The Power of Pause
Have you ever had a moment when your reaction surprised you—or felt way bigger than the situation called for?
Maybe you snapped at someone, shut down emotionally, spiraled into worry, or felt like everything was falling apart over something that seemed small. In those moments, a part of you was probably trying to protect you from something deeper.
In the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, this is known as being blended—when a part takes over how you feel, think, and act. The good news? There’s a way to step out of that overwhelmed state and into something more grounded and resourced.
Why Do Parts Become Activated?
Our parts want to help us. They have positive intentions and they have specialized roles. When scary, hurtful, sad, or painful things overwhelm us, our parts take on more extreme roles to protect us.
One part holds the memory, meaning, and emotion of the event that overwhelmed us. This part is then exiled - hidden and isolated - by protective parts that organize themselves around the management of the highly charged event.
Manager parts attempt to prevent similar events from happening again, and they insulate us from the effects of the overwhelming event so we can continue to function and survive.
But their devotion to our safety and survival comes with a cost - these protectors and the isolated parts they manager are no longer free to experience the present moment. Managers, once committed to the management of a past event, devote themselves to a safer, calmer, more functional future. For them, the suggestion that they might relax into the present moment is preposterous.
How are they to relax?
They’ve taken on the impossible mission of trying to solve problems that no longer exist.
In order to have any success at all, they must stay focused on the future. Their success depends entirely on their ability to avoid circumstances and events that pose the same kinds of threats that required their devotion and sacrifice.
Both of these categories of parts - Exiles and the Managers - have become “burdened” parts.
Burdened parts become activated when the present moment reminds them of the past they are burdened with. And when the become activated, they ‘blend’ with us, influencing our perspective and so much more.
There’s one more category of burdened part we haven’t mentioned yet. To understand this category, let’s look at an example.
Something happens when you’re six years old. The experience overwhelms you. You are traumatized by it.
Now, as an adult, you unconsciously do all you can to avoid feeling these overwhelming feelings again. But an event occurs in your adult life, and you begin to feel the emotions that overwhelmed you when you were six. Fearing that the emotions will overwhelm you once again, you do something to stop feeling the emotion. You might take a drink or a pill, you might lash out at the person who seems to be causing the emotion, you might walk away, distract yourself somehow, or find comfort in food or sex.
All of this happens instantly and automatically. You aren’t choosing any of it. It feels out of your control because it is out of your control.
In this example, the uncomfortable emotions activated a category of parts called Firefighters - burdened parts that have taken on the role of restoring inner peace and calm.
Trauma occurs when an experience overwhelms your ability to process and resolve it with the resources you had at the time.
When you felt the emotion, you became ‘blended’ with an Exile - a part whose role it is to hold the memory, meaning, and emotion of an overwhelming event from the past.
All that you had done to prevent this from happening was influenced by managers who had been subtly blended with you, helping you have a safe and functional life. We are usually not even aware of the influence of managers. When the parts that help you organize and manage your life are burdened, they carry an extra agenda from the past into the present moment.
Burdened parts become blended when they are worried, afraid, concerned, or suffering.
Being blended means a part of you—often one that’s worried, afraid, concerned, or in pain—is influencing you in some way. You may not even notice it at first. It feels like you’re just being you until you realize something’s off. Maybe your thoughts are spinning, you’re acting out of urgency, or you’re emotionally shut down.
Unblending is the practice of noticing the influence and gently making space for the part that’s activated. When a part can relax even slightly, something else begins to emerge— a shift in energy that ushers in qualities like calm, curiosity, clarity, and compassion. These are the signals that more Self-energy is becoming available.
Three Responses When Burdened Parts Become Activated
When becoming blended with a worried, concerned, afraid, or suffering part, most of us respond in one of three ways. Only one of these responses invites lasting change.
Response One: You experience the pain of a burdened part that’s been triggered.
You feel something uncomfortable such as shame, fear, hurt, panic, anger, or rage and are overtaken by the painful feeling until the circumstances that triggered the discomfort change and the feeling passes.
Response Two: Protector parts (Firefighters) step in to manage the moment.
Other parts notice the distress and take over to help. They might distract you, numb you, influence you to overthink, minimize the feeling, blame and attack someone, or try to change the circumstance that triggered the discomfort. This can provide temporary relief but often creates additional challenges and problems.
These first two responses happen unconsciously and automatically and are characteristic of patterns that you are probably frustrated with.
You don’t seem to have any control over these responses, despite your efforts to prevent them from happening.
Response Three: You pause and shift toward a Self-energized perspective.
Response Three is not automatic - at least not yet - until you practice it often enough that it becomes a habit.
You notice what’s happening inside, slow down, and allow space for parts to be witnessed—not overridden. This is the turning point. It’s not a technique, but a posture: curious, connected, and clear enough for parts to begin trusting you.
Steps to Practicing Response Three
Unblending allows burdened parts to loosen their grip—and for more Self-energy to show up in your system. Here’s how you might practice it:
Step 1: Notice that you’re blended with a burdened part.
This step may seem passive - you’re simply noticing. But, unless you have an intention to notice, you may remain in automatic patterns. Noticing means bringing awareness to the fact that a burdened part has become activated. Watch for shifts in your emotions, your energy, and your attitude.
Step 2: Pause and shift your attention inward.
To pause, you may need to unplug from the activation. That might mean excusing yourself or asking for a pause if the activation is coming from an interaction with another person. Instead of following the part’s urgency or overwhelm, pause. Get curious.
Step 3: Distinguish all the ways you are being influenced by activated parts that are worried, scared, concerned, or suffering.
Name the influences. Noticing and naming the influence helps create a little space—just enough to recognize that these are parts of you, not all of you.
Step 4: Focus on one of the influences.
You can be aware of multiple influences but can only focus on one influence at a time.
Step 5: Attune to the part that is bringing that influence by attempting to understand. By taking the first four steps, you may, by now, have shifted from a desire to shut it all down to a state of care and compassion.
Ask the part that is influencing you in this way what it’s worried about, afraid of, concerned about, or in pain about.
“What’s got you so worried?”
“What are you concerned about?”
“What scared you?”
“Can you tell me what is painful?”
Responding in this way lets the part know you’re here to listen, not to fix or override.
What Comes Next
When a part feels seen, heard, listened to, understood, and appreciated, it often begins to relax. It no longer needs to be in charge. That’s when more Self-energy can begin to flow in the system—and parts can start to access it.
When you have unblended from an activated, burdened part, you may notice:
A softening in your emotional tone or body
A quieter or more spacious internal state
A part becoming less extreme, more flexible, or even grateful to be seen
Over time, these interactions help burdened parts become Self-energized (Self-led)—able to hold their original roles with less urgency, more trust, and more access to wisdom. You don’t have to become someone new. You’re helping the parts inside you relax and know they are not alone.
