Heal Binge Eating and Body Image Struggles with Internal Family Systems
Welcome to the Satiated Podcast, where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation, and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host, Stephanie Mara Fox, your somatic nutritional counselor.
If you've been here for a while, you may have noticed that I'm a big fan of parts work. Knowing what part of you is telling you to eat, not eat, eat something specific can be empowering. Rather than feeling like you're lacking willpower or out of control, you can start to understand your food impulses as communication from a younger part of you that is trying to support you. I have yet to focus an entire episode on a parts work perspective to food recovery so I was excited to bring Megan Darnell onto the podcast to chat about this some more.
Megan is an Internal Family Systems practitioner, women's coach and host of The Self Led Woman podcast (which I was recently on), where she explores the emotional, nervous system, and generational roots underneath struggles with food, body image, and emotional eating. Her work sits at the intersection of IFS therapy, healing, and the deeper psychology of why women eat the way they do. She works with women who are tired of trying to change their behavior without ever addressing what's actually driving it, and she's on a mission to change the conversation around emotional eating from one of willpower and discipline to one of compassion, curiosity, and real understanding. We chat about applying internal family systems to food and body image recovery, understanding your parts as protectors, working with your parts in the cycle of binge eating, interacting with your inner critic and inner child, and practical steps to start utilizing parts work in your relationship with food.
I discuss a parts work perspective on your food coping patterns in the Somatic Eating® Program and doors are officially open to the class that starts on Thursday October 29th. If you're curious to learn more about who is doing your eating, and how to connect with and navigate your parts when they are screaming at you to do your familiar food behavior, be sure to go to somaticeating.com and you can learn more and join this upcoming class today.
Now, welcome Megan! I am really excited to reconnect with you. I was on your podcast, so I'm so excited that you're now coming on my podcast. And for those listeners who don't know about you or your work, I would love to just get started with you introducing yourself and how you got into this work that you're doing today.
Megan Darnell 03:05
So I am a IFS internal family systems therapy practitioner, and I work primarily with women who struggle with emotional and binge eating. And how I got into this work was a very lifelong journey with food and struggles with food and yeah, this is I guess where I've arrived. But I guess to begin, I started dieting when I was in primary school, so maybe I was maybe eight years old, and my mum had a really very strong views around being thin and really just was a believer of all of the diet culture and what thinness and all of those things. So I really just wanted to be approved of by her, and she never had apparently struggles with food, like she never binged, and if I ever binged, or she would just say, oh, you just need to have more willpower. And so I thought there was something wrong with me, and this continued into my adolescent years, and then into my 20s, and then how I came across internal family systems was I had entered into a community called Brightline Eating, and I thought that that was the answer for me at the time. This would have been maybe 2019. And if you're not familiar, Brightline Eating is a community where they promote what they call abstinence from food. The principles of it are based on Overeater's Anonymous, but basically you are meant to eat three meals a day, weighed and measured, no sugar or flour, no processed foods, all that sort of thing. I've never been in 12-step programs, but I think some of the concepts that were introduced were very much down that line. And it, like looking back, it felt a bit cultish, and like this is the end. And I also found it odd that they also have what they call like a buddy system, where you find a buddy and you check in with them every day. And I remember thinking at one point, this feels like we're just replacing one what they call an addiction to food with another being codependency, which I found odd as well. But I continued on that program, and I just did it because I'd never really found anything before where I felt like because I still thought that I needed to have more willpower. I needed to be under control, and I had no control. And that's really what they promote in those spaces. Like you actually are addicted to food, and you don't have the control that other people do so you need to just work this program, and I ended up losing my period for like 18 months. And I was even like, well, this isn't good. But I think again, she addresses this in you know some of her videos. She says, don't worry if you've lost your period; it will come back. And I just think, oh, looking back, like this is crazy that all of these things going on, like your hormones aren't working properly, you're not getting your period. Like we're women, we're supposed to get our periods. We're supposed to have cycles. That's a measure of hell. And I continued down that road, and then it got to the beginning of 2020, and I, what they call, broke my lines, and then that was a series of binges that went on for months after that, and I realized that this just wasn't going to work for me, and it really did increase a lot of food noise. But then I still stayed in the community, and then they introduced internal family systems through one of her friends, who's also written a book with her. He's an IFS