How IFS Can Help Manage Anxiety

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a powerful, yet gentle intervention. It is especially effective in helping people with anxiety. When you have anxiety, that anxious part of you shows up to protect you and manage what’s going on. It tends to overfunction and is always on the lookout for potential problems; these problems can be real or imagined, past, future, or present, possible or impossible, likely or unlikely. The anxious part doesn’t care about that, it just cares about protecting you from all of it. Anxiety is a lot to deal with. IFS can help you be more in control and more compassionate, making anxiety less overwhelming. 

What is IFS?

Internal Family Systems is a wonderful practice. This evidence-based therapeutic modality views us as made up of parts like members of a family or a “family system.” It teaches us to respect all the different parts of you that contribute to who you are. 

We have many parts helping us throughout our days. When something happens in your life, an upsetting or anxiety-triggering experience, one part–an anxious part–might take over. In IFS you practice attending to those parts. IFS teaches us the anxious part isn't you, it’s simply a part of you that shows up. 

Understanding Anxiety Through the Lens of IFS

When you are struggling with anxiety, the anxious part is always active and very powerful. IFS changes your relationship with your anxious part. When doing IFS we sidestep any shame having to do with anxiety and we just spend time listening to what the anxious part needs us to hear. 

It’s important that you don’t ignore or dismiss your anxious part. This might seem counterintuitive, but think of it this way: how would you feel if you were sitting in a room with your family or colleagues and had something important to say and everyone ignored you? You’d feel awful, act out, or feel desperate. That’s what the anxious part does when you ignore it. Consequently, the louder it gets and the more alarm bells ring.

IFS is a calm and respectful practice that helps quiet those alarm bells, not by ignoring them, but by listening to what the anxious part is trying to tell us so it can stop raising those alarms. Using IFS, we learn to listen; we show a lot of compassion; these are, themselves, acts of healing. While it might sound strange to listen to the anxious part when you're trying to stop anxious thoughts, it’s respectful to listen to this part. Listening to it settles the anxious part; it gets quiet because it knows you’ve heard it. 

What does it mean to listen to the anxious part? 

When anxiety spikes, you get a lot of messages. Many come in the form of thoughts, some in the form of biochemistry: adrenaline, racing heart, sweating. But we’ll just focus on the thoughts. You’ll notice some specific traits among those thoughts; they are repetitive, often in the form of a question such as, “what if?” Anxious thoughts are repetitive, rapid, and incessant. Those are the messages the anxious parts are trying to get to you; they feel very important, ego-centric, and they make it seem like it’s the end of the world.

When you’re listening to the anxious part, first distinguish it as one of many parts. Do not let it influence you, but hear what it has to say. Then, let the part know you hear the messages. Let’s use anxiety caused by public speaking as an example. With every intention of speaking in public, say in your head, “Okay, I hear you saying giving this presentation is stressful because everyone will be watching me and I could mess up. I hear you saying I’m bad at public speaking.” When you’ve heard the anxious part say its piece, the part knows you’ve heard them and can relax. If you come from a place of compassion, that’s even better. Then you do your presentation. 

Don’t be combative. Imagine you’re talking to a child whom you love and who needs reassurance everything will be okay. 

After you’ve mentally spoken to the part, what you should feel is a bit of relaxation, calmness, and self-care. Repeat as often as needed. Your anxious part may need you to hear it out many times. That is okay. 

One of the beautiful things about IFS is when you spend time listening to your anxious part, it shifts the need for control away from the anxious part. When your anxious part begins to trust you and learns it doesn’t have to manage and control everything, it learns that you have good judgment and can handle whatever comes your way. With this trust, your anxious part learns you are in control. Once the anxious part trusts you, it feels respected and honored and doesn’t have to work so hard because you are okay. 

Steps to Manage Anxiety Using IFS

Anxiety shows up in many different arenas in your life. We might deal with an anxious part in an IFS session dozens of times, but it will show up in different ways because it shows up differently when you’re swimming in a pool, vs. public speaking, vs. handing in a report. That’s normal. IFS teaches us to shift from thinking, “I’m so anxious” to “my anxious part is showing up right now.” It’s an important distinction that can help you better understand and manage your anxiety. 

Next time you feel anxious, understand the anxiety you’re feeling is simply a part of you trying to protect you from something; it just happens to be overfunctioning and doing so in a clumsy, unhelpful way. You can listen to what it has to say in an impassive way, acknowledge that you hear it, talk to it, and let it step aside.

Here’s what to do:

1. Close your eyes if you are able to and if you are comfortable doing so.
2. Take two deep breaths with a strong exhale. Imagine you’re blowing out a candle or a feather off of a table. Take more deep breaths if you want to. You are looking for a feeling of some relief of tension.
3. Listen to the words your anxiety is telling you. Listen to your thoughts and feelings.
4. Talk to your anxious part. With your eyes open or closed (depending on where you are), think the words, “I’m hearing you. I hear what you have to say.” 
5. Show compassion to the anxious part. Be confident in your stance that the anxious part will not take over. Be firm but kind.
6. Notice if that anxious part settles down. Simply acknowledging that anxious part will often lead to a little bit of relaxation. Remember, the more you ignore it, the louder and more desperate it gets.

Change Your Relationship with Anxiety

You don’t have to suffer from anxiety. Internal Family Systems makes it easier for your Whole Self to be present. When you listen to what your anxiety is telling you with compassion, patience, and curiosity, that is likely a level of self-care your anxiety has never felt. Because your parts exist in a system, other parts will begin to notice how gentle and understanding you are; other parts will trust you and the whole system will begin to shift. Like I said, it is powerful.

If you are struggling with anxiety and self-compassion, therapy can help. Katey Kingra, LMHC offers in-person therapy and IFS in Ithaca, NY, as well as online in New York State. If you’re ready to better understand and deepen your relationship with Self, let’s talk.