know Thy Selves: Learning to Understand Oneself Increases the Ability to Understand Others https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-017-0023-6
These parts don't intend to hurt or sabotage you. They want you to be safe, but aren't very skilled. They're really just tiny humans inside who need the same care actual tiny humans do.
Which is not: tuning out, ignoring, ridiculing, debating, refuting, belittling.
It is: Turning towards them. Listening. Validating. Holding them when they cry. Trying to understand where they're coming from. Figuring out their needs. Then lending a helping hand and walking forward together.
8/8
So maybe the way we're treating our inner states right now is like trying to push a car. And it might be better to take another look under the hood.
There's a model of human personality that is called #InternalFamilySystems (#IFS). It suggests that we're all made up of different parts. Many of them might be giving us grief, but instead of being a 1950 parents towards them, it might be best to become attuned 2020s caregivers.
7/8
I believe these ideas help some people sometimes. But they're inefficient and rooted in a paradigm I want to see overturned. Let me explain:
You don't know anything about cars and want to figure out how to move them forward. We'll get different cars, a bunch of people working hard and we manage to push most of them forward. It is evidence-based that this works.
But once you learn more about cars you understand that it's inefficient to push and instead teach people how to drive.
6/8
It is mostly: ignore your inner life or fight it.
I just twitch whenever I come across these bits - and it's in so many books, in social media, in therapists offices, in coaching sessions, in my friends brains. And there are so many people who are practicing any variation of this so diligently but just won't thrive and think it is their fault.
Holy hell. I so want to yell at this.
But I've often felt shy about it, because some of it seems to be evidence-based advice.
5/8
I rarely find the attitudes outlined above when people are dealing with themselves + their inner lives. When struggling with difficult feelings or thoughts it's easy to find this advice:
- Don't give your negative thoughts any air. Just distract yourself.
- When you notice fear coming up, just breathe until you calm down.
- You need to debate and refute your inner critic.
- Try to be more mindful. Notice your thoughts and feelings, but let them pass without attaching any meaning to them.
4/8
getting unstuck