practitioner, and they taught us the basics of IFS. And now, looking back, given that I've done my training, was pretty much what they teach in level one. They said this isn't for you to use in as a therapist, but just to practice amongst yourselves, form a group. So I did, and I formed a group with three other women, and we met every we ek on Zoom, and we practiced IFS, and it changed my life. And I started to heal a lot of the trauma from my childhood, a lot of the relational trauma that I'd never been able to get to before. And for the first time in my life, I started to feel present. And I remember even at the beginning of those calls when we would reflect on our weeks, and I was so in my head and so worried about how I was being perceived, I felt like I was on edge all the time. I would rehearse what I was going to say in my head back to the person before I would say it, and then after a few months of doing the IFS, I realized that I wasn't doing that anymore, and I could be more present with my friends. And then I started becoming a bit more relaxed with my food. And then, after a few months of that, I ended up doing an MDMA therapeutic journey, and that was a big healing experience for me. And I went in, I've always had a really strained relationship with my mother, and I went in with this intention to forgive her. And again, I don't think that forgiveness is a destination, or even I know a lot of communities or self-development world will say you need to forgive, but I don't agree with that. But that was my intention going in. But it actually was so much more powerful than that. So I could see a lot of why my mum was the way she was, just because of her own struggles. I could just see her a lot more human. But what happened in this journey was I replayed every single memory in my mind that could come to mind that of any negative experience that I'd had with any other female, and I was going through each one, like even my grade two art teacher that yelled at me once, like just the tiniest of memories, and then it went the other way, and it showed me everywhere that I'd been either comparing myself or judging other women or just being unkind. And I said to each of them, I'm sorry, and I send you love and healing energy. And then I could see, like, visualize all these women around the world, and they were carrying suitcases, and the suitcases was like a metaphor for their pain. And I just said to all of them, I just send you so much love and healing energy, and you don't have to carry the suitcases anymore. And then I went to myself, and I said to myself, I'm so sorry for every mean thing I've ever said about my own body, just anything I'd done that was self-destructive, and I said to myself, Like I forgive you, that was amazing and profound. But it wasn't until I went home and then I went to get up to go to the gym on the Monday morning, and I was 37 or something at the time, and I had every single day since probably the age of 13 got up in the mirror and looked at my stomach every morning and said to myself, You're disgusting. Your stomach's disgusting. And this was repeated words that my mother had said to me about my own body. But I stood in front of the mirror after that journey and I just cried, and I just said, I'm so sorry for every mean thing I've ever said to you. And I just said to my body, I love you, and thank you for keeping me alive. And it was the beginning of the end of the war with my own body, and I just stopped. It was like that was the thing that stopped the criticism, and it all clicked into place for me. I think in that moment because I could recognize I'd learnt about the parts, but the one thing that was really driving a lot of the behavior-and this is complex-but it was the critical parts of me, because the critical parts always the ones standing in front of the mirror and saying those awful things, and then that triggers the parts of us that are perfectionistic that go, I need to restrict, I need to work out, I need to compensate, I need to do all these things, which then creates more pressure on your system. And the way I explain it, the critic is so mean. It's like imagine a bully is following you around all day long, and it's saying all these nasty things to you. You get home and you binge. It's kind of like you've had a person follow you around all day saying, You're this, you're that. I can't believe you did that again. You're out of control. Whatever it wants to say to you, I always say that the the other part that drives you to binge or drives you to eat, it's kind of like she's like beautiful grandma energy. You've come home and she's like, honey, you've had a hard day. Sit down. I made you your favorite food. Like wraps you in this big warm hug. Here, I just want to make you feel better because this you've had a really hard day, and that's in parts. That's kind of the cycle that we stay in, and because I could recognize the criticism, and I stopped speaking to myself that way, it was like that was the catalyst for all of the change and that real journey of healing my relationship to my body and to food, and I just, for the first time, started to be able to gauge my hunger and fullness cues. Started to recognize when I wanted something, when I didn't. Stopped restricting. Started just having things because I wanted them, and I guess that was like the journey. And then I decided to go and study the level one training, and I've since done my level two. And yes, started working with women. At first, I was just doing IFS for anybody that wanted it, but then I had a lot of clients coming to me with food struggles, and I think all women do to some degree or another, or with their bodies, and it just felt it made sense for me to niche into that. So I have, and then started the podcast, and because of my own journey, like I never run out of things to talk about.
