Every Part Has Wisdom

How the Mind Protects Itself Through Multiplicity

There is a profound truth I have come to know not only as a therapist, but as a woman who has walked her own healing path:

Every part of you carries wisdom.
Every behaviour you criticise, every thought you try to silence, every emotional pattern you wish away, it all began as an attempt to protect you.

In Internal Family Systems (IFS), we do not label parts as dysfunctional or broken. We understand them as protective. We recognise that the mind, like the body, is always working to keep us safe. And every part, even those that act in extreme ways, holds a story, a purpose, and a wisdom born from experience.

The Myth of the “Bad Part”

Many of us have been taught to divide ourselves into acceptable and unacceptable pieces. We are told to strive for positivity, productivity, and control, while suppressing fear, rage, addiction, or grief. We pathologise certain traits and idolise others, creating an internal hierarchy that leaves some parts exiled and ashamed.

But this is not how healing works.
In fact, it is the very act of pushing parts away that creates inner turmoil.

In IFS, we understand that there are no “bad parts.” What we often call self-sabotage is actually a protective strategy. The part that procrastinates may be trying to avoid failure or humiliation. The part that lashes out may be trying to prevent abandonment. The part that dissociates may have learned that disconnection is safer than presence.

These parts are not the problem. They are the system’s solution, just one that has become outdated or burdensome over time.

Protection Is a Form of Intelligence

Protection is not always pretty. It can look like shutting down, avoiding, pleasing, exploding, isolating, performing, or escaping. But beneath each of these actions is an intelligent system assessing risk and choosing the strategy that once worked.

Dr. Bruce Perry’s research in neurodevelopment and trauma has shown that the brain prioritises survival above all else. When a child experiences overwhelm or threat, the brainstem and limbic system activate, and behaviours are shaped not by logic but by the need for safety (Perry & Szalavitz, 2006). These early adaptations often become long-standing internal protectors, parts that step in quickly and automatically, long after the original danger has passed.

What looks like a dysfunctional reaction to the adult self was, in many cases, the only available option for the younger self.

That is wisdom.
Not in the rational, cognitive sense, but in the deep body-mind knowing that prioritised survival when the world felt unsafe.

Listening for the Wisdom Beneath the Behaviour

When we approach parts with curiosity instead of control, something remarkable happens. They speak. They tell us what they are protecting. They show us the younger parts they are trying to shield.

In IFS sessions, this moment is sacred. When a client realises that their inner critic is not trying to punish them but to push them toward acceptance, or when a part that binges on food is actually trying to bring comfort to an inner child, it changes everything.

This shift, from blame to understanding, is the heart of healing.

Dr. Richard Schwartz, the founder of IFS, teaches that every part has a positive intention, even when its impact is harmful. Once that part is witnessed and unburdened, its original role is no longer needed, and it often transforms. A harsh critic can become an encourager. A firefighter can become a source of play. A shutdown part can become an internal observer.

But none of this can happen if we treat parts as enemies.

The Body Remembers, and the Parts React

Your parts do not live only in your mind. They live in your body. They are tied to muscle tension, posture, breath patterns, gut sensations, and the felt sense of safety or threat.

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk’s seminal work The Body Keeps the Score illustrates how traumatic memory is stored somatically. When a part is activated, it can feel like a full-body experience, racing heart, nausea, tight chest, numbness. This is not a failure of regulation. It is your body protecting what it believes still needs protecting (van der Kolk, 2014).

Somatic therapists and polyvagal researchers such as Deb Dana remind us that befriending our physiology is just as important as befriending our thoughts. When we listen to the body's cues with kindness, we invite our protective parts to soften. We signal, “You are safe now. You do not have to do this alone.”

From Burden to Brilliance

Not all parts are burdened. Some of them carry your most beautiful qualities, creativity, compassion, leadership, intuition. These are also parts, not just traits. And the more space you give them, the more they can lead.

But even the burdened parts are not inherently bad. They simply hold pain and responsibility that never belonged to them in the first place. When we help them release what they have been carrying, we see their true nature emerge.

• The dissociative part becomes the dreamer.
• The perfectionist becomes the organiser.
• The angry part becomes the advocate.
• The people-pleaser becomes the negociator.

These transformations are not forced. They are revealed, gently, through relationship. And this is where the deepest wisdom of the system is found, not in changing parts, but in witnessing them with love.

Trusting the System Within

• You do not need to be fixed.
• You need to be listened to.
• Every part of you deserves to be heard.

The critic, the addict, the avoidant, the anxious, the defiant, the ashamed, each of these parts has wisdom to share. Each of them formed to protect you in the only way they knew how. And now, with your Self in the lead, they can begin to trust that protection no longer has to be their burden alone.

You are not a fragmented being who must be stitched back together. You are a system of protectors who need recognition, reverence, and relief.

All parts are welcome. All parts are wise. And when we listen, we come home to ourselves.

In abundant love and kindness for all gentle souls,

Angela xox 

References

• Perry, B. D., & Szalavitz, M. (2006). The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist’s Notebook. Basic Books.

• Schwartz, R. C. (2021). No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. Sounds True.

• van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin.

• Dana, D. (2018). The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.