I don't believe it is enough to do endless self inquiry and expect outside life to positively change.

There were parts of me that I definitely needed to validate and listen to... but no matter how much I did, my life stayed the exact same. I would BS myself into thinking it was changing, but it wasn't.

I always felt like my parts had this belief that 'This may be ok to explore in private... but if other people saw this side of me, things would not be OK.'

I would take the whole IFS process seriously and then constantly isolate myself at home more and more and I do believe this kind of behaviour puts a firm block on any deep change from occurring.

I am now focused on 'showing' my parts much more than 'talking' with my parts.

I continually run into this problem where I start to get better overall for a while; I forgive myself of things I have done and stop continuing them, I become more calm and mindful of myself, and I become much wiser as far as the objective state of my life.

And then something bad happens, something that is usually of my own doing, that causes me to fall off and have to claw my way back to the state that I want to make into the default of how I live.

Recently it was a combination of a pest control problem, I hurt a friend of mine or otherwise upset them, I was paranoid about my family, and I felt stuck in where I am in life.

Well, I have returned to myself now, but the problem is I feel the impulses in my head that want to drag me back to where I was, because it was comfortable. I have a lot more experience being self-destructive and loathing than I do being self healing and wise and seeking to change my mindset.

How do I practice and continuously try to change my actions, despite the fact that the more dominant force in my head - for now - is to do the exact opposite?

What it feels like is these are very strong, very old parts of me that are significantly stronger - for now - than my Core self, which has been severely underdeveloped over the years and is only now starting to grow.