Stephanie Mara 12:41
Yeah. Wow! Thank you for sharing all of that. I resonated with so many pieces, and I just hear how powerful internal family systems has been to start to understand that these impulses are actually not the problem, and that they are a response to some of these parts of you, and they're from some of these other parts of you that are trying to support you or protect you. And I also appreciate you just naming about things like Brightline Eating because I have had quite a few people come to me having a history of also gone into Brightline Eating, and it made their food behaviors significantly worse. Because when you're viewing food as the problem, it's missing how has it become the answer to something else that is happening. And I really hear that's also potentially what you started to collect or notice was like, oh, I can continue to focus on food, but it never gets at this internal critic that's kind of running the show.
Megan Darnell 13:30
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, now I know that food is just, I guess, the symptom or the the mask that what is going on underneath is wearing, and it's not the food or our bodies that we need to be focusing on. It's like what we need to hear, what's underneath. We need to hear what our parts want to say, but we avoid that. And also, just what I know now, like we focus so much on food and our bodies because then it means we don't have to feel what's underneath. Because there are parts of us, and this is protective as well, but there are parts of us that believe that you can't deal with it, or it's going to be too much, or it's going to be, or in my case, my critic was acting the way it was because the way I looked got love from my mother, and so that part was trying to protect me and trying to make sure I was loved. Like that's what it believed, believed that I that was the only way I was going to be loved, and all of our parts are doing these jobs to try and protect us because they they think that we're generally much younger than what we are. One of the questions we ask in in internal family systems when we're in the therapy session is, I say to the part, how old is this part think you are, and always it's much younger. And so the part what I said before is these parts think that we can't handle it. So let's just fixate on the body or food or something that I can put all my energy into. It might still think that you're five years old, and if you're five years old, and in my case, if my mother doesn't love me at five, my entire survival depends on that. And children know that intuitively, they know the people who are my caregivers tied to my survival, so they will do anything to protect that. And that's what they're doing. They're trying to protect you, and they also think you're five. You a can't survive this nor can you process it emotionally. It's going to be too much. Like you have parts sometimes I say, What are they afraid of? Why are they so afraid? And they'll say things like, You'll disappear or you'll die, and it might be around just being able to cope with the emotional whatever of what they think is going to happen if they don't keep doing that behavior.
Stephanie Mara 16:05
Yeah. So I'm curious for anyone who is potentially new to internal family systems. I know it's so popular now, and I certainly have had so many people come to me just expressing their love for IFS work and how much it has been supportive and helpful, but I'm curious if you could share a little bit about what it is and how you have adapted the work to working around food behaviors.
Megan Darnell 16:36
Sure. So for someone brand new that's never heard of it, it's a type of psychotherapy, and it's built on the belief that we are made up of all these different parts. And this isn't a new concept. Like Jung, he was about archetypes. Like we all have lots of parts of us. And even if you think that's weird, because some people hear that and think, does that mean I'm schizophrenic or something? Or I have multiple personalities? Kind of, but like we do have multiple parts and personalities within us, but just a really relatable example is, you know those days when you wake up in the morning and there's one part of you that wants to get out of bed and be productive, but there's actually another part of you that would like another hour of sleep. That's their parts. So that's a really easy way to explain it. And then under the parts, like we have three categories. So we have what we call the self, and that's who you really are underneath all your trauma, all your conditioning. It's the naturally confident, calm, curious version of you, and that part well, the self is who you really are, but it can't be damaged by trauma. It's underneath. Sometimes it's so buried underneath lots of protective parts that it's hard to access. But we all have it within us, and it's being in self energy or being in the presence of someone else's self energy is healing in itself because this part just it just doesn't judge. It's so compassionate, and it really is. When you're in self energy, you never feel drained. It's like you have this abundance of energy that kind of never seems to run out. Then we have protective parts. They are the parts that developed because something happened in your past that told you, I need to have this role to protect this little person from whatever it is that they experienced. And then when we have what we call exiles, exiles are generally wounded in a child parts, but they don't have to be in a child parts. They can be older, but generally speaking, they are, and that's what the protectors are doing: is they're protecting those younger parts from either ever feeling or ever experiencing what they did back then, and what we do in IFS is we either help the client to access self energy. If they can't, we kind of let them borrow ours, so