Discover Your Essence: Unveiling the Love Inside You
Uncover the mysteries of your Essence and harness its transformative power.
In this article, you’re going to learn more about your very own Essence through the lens of Parts Work.
To recap, your inner world is made up of an entire ecosystem of different parts, which I talk about in this article.
Every part of you is trying to meet your needs. But your parts aren’t all there is to you — you also have your Essence.
So in your inner world, you have your parts plus your Essence, which I love to call “The Love Inside Of You.” Many other people call it their “Center” or their “Inner Leader.” Christians might call it “The Holy Spirit,” Buddhists might call it, “ The Empty Space That Is So Full,” and new-age spiritualists might call it, “Source Energy” or “Your Highest Self.”
The Internal Family Systems (IFS) modality — which is the organization that is currently pioneering parts work in modern psychology — calls it your capital-s “Self.”
It really doesn’t matter what you call your Essence, because there are so many different traditions that describe this phenomenon differently — and none of them are right or wrong. As you read through this article and learn more about the qualities of your very own Essence, I encourage you to find a name for it that works best for you.
The number one goal of Parts Work is to help your parts experience more of the love of your Essence and be able to call upon the incredible wisdom of your Essence so they don’t have to go through this crazy life all on their own.
Without a connection to your Essence, your inner world can get some real Lord of the Flies vibes going on. But with a strong connection to your Essence, your experience of life can change dramatically. You’ll often catch yourself smiling for no reason and thinking, “Damn…I didn’t know it got to feel this good to be me!”
Modern Discovery Of The “Essence”
Dick Schwartz is the family therapist who founded the IFS parts work model based on the actual data he received from his clients.
In his therapy practice, he discovered the Self (or the Essence), almost on accident. As he worked with helping the parts of his clients create more internal spaciousness, what came forth was this curious, calm, compassionate energy.
He’d ask his clients, “What part of you is this that’s so curious and calm and compassionate?” And they’d be like, “I don’t know, exactly. It just feels like me.”
This is why the IFS modality calls it your capital-s “Self,” because it feels like you.
To Dick’s amazement, everyone had this Essence inside of them that came out once their parts created space for it to. Even folks who, given their trauma history, should not have had the ability to access so much love inside of them where were able to access the love inside of them when their parts were willing to step back.
Everyone has an Essence. Even (and especially!) you.
Characteristics of Your Essence
First of all, I want to preface the rest of this article by saying there is so much about your Essence that will remain a great big ol’ mystery. So as I share these characteristics of your Essence, it is not to tell you the right thing to believe about your Essence or even the right way to experience your Essence.
Everything I share in this article is meant to deepen you. To deepen your experience of the love inside of you. Because that’s when healing happens — when love and your vulnerability meet.
I’m going to talk about your Essence in terms of how the IFS methodology holds the conversation about it, because I find it to be a very rich resource. But I’m also going to share my own thoughts and opinions that I’ve gathered through my own coaching practice and healing journey.
Your Essence cannot be damaged or destroyed.
Regardless of what you’ve been through, your Essence remains whole and intact. Trauma affects our parts — that’s for sure. But it doesn’t diminish our Essence in any way. Our Essence is sturdy, pure, and love itself.
Your Essence is a healing force that transforms and heals wounded parts.
Your heals through love and supports your parts in releasing their burdens of emotional pain and negative beliefs. It doesn’t have an agenda for your parts other than to love them where they are. Your Essence just wants to love your parts, and to let them know that they don’t have to feel all of this alone anymore.
Your essence isn’t God; it doesn’t need you to perform for it or be good for it. It just wants to love you as you are right now.
Your Essence is wise and has the answers.
Your Essence completely understands your inner experience and entire life story. It has a compassionate lens that allows you to understand others deeply, as well. Your Essence is there to provide guidance and support to your parts in any situation, and always knows the path forward.
One common misconception is that our Essence will always tell us what to do next. Sometimes our Essence gives us a clear knowing about what the next action to take is, but most often, our Essence first tries to inform us of how we need to be differently.
For instance, if we’re feeling frantic, we might come to our Essence wanting to know what we need to do to get out of that state. But our Essence knows that any action taken from a frantic state will often just perpetuate more of the franticness. So instead of instructing an action, our Essence gives us clues as to how we can find more calm and clarity by saying things like, “I’m here with you,” ‘Even here you are loved. Even here you are worthy,” “You can trust yourself,” and “You are so supported, you can’t fuck this up if you tried.”
