Why Do You Keep Holding Yourself Back? How our Protectors Parts keep us from taking up space and how to meet them with understanding.

Have you ever had the urge to make changes in your life, to say something you’ve thought a million times, to go for something that you want or to let yourself be seen rather than stepping back into the supporting role but when it comes to the crunch, you find yourself quietly stepping back as you’ve always done?

There are a million ways in which we keep ourselves small. It might be a conversation where you stay silent rather than say what you think, or a meeting where you keep your ideas to yourself rather than voicing them even though you knew how good they are, or an opportunity you quietly let pass because something inside you stopped you from putting yourself forward. It might be as subtle as brushing off a compliment or talking down your skills when you’re in an interview.

It can be deeply frustrating to have a part of you that keeps you small because there is usually also a Part of you that’s screaming – ‘say it!’ ‘Go for it!’ ‘Do it!’ And yet you still stay silent. There is a part of you that really wants to show up more fully, that wants to grow, to feel more present or confident, to make the changes in your life that you’ve always dreamed of and to express yourself fully and yet, time and again, you find yourself shrinking back. It’s easy to put it down to shyness. When I was young I was very shy, blushing beetroot every time I spoke to someone I didn’t know, or perhaps you put it down to the fact that you’re not ready (this is one that I hear people say all the time) and then you are never ready while others do the things that they dream of, your life stays the same. In the end, we can decide that we don’t want to try because we feel like we might fail and not trying and not failing feels easier than the disappointment that would come with having tried and failed but there is still a Part that wishes that things were different, a real desire to make things different which falls flat every time. In Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy terms, there’s another explanation, it’s not shyness or that you’re not ready, it’s that there is something deeper going on.

The pattern of staying small

In my last post, I wrote about why we keep falling into the same patterns. You’ve done it, I’ve done it, everyone does it. We find ourselves in relationships that feel eerily familiar, as if we’ve simply swapped out one partner for another carbon copy. We start strong on projects, full of energy but somewhere along the way, we lose steam. We get stuck in the same anxiety - over-functioning - burnout - withdrawal - guilt loop. Or we find ourselves caught in a familiar pattern of thinking that we just can’t seem to break, no matter how much insight we have or how hard we try.

Staying small is one of the most common patterns and the reason that we all have things that we never get around to, dreams that we have never pursued, isn’t because we are lazy or we lack ambition, it’s because of the work of our Protector Parts.

For anyone new to Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy, a Protector Part is a part of you that steps in to keep you safe when it feels that things aren’t going the way that it feels that they should. Often it does this by managing, controlling, avoiding or numbing you. It learned to protect you, usually a long time ago but not necessarily, in response to pain, shame or fear. It’s doing its job in the only way it knows how.

In the case of the Parts of us that keep us small, these Parts were born from experiences where our taking up space didn’t feel safe for us. There are reasons for this, perhaps you were criticised or shamed when you spoke up or expressed yourself too freely. Maybe when you took up space, you learned the hard way that excelling at what you were doing drew unwanted attention that you weren’t able to cope with or maybe someone ridiculed you so you shrunk back to your normal size or smaller. Maybe your confidence was met with jealousy or put-downs.

So, at the time that this happened, a part of you stepped in to help you in that situation. It learned that the safest thing for you, to keep you safe, was to keep you small, quiet and out of the line of fire and it took this on as its mission. At the time that it originally took on its role, it was helpful but the thing about Protector Parts is that they don’t stop when the threat has passed, they keep doing their job because they truly believe that they’re still needed to keep you safe. The only way that things can really change is if that Part of you understands that there is no longer a need for it to continue and this takes healing.

Why small feels safe

For many protectors, staying small is seen by them as your survival. Some examples are:

• Safety through invisibility: If no one notices you, they can’t hurt you.

• Safety through predictability: If you don’t take risks, you can’t fail.

• Safety through belonging: If you don’t stand out, you won’t be rejected.

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When you see it from this angle, it makes complete sense that they would continue doing their job because it believes that if it stops, then you will be more vulnerable. Protector Parts protect the vulnerable Parts that lie behind them, the Parts that hold the original wounding (within the IFS model, these are called Exiles).

The sad thing is that by keeping you safe, your Protector Part, in this case, the Part that keeps you small, is often causing you another pain, the pain of not getting what you want for your life. It is a shame that Protectors do the job of protecting us and end up preventing us from having the lives we desire thereby creating more pain.

Meeting the part that keeps you small

In IFS therapy, the goal isn’t to push these Protectors aside or shame them into changing. That usually just makes them dig their heels in which makes things worse. Instead, we get curious, we thank them for how hard they’ve been working, we listen to the concerns they hold beneath their behaviour, asking them what they fear will happen if they don’t do they job. This is a really effective way to soften their influence in our lives because when a Protector feels seen, appreciated and understood, it begins to trust you, it understands that you are no longer a small child trying to survive but that you are your present-day self who might be able to handle things without its help. As someone who has experienced this, it feels truly amazing to feel the change in ourselves but also, whilst working with clients, it is also really amazing and very satisfying to see the change in others while as they do the healing work.

Gentle expansion

Even if you don’t have IFS therapy, you can start to support the Part of you that’s keeping you small. There are things that you can do which will make a difference and it can be done gently and one step at a time. Even little changes to your behaviour will influence the Part. Do one thing differently. You could share something that you normally wouldn’t share with a trusted friend, you might put your name forward for a minor project at work or simply let yourself receive a compliment without deflecting it. Every time you do something that moves you just a little bit outside your comfort zone, the Part of you that keeps you small will realise that you are indeed safe to do these things, that more is possible for you and that you are okay to take up space and make the changes that you want to see in your life. By taking small steps, your Protector may surprise you by not only stepping aside but by supporting you as you grow.

So if you find yourself holding back, know that it’s because a part of you still believes that safety lives in the shadows. With care, patience and compassion, that part can learn a new truth, that it can be safe to shine.