to speak. And it's we're very much trained as IFS practitioners to be in self energy. And every time you notice a part of yourself pop up just to quickly take care of it and stay in that presence for the client. Very important. And then we work with the protective parts. We get to know them, and eventually, when we have built a trusting relationship, they will show us the exile or the inner child part that they are protecting, which will be in a memory. And generally, that part it feels frozen in time. It's like it's still stuck in that time and place. It still believes that well, it is still experiencing those emotions, and so the protector works very hard to make sure that that part doesn't kind of come to the surface. Binging is a really good example of a protective part, and in IFS we have two types of parts. We have protective parts, managers, and firefighters. Managers are the parts of us that tend to run our life. Firefighters are the ones that come in when something very sensitive is maybe activated or potentially going to be activated. And if you think of a firefighter as a first responder. An emergency. They are coming in to put out the fire. They don't care if they ruin the $20,000 painting on the wall. They are just putting out the fire, and that's what a binging part generally is. It's like very delicate, very tender. Maybe come to the surface, or maybe been activated or triggered. That binging part, the firefighter comes and says, No, we're not going there, and it will do whatever it has to, and that's why some for some people, a true binge it is a firefighter, and it feels like you can't control it, but it's like a firefighter, like it's putting out the fire. It has a very important job, and so that's why it comes in and does that. And then when we are speaking to the pattern of say a binge and restrict cycle, for example, we've got two, I mean, there's many parts that play into this, but the two parts that can often be in polarization, and polarizations are where it's like you've got two parts in a tug of war, and they are generally when you have something in your life you're struggling with the most, there's always a polarization in your system, but in this case, you have the part that binges, and then probably in polarization with the part that either criticizes you afterwards, or even the part that's restricting. So, if we're looking at a cycle, you might say at the end of the day you binge at night time, and then the next morning, you might have perfectionist parts coming in saying, We're not going to do that again. We're going to be really good today. We're only going to eat these things. We're not going to eat those things. We're only going to have this much to eat. We're going to work out really hard. We're going to, you know, do all of these things. So then you go out into your day, and you're restricting. And restriction is stressful. And your critic will probably follow you around all day, reminding you at every point, no, make sure you stick to this because you were really terrible yesterday. But it creates all this stress and pressure in your system. You go through the day like a bully is following you around, and then by the end of the day, you're exhausted, you're stressed, you haven't been nourishing yourself properly, and this can be physically or mentally. When we have restriction, it just creates more parts in our system that feel like they need to work harder. So you just feel all this tension, and then you get to the end of the day, and you might find yourself back in the exact same position you were 24 hours ago, binging again. But it's like that part that's binging after all of that stress is just trying to make you feel better. And then the critic comes in and criticizes you, and then away you go again the next day. And I stayed in that cycle for years of doing that over and over again, and couldn't figure out, you know. And then the critic would just say, What's wrong with you? Why can't you keep doing this? But the critic is actually holding the cycle in place, and the restriction is holding the cycle in place just as much as the binging is holding the cycle in place. Like they all feed into each other, like they're all working together, and you have to work with each of the parts in the system and the polarizations, in order to start to create a little bit more space, so you can actually work with it rather than against it. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but that's what we need to do. We need to meet these parts with compassion from self energy, and with understanding, and they all have really important roles.
Stephanie Mara 23:21
Yeah, I love that, and I really appreciate you describing binge eating as a firefighter. It goes very much along how I view binge eating as a protector, and like, thank goodness you've had binge eating a part of your life. And again, like you just said, it can sound absurd to say something like that. I was like, thank goodness this is a part of my life. When I know for a lot of people who potentially listen to this, I'd really like my binge eating to leave. Like I'd like it to go away, but also it got you through a lot of really uncomfortable, intense, unsafe situations in your life, and so I love also the lens of a firefighter, of even seeing it as well there was a part of you that urged you to binge because it was trying to protect you so that you didn't feel the pain of the situation that you were in, and it takes on such a different lens of binge eating. I know that as you describe that, I felt like a huge, immense amount of compassion in my body that it's like, oh, this behavior it makes so much sense, and it was such a wise strategy. It just isn't feeling like it's protecting you anymore, like you're describing because you aren't that five year old anymore that needs that kind of protection.