Our parts can take this advice as weak or unrealistic, but if they are able to trust what our Essence is saying and let it soften them, they begin to both feel more calm and the next action to take often becomes obvious.
Your Essence is like light.
In your inner world, your Essence is like light in the sense that sometimes it behaves like a particle and sometimes like a wave, depending on the nature and conditions of the experience. Sometimes your Essence feels like its own being in your inner world, while other times it’s more of an energy — a permeating feeling of calm, peace, and connectedness.
Your essence is the five-dimensional energy within you, while your parts are the 3D human energy.
Your essence helps you expand consciousness, and your parts help your essence engage with this 3D world we’re living in. They both need each other; they dance together. Our essence isn’t trying to get rid of our parts; it’s on this journey with them.
This is where the conversation of “spirituality” and “healing” gets derailed — when we get so focused on trying to “get rid” of our parts and try to get to a point where we only experience our Essence. That has never been the point. The point is to help our parts and our Essence hold hands. Our Essence is here to be the sturdy inner foundation we need for our parts to feel safe enough to take the risk of fully living.
The 8 Cs and 5 Ps of Your Essence
The IFS modality talks about the eight Cs of Essence energy, which I find super helpful and practical. Let’s go over them:
- Curiosity: A willingness to explore and learn about yourself without judgment.
- Calmness: An ability to remain calm and centered even in the face of difficult emotions.
- Clarity: A clear understanding of what is currently happening as well as what needs to happen next.
- Compassion: A kind and benevolent attitude toward your parts and toward other people.
- Confidence: A sense of self-assurance just because you are exactly as you are.
- Creativity: A willingness to find new solutions to problems and to let the life inside of you express itself without perfectionism.
- Courage: An ability to face difficult emotions and situations with resilience.
- Connectedness: A sense of connection and belonging to yourself, others, and the world around you.
IFS also talks about the five Ps of Essence energy:
- Presence: An ability to be fully present and aware in the moment.
- Power: A sense of personal power and agency,
- Perspective: An ability to step back and tell a more helpful story about past, present, and future circumstances.
- Playfulness: A willingness to engage in activities that bring joy and creativity. Playfulness can also be the ability to engage with others in a way that brings joy and connection.
- Purpose: A deep connection to the meaningfulness of your life and experiences.
The reason why I find these eight Cs and five Ps to be extremely helpful and practical is because when you’re feeling overwhelmed or shutdown, you can look at this list of Essence qualities and ask yourself three questions:
- What Essence quality do I need most right now?
- What Essence quality is most accessible to me right now?
- What is the easiest path to letting these Essence qualities emerge in this moment?
How To Experience More Of Your Essence
The process of experiencing more of your essence is not about going out and “finding” it or mustering something up. Rather, it’s a process of subtraction. It’s a process of allowing yourself to be found by these qualities. Of making space for these qualities to emerge.
These qualities are always present inside of you because your Essence is always present inside of you. You can think of it like the sun: just because the clouds roll in doesn’t mean the sun doesn’t exist anymore. And the shine will shine with more strength when the clouds part and give it more space in the sky.
Experiencing more of your Essence is the process of making more space for these qualities internally.
And Parts Work has been the most effective modality that I’ve found that allows people to create more internal space to experience more of their Essence.
If you want to get started with a Parts Work taster, I created a free worksheet that will allow you to meet a part of you and come to a whole new understanding of your unique inner world.
And look — I know a worksheet can only do so much, but many folks have had their mind blown just by this one worksheet. They’ve said it has given them hope of actually being able to heal one day and set themselves free from the heavy weight of their trauma.
So I definitely encourage you to check it out.
You can download it right here.
Also — I’ve written loads of articles on Parts Work. If you’re interested in learning more, definitely check them out:
For those of you that are ready to set yourself free from the heavy weight of your trauma right now, I’ve created a Parts Work course that has everything you need to do that.
It’s called Parts Work Academy and it’s a mixture of self-paced content, live calls with me, worksheets, meditations, and wildly cutting-edge healing techniques that even folks who have been in the healing and Parts Work space for a while say they’ve never head, read, or thought of before.
There’s truly so much value that you’ll get lifetime access to as soon as you sign up. You can learn more about Parts Work Academy right here.
I’d love to see you inside :)
— Jordin
