Coming Back Home to Yourself: The Invaluable Process for Adolescent Service Providers
December 25, 2024 – You have heard emotion regulation quite a bit out there in social media and in the parenting and therapy worlds. If you are an Internal Family Systems therapist/practitioner, you’ve heard the term Self energy. Other words that might sound familiar: grounded; centered; or Wise Mind, a DBT term. These all describe a certain state of being that is essential for our work as adolescent service providers.
I’d like to offer one more that might speak more descriptively to the embodied and metaphorical way of experiencing all of these: Coming home to your Self.
What does it mean to Come Home to Self ?
Coming home to your Self carries the connotation of one of the core concepts here at The Shiftless Wanderer—that of journeying, of wandering. It includes regulation of emotions and the nervous system, of being grounded and mindful, of the spaciousness associated with Self energy, and that even-keeled position between logic and emotion that is Wise Mind. However, for me, coming home to Self goes beyond all of these. Implied in the phrase is movement, processes, flexibility, the coming and going and finding our way back again. It’s not a static state of being but one that is responsive. Upon returning home from the journey, losing our way, weathering storms, is one the essential process of meaning-making, reflecting on the journey in hindsight.
Take a moment to remember a time when you felt as fully present to the moment as possible to your surroundings, and were keenly aware of being fully present—this is being at home with your Self. It may not have even been your happiest or calmest moment, but you were there. In IFS we talk about our parts. When we’re at home with our Self, we accompany our parts with all of their experiences. So you could have an angry part but feel fully embodied, confident, and right there with your anger. The anger doesn’t get the better of you but it becomes an ally in meeting a need or having a voice. Or perhaps there is a terrible grief and sadness. When we are at home with our Self in moments of grief, we can weep, wail, immerse ourselves in the intensity while staying connected to the core of who we are. From this place, we know that these things become part of the woven cloth that is us. Grief doesn’t happen to us. Anger doesn’t overpower us. Grief and anger are witnessed, welcomed, and integrated into the fabric of our being.
For the young people in our lives, our ability to engage in this process means that they are sitting with a true adult, someone who has done their work and is doing their work. We model how to move through upset, anger, overwhelm, and all of the more difficult emotions. We also model how to be with our parts and speak for them rather than being hijacked by our parts. Our ability to come home to our Self is especially potent if we’re working with kids who have experienced relational trauma. They need that feeling that you are right there with them.
In my experience, this is a lifetime’s work. I often say to clients who are weary and frustrated that they’re “not better yet,” that they haven’t figured out how to manage daily life better, that they still get triggered and their symptoms are seemingly not diminished—”What other work is there to do in this lifetime but to learn how to come back home to our Self.” This is the work of living life on planet Earth as a human being. This is it. Everything else follows. And the more we do this work then everything and everyone around us benefits. Heaven knows our planet and all of its citizens, human and non-human, need this work right now!
The Four Way Stations
I have found it helpful to keep these four points in mind in my daily work. You may want to frame these in a way that works better for your system. They all begin with mindfulness practices that require noticing the following:
the state of your nervous system;
muscle tone;
your inhale and exhale;
your level of awareness of activated parts;
heart rate and heart openness;
the speed and direction of your thoughts;
your ability to be in relationship with others;
and your awareness of your surroundings.
Bring these practices to bear as you work with each of these way stations.
1 Feel what it feels like to be at home with one’s Self.
We are pretty good at noticing what it feels like when we’re in distress, overwhelmed, out of our minds and bodies. Often what’s missing in our mindfulness and somatic work is becoming aware of what it feels like to feel regulated, to feel safe. Go back to that memory when you felt so fully present. When you have moments like these, witness your beingness. Make note, and work to thread these embodied experiences into the whole cloth.
2 Know what it feels like when you begin to move away from that home.
It’s going to happen, the moving away from the home that is our Self. Life happens, we’re not perfect, we are going to get triggered. These practices are not about not getting triggered but knowing when you are. When we’re triggered, it’s easy to lose our way. Other ways that might take us away from home include illness, overwhelm, the effects of social and political systems upon us, the burdens that our clients carry. Our job is not to work hard to prevent these but to be with our parts, be in relationship with all of it, and notice when we’re moving away from our Self home.
3 Shorten the time between wandering away from home and noticing that you are no longer at home with your Self.
Engage in your mindfulness practices regularly. 24/7. The sooner you realize that you are not at home with your Self, the easier it is to find your way back.
4 Know how to find your way back home to your Self.
I’ve heard many of my clients say that they know they’ve lost their way, are “in it,” but they don’t know how to find their way back. Knowing how to find your way back is about orientation. It requires you to look back and discern how you lost your way, why you wandered away, what is getting in the way of you being able to find your way back home to your Self, and how to respond to those barriers. You may need to sit with parts that need your care and attention. Quiet and solitude may be in order or some really good company. Check inside. What is the way home? Find it and follow it. It may be that you can’t implement these practices until after the storm has passed and you can get oriented. That’s okay. Sometimes standing still in the midst of the storm rather than trying to push against it is the wisest way to find our way back.
Conclusion
As adolescent service providers, we are in a unique position to help others find their way back to themselves. But we cannot guide others toward home if we have not first cultivated this path for ourselves. The work of coming home to your Self is continuous, responsive, and ultimately healing—not just for you, but for everyone you work with.
Remember, this is the work of being human. It’s the process of living in this world with all its complexity, chaos, and beauty. When we come home to our Self, we become more grounded, more present, and more capable of supporting others in their journey.
So, take a moment to check in with yourself: are you at home with your Self right now? If not, that’s okay. Just take a deep breath, and know that the journey back is always within your reach.
Photo by: Julia