Megan Darnell 24:46
Yeah, and our parts don't know that they're often stuck. They're frozen in time. Like they genuinely think we are that young, and they might say things like, "I'm afraid if I don't do this, you'll die. And you're like, Wow, that makes so much.. Of course, you're working this hard. Thank you. Like you think they're protecting this little girl, like this defenseless little girl. She's so vulnerable, and it's it just changes the game. You really start to have compassion for those parts because you're like, wow, you're actually protecting this little girl that couldn't actually protect herself.
Stephanie Mara 25:21
Yeah, I'm curious in your experience and those that you've worked with, what have you seen start to update this part that you are no longer five and you no longer need this kind of protection.
Megan Darnell 25:35
In during the session, the part as soon as I have this little process where I say, oh, they think you're five. Wow. Okay, can you play them just in your mind? Imagine you're sitting there and you're playing them a movie of your life, and just show them like a quick movie of your life from say five until now, and then just let me know when that's done. And they're like, oh, wow, it's really stood back or it's amazed. They can't believe that this person is an adult and that they can take care of themselves, and it certainly starts to loosen the grip of why these parts seem they need to work so hard. And then we offer the part, like, do you? We ask them, Do you like your job? And nine times out of 10, they're like, No, I hate it. I'm exhausted. They've been working that hard for decades, and they're like, I hate this, but they thought they had no choice because sometimes parts know as well, and they're like, no, I don't want to talk to you because you're going to make me go away, and like, No, I never want you away. But then once they've seen that the the person is not five anymore, they're like, Okay, and we're like, Would you be open to help so you don't have to work so hard all the time, and then they're much more responsive to that. They're like, Yeah, I would be. I'm exhausted. And then we ask them what it is that they need, and we work with them, and then we're able to release some things they might be carrying. Sometimes it's feelings, sometimes it's belief, sometimes it's thoughts, and then once the unburdening process is being done, we help the protector part to release, but then we also help the little girl that was frozen in time to release what she was carrying, but also to give her a do-over. So we generally will ask the client, Is it okay if you go back into the memory and be with your younger self? Sometimes it's not. They're like, no, no, I don't want to go back. I'm like, that's fine. Would she like to come into the present with you? And sometimes, if there's a big trauma there, or it's really quite activating, that's preferred. Sometimes they're not ready to, and that's okay too. But we generally give the younger self, like the client is able to from her self energy, give the younger self exactly what they needed in that moment. Because often relational trauma-I mean, yes, it's what happened, but it's often that we didn't have a safe adult to comfort us afterwards, and that's like immunity for trauma. And it's like she gets to give that to her now. So in her mind, her mind's creating this new neural pathway. She gets that do over, she gets what she needed back then, and then the parts, the protective parts, and the younger self that able to release what it is that they're carrying or or the need for that role. Then we offer the new part like, is there a new role that you would like that would help this person going forward? We don't want them to go anywhere. They're amazing and they've worked so hard, but they just are able to take on a healthier role-one that's going to help the client going forward-and it just creates so much more like harmony in the system. And the good thing about IFS is the more you do it, the better it gets because we get better at being in self energy, have more capacity for self energy, and your parts trust you, and they trust you more and more. So it's faster and easier for you to develop those trusting relationships, and you start to understand as well, oh, these parts they all have good intentions, and you have such like love and appreciation for them, which is quite beautiful. And when people say, What do you do, and I try and explain it, I always say it's a real practical way to learn how to love yourself because you get to love parts of you that you may have not liked, or you had other parts in your system. Like often with binging parts, I say one of the questions we ask to check if the client is in self-image is how do you feel towards the part? And sometimes you get these responses: Oh, I hate it, or I want it to go away. Okay, you're not in self, and then we get the other part if they're okay just to step aside and just be present, but not like in the driver's seat. And we have to be in self to be able to speak to our parts. Otherwise, they'll know, and then they won't talk. Or, or even with an inner critic part, I've described this as the inner critic's kind of like a classroom bully. And sometimes you have to work with that first because if you imagine a classroom bully, it comes in and terrorizes the other student. And maybe throws things and is a bit scary, and even the teacher's a little bit scared. But the teacher's kind of like self energy. And if the teacher pulls the bully aside, and rather than berating the bully, says, Hey, I can see that you're angry, and it's okay to be angry, but why are you so angry? And the bully says, Well, when I'm at home, my dad's really angry, or whatever they're going through, and she says, Okay, like that's okay. It's and it's understandable, but I just want you to know that while you're in this classroom, that you're safe, and I'll take care of things. And the bully stops bullying all the other kids, and suddenly the kids start speaking up more, and they start like blossoming, and everybody in the classroom is happier. That's kind of like how parts can work as well.
