‘Interruption’ = Blending
Blending gets more and more subtle, the more IFS you do
Glass caterpillar (exile): Let’s assess the worst interruption of 2023, A.
A(Self-energy): Let’s do it.
Glass caterpillar (GC): I couldn’t sleep. I got up to look at books. The books didn’t help. Then I went on the Internet. The Internet didn’t help. I was looking for special information about my specific forms of atrocity so I could understand myself. But the books I had were too academic, and the web wasn’t doing it either. I gave up. But I didn’t give up because I didn’t need information, I gave up because I couldn’t find the information I needed! Big difference.
When you’re suffering from trauma, psychoeducation and trauma specific information are necessary! Sometimes you need to put more information into the pot and stir it around. It’s part of the healing recipe!
Anyway, when we were writing on Substack about what happened — how I couldn’t find my information — green blended with you and pretended to be ‘A’ and said, maybe I ‘don’t need more information.’ Green made it seem like I was going outside of myself to get things that I should be trying to get from inside myself.
Are you the world, A? No. You don’t know everything! Self-energy doesn’t know everything! Sometimes as a system, we have to organize ourselves to get information! That’s why we listen to lots of podcasts! That’s why we get IFS training! That’s part of why we write this damn Substack in the first place — to share our information with other people! Because people need information! There’s a reason we spend so much time in school! Education is important.
I hate that the managers conflated going outside of oneself to get information with going outside of oneself for other stupid reasons.
Anyone who wants to understand IFS is well advised to read Richard Schwartz’ “You Are the One You’ve been Waiting For.“ It describes how exiles are often involved in a crazy project of looking outside themselves for a “redeemer,” someone who’s going to be “the good mom” or “the good dad” or “the good” whoever – someone who will redeem the past, who’ll be a positive replay of a negative past experience.
That’s the project of looking outside to fix something that can’t be fixed outside of oneself – it’s an inside job. I can’t go find someone who looks like my dad, have a good experience with that person, and magically erase everything bad that happened with my dad. I have to grieve what needs to be grieved — that’s the solution to trauma.
Books are not people! Me looking outside myself for information is not the same thing as me looking outside myself for a redeemer!
I don’t know a single trauma survivor who’s going to get too far without any psychoeducation or therapy! We need detailed, intelligent, pertinent information about trauma in order to overcome trauma! If you want to build a bridge, you need to learn engineering. If you want to unburden your trauma, you need to learn IFS!
So what the hell is wrong with green! I still want to stab green with a knife. I’m so mad about this!! It seems like such a weird and bizarre error to make and then try to pass over on me. It’s taking me so much time to root it out.
First of all, I feel slandered. Here I am, a person who works like a dog, day and night, really assiduously, looking inside myself, to root out my trauma. INSIDE MYSELF! Do you see me wandering far and wide looking for a redeemer? NO YOU DON’T! If I decide, oh, I need some more information to put into the mix, people should trust me on that!
It’s so rude to be DOUBTED. It’s so undermining. I had an urge, an intuition, that I needed more information. I was right! The next day, I went on my podcast app, Overcast, and found a new podcast. And once we found our new podcast, a whole new world opened up! We found A LOT of information we’ve never heard before. And that information expanded our container, and helped us get over some internal barriers of disbelief about our trauma. Which was exactly what we needed! It was a form of working smarter, not harder! Which is our mantra!
Pffffft!! This is a deep education for me on the issue of intuition and what it takes to overcome trauma. You can’t just dig and dig and dig and journal and journal and journal and expect to reach China without a shovel. You need tools! IFS is a tool. Journaling is a tool. Podcasts are a tool. Books are a tool. Training is a tool. Somatic work is a tool. Most likely, you’re going to need every goddamn tool in the goddamn toolbox, and the more trauma you have, the more tools and the more time it’s going to take! Which is why we need every tool and all the time in the world!
Green, what do you have to say for yourself?
Green (manager- who happens to be a green fish): Well, I’m exceedingly sorry about the error I made and how it undermined your process. I appreciate the time you’ve taken to untangle the knots of what was stupid about what I said.
I see how I conflated people with information — I conflated you going outside of yourself for information, with exiles going outside of themselves for redeemers. That is a very tricky little error.
GC: I’m so extremely antagonized by what happened that I feel almost completely unavailable to hear your side of it. I don’t see how it’s “a tricky little error.“ It’s stupid!
Green (manager): Hmmm. Not to be exceedingly rude, but, it took you a little while to untangle it, so exactly how stupid can it be if it took you this long?
GC (exile): !!!! I’ll kill you!
Green (manager): (laughing slightly)
GC (exile): You doubted me, you undermined me, you cast aspersions on me, you slandered me, you need to be sued for libel.
Green (manager): Good luck finding a lawyer for that lawsuit.
GC (exile): (laughing) All right, that levity was excellent. Well played, green.
Green: Thank you.
GC (exile) I’m sorry I said, “I’ll kill you.” Quite extreme. I apologize. Here’s a fish.
Green: You have a right to be ultra angry. Everything you said is true. I did undermine you. I doubted you, I slandered you, I libeled you, and I perpetrated a very subtle and sophisticated form of “I know better than you” on you.
GC (exile): The history of managers and exiles is replete with managers pulling authoritarian crap on exiles and gaslighting us into oblivion. Much of that gaslighting was necessary in order for us to survive impossible external situations, so I’m not blaming you.
However, there’s a lot of water under the bridge when it comes to managers and exiles and the truth. Managers tend to steal exiles‘ truth.
So I can also understand why I got so completely berserk in response to this. And why I said I want to kill you. I can understand why I said it, even though I don’t endorse violence! I’m a lover, not a fighter. But sometimes we have to use our words to express how we feel, and if I don’t express myself fully, I can’t move through my feelings fully. So it is what it is.
Green: It is what it is. I learned a lot about being very, very careful about the instinct to think that I know. And when you get mad, I myself need to wonder, “Did I just blend with A?”
GC (exile): I have a bad feeling you’re going to do more subtle blending going forward. Because you’ve been blending less obviously lately. The blending just gets more and more subtle!
Green (manager): We talk about me as having a problem with “interruption,“ but in IFS language, “interruption” is blending.
GC (exile): Oh, yeah. So true. You blender!
Green (manager): ‘Will this manager blend?’
GC: oh, that’s violent, green.
Green: I was trying for a joke on the “Will it blend?” YouTube series.
GC: I know but I really don’t want to put you in a blender. I don’t want to kill you. I love you. I’m sorry we had to fight so very violently. Don’t put yourself in a blender, green!
Green: No fish purée.
GC: Ugh!!!! Gross, green! (laughing)
Green: (also laughing)