Stephanie Mara 30:46
Yeah, so many pieces there. So first, I actually teach this as well. So I'm glad that you named this of not thinking of the part of you that binge eats as this enemy that you have to get rid of, but actually seeing their gifts and how can you give them a new job? Like I always see that like binge eating is creative, it's chaotic, it's intense, and so there's a lot of things that the parts of us that maybe engage in that behavior, we could apply the gifts of that part to other areas of our life, where it's like, hey, I just want to utilize this behavior less, but your creativity is fantastic. Like, wow, the kind of food combinations that we create really creative. I'd love you to utilize your creativity in a different way in my life. So I love that you named that kind of giving them a new job. Like, where else can we utilize your skills rather than thinking of them as like kind of the old idea? Like I think of like the the old book Life Without Ed, where it was like you have to like identify Ed, but it was always about identify Ed and see it as the enemy, and it's like an abusive boyfriend that you have to get rid of, and you know that may have helped some people, but I think what it ultimately what I saw it create was more of an internal battle of there is a part of me I have to fight rather than I love what you beautifully described is it's a matter of if we are in self energy we can love all of these parts of us and see what they're trying to do for us and even utilize them in different ways.
Megan Darnell 32:39
Yeah, that is IFS. Like that's the goal is like to actually be able to approach all your parts from self energy, from a compassionate lens, and that might be really hard in the beginning, and you might feel like these parts are working against you. And another thing about polarizations, when we've got two parts in polarization, whenever I've worked with a polarization, most of the time, both the parts, even though they're doing completely opposing behavior, they have the same intention, and they often come from the same, they're protecting the same exile, or the same memory, or a very similar one where it's very tender. And so, there's two parts here working in opposite directions, not knowing, but when you actually bring them both into the room, like around a table, and you're like, Hey, do you realize that you're actually trying to do the same thing? They soften towards each other, and then it's like you're not just giving each a new job. How would you guys like to work together? Like, let's be a team here, and they love that, and that's the thing. It's like fighting against it, like you know what you're saying about like fighting against your ED, like it's the enemy. It might work temporarily, but it's I don't think long term it's going to work. You really do need to work with your system, with your parts, meet them, consult them, like speak to them with compassion. Think of them as people. Like nobody responds well when they're berated or told to go away, but when they're met with curiosity, it's a completely different conversation.
Stephanie Mara 34:12
Yeah, I'm curious if you have kind of a real life example, even from yourself, of what that looks like. Because I find even sometimes when I bring in parts work with those that I work with, that when they start imagining meeting their parts or identifying their parts out in their everyday life, it doesn't feel authentic. Like they're like, Oh, I see you, I hear you, and it's just like that doesn't feel real to them. Like all they know is maybe that critical voice, where it's just like, oh, I I meet this urge, this impulse with criticism and judgment, and like that's what feels normal to me. And so I'm wondering if you could speak to how to maybe in more IFS language, maybe what I'm describing is like get used to self energy, because what I have seen is it feels inauthentic to feel tender and kind to oneself, mostly because I think for a lot of people it's not what they know.
Megan Darnell 35:10
Absolutely, yes, very good point. You have to be in self energy first of all for it to feel authentic, and if you have any judgment towards parts, you're not in self energy, and just it's another part of you. So even the part of you that's being critical of, say, the critical parts, being critical of the binging part, just maybe consult that part first, and just say, Hey, I understand, and that's what I often say. How do you feel towards a part that like I hate it, or I want it to go away, and I say to the part, I get that like, of course you do. We understand why you feel the way you do, but we just want to get to know this other part so hopefully, it doesn't have to work so hard all the time. Would you be willing to just take a step aside? You can sit right next to me and be present because I often feel safer like that. And you can jump back in at any time, and I want you to be here and you're welcome. And you can say whatever you like, like respecting them like it's another human being. Then they're more open to it. So it's like if you notice there's judgment or criticism, then that's another part as well. And to try and approach that with some curiosity, because there'll be parts in your system that you like, and there'll be parts that you don't, or there'll be parts that you agree with, and there'll be parts that you don't. But again, they're just parts. So just to approach it with curiosity. Also, just try and give yourself a little bit of space. You might want to go outside for five minutes, put your feet on the ground to get into self. Sometimes self can just feel like love or flow state. Like go do something that makes you feel those feelings because that helps you to access self energy. Or just thinking of someone you love, or maybe a pet. Pets are great too because like they're kind of pure self energy, and so are babies. So like just being in touch with that, or thinking about it, or doing something that maybe brings you a little bit of joy, or just makes you feel a little bit more open-hearted before you try and practice with the parts or speak to them, and also just to know that although in parts work we speak to them, I always say to clients that might not be your experience. Some people don't see their parts. Some people don't hear them. Some people have experiences of visual. Some people have experiences of speaking. Some people have experiences of just like a knowing. The parts are not actually speaking, but they just, or it's a feeling. And I often have those experiences with my own paths, and I just say, do what feels authentic to you because it might not look the way it looks for someone else, and for some people they have visualizations, and it's always another person or a younger version of themselves. Some people have their kind of almost cartoon character-like parts, and just trust what's coming up is real, and like that's authentic to you. It doesn't need to look a certain way, or, and it is just practice. But also like that, being with people you love, or thinking about them, or an animal, or something like that. That's generally a good way to, I guess, open the door to self energy. And if you feel like you just don't have access to self energy, find an IFS therapist. There's some really good ones out there, and like that's what we have another process. Sometimes, if we have people with very strong parts that don't really respond to the client, we use what we call direct access. So rather than the client asking the questions, I'll ask directly the part, the questions, and then there's sometimes that they don't want to talk to me either, and so I'm like, okay, cool. I'll say to the client, just ask the part this, and you don't need to tell me what it said. It might just want to keep that private between you two, or it might want to not share with the room what's happening, and that's okay too. So just wherever your system feels comfortable, and whatever feels like you're a little bit more open, or and it might just at the start feel like you're just letting a little bit of light in, but that's okay. It's somewhere to start as well.
Stephanie Mara 39:09
I love all of that, and I was just thinking that question, and you already answered it of like what would tap someone into self energy, and I really hear around connecting with animals, connecting maybe with nature, connecting with babies-you know, things that just already are in their maybe essence-and like that totally does it for me. When I just like pet my dog, and we just look at each other, and I'm just like, I love you so much. I'm like, Oh, yep, there I am like that's that's me, and yeah. So animals are such a great example, and so I appreciate you naming that also. That when you don't have a lot of practice tapping into just your natural self, like that's gonna also be a practice. And there are resources you can utilize, but I love the way you described it because I feel like it maybe decreases any sense of judgment that like this is just something you should quote unquote have access to, and it will actually need to be a practice to tap into that to even know what that feels like, especially if you haven't lived there very long.
Megan Darnell 40:20
Definitely, another practice I personally like to do, and I share it with a lot of clients. I'll share it, is that when I notice something coming up in me, and it might feel like anxiousness or just a feeling. And this is a really good one to do because you can do it any time, anywhere, and no one will even know you're doing it. And it doesn't require you to talk either to your parts. But I just place one hand on my chest, over my heart, and I just use that hand to communicate to that part whatever's coming up for me. I'm here. You're not alone. Because often our parts feel so activated because they feel so alone, and often they feel that way because they've been doing their job for decades, and no one's ever turned towards them before. They feel like they are all on their own, carrying this big responsibility on their back, and they're exhausted. But it's like just that touch is helpful as well. Like just from your body feels that touch, it can kind of just bring you back a little, and just saying, Hey, you're not alone, and that can just be really powerful. And you can do it in the middle of a meeting or when you're on a walk. Like no one knows what you're doing; just placing your hand in your chest.
Stephanie Mara 41:27
I love that. Yeah, it's such a really great, tiny, small, doable practice to start to connect with yourself. And I agree with you. I think that even Kristen Neff and her work in self compassion, you know, talks about how powerful it can be to just place our hand on our chest to start to bring a sense of self compassion into our body of like, I'm feeling myself, I'm connecting with myself, and beautiful what you added of just like, hey, you're not alone. Like, I am here for you. It makes me think of kind of becoming a witness to yourself rather than being so maybe immersed within your experience, where you can say, Oh, I'm noticing I'm having this experience, but I am not this experience. And so, I'm curious. Just as we move towards wrapping up, you know, you've offered so much today. If someone wanted to start applying more of this IFS work in their relationship with their food and their body, are there any other small practices that you feel like you would want to offer listeners?
Megan Darnell 42:35
Just from an IFS perspective, just start to notice throughout the day, like when you notice any thoughts or any feelings or anything coming up, just go. Oh, that's a part of me. Like, just kind of make a little mental note, and then continue what you're doing because that starts to create a little bit of separation between self and parts. And this is just another small thing that we can do. And I feel like this is very relevant because we live in this world where everything is so fast-paced and everything is tied to our achievements. And you know, how much can I cram into a day? And some people wear lack of sleep like a badge of honor, and all those things. And often, when we are like this, and I think most society is, we're kind of stuck in flight, in flight mode, which is a survival state, and it can feel too much to, I mean, it's all well and good to say, Oh yeah, good. Create some white space in your calendar, like, Yeah, right. I don't have time for that. Keep doing everything you're doing, but just move half a second slower. It's really powerful to do that because I did it last year. I gave that advice to a client because she was so busy and she has a very busy life. But I just said, keep doing what you're doing, but just move half a second slower. No one will even know on the outside that's happening. And then I thought to myself, I'm going to do that myself, and it was life changing the amount of presence I had with myself and being able to just notice these sensations in my body, notice when I felt a little bit stressed, or you know, oh, I'm feeling a bit stressed. Oh, I actually just need to go outside. I haven't been outside today, or I just need to go and eat, or I need to have a cup of tea, or and it was just like the attunement that that started to bring in micro sensations, I always say to people like, treat yourself like a giant baby. Like you really attune yourself, and that's one way you can open the door. There is just move half a second slower, and just watch what you notice, and you can start to give yourself what it is that you need. And I think that if we can begin there, that's well where we end up binging. I think it's because we're not ever giving ourselves what we need, and often we don't even know what that is because we've been so disconnected from our bodies for so long. And there's no shame in that. Like you've literally been in survival mode. But when we're able to throughout the day just do little check-ins with ourselves. By the end of the day, you're not so stressed, you're not so tense, so you don't necessarily, and again, no shame if you do binge, but you don't necessarily need to go all the way there, or you might just find that things start to reduce a little. And like that's all you can do is just like those little moments, those little baby steps, and those little moments of attunement with yourself. It's probably one of the most loving things I think you can do for yourself.
Stephanie Mara 45:25
I completely agree, and thank you for offering both of those because it brings back into focus how much change needs to be in the subtle and the tiny and the microscopic, and that they make a huge difference, so I appreciate both of those suggestions and just absolutely loved our conversation today. So I'm curious how individuals can keep in touch with you and the work that you're doing.
Megan Darnell 45:51
You can find me on Instagram at Megan Darnell Therapy or my website, which is megandarnell.com.au. But thank you so much for having me, Stephanie, I've loved our conversation.
Stephanie Mara 46:02
Absolutely, I will put those links in the show notes, and just thank you so much again for being here and sharing all of your wisdom today.
Megan Darnell 46:10
Thank you.
Stephanie Mara 46:11
Yeah, well, to listeners, if you have any aha moments or insights, email me anytime at support@stephaniemera.com, and I hope you all have a satiating and safety producing rest of the day. Bye!
Keep in touch with Megan Darnell:
Website: https://www.megandarnell.com.au/