I am a true fan of Elizabeth Gilbert, who most know from her book “Eat, Pray, Love.” I became more familiar with other aspects of her work, when I began to hear of her involvement with the IFS community, including a podcast interview where she spoke with Dr. Richard Shwartz, founder of IFS. Not too long after that, I went to go see her speak, along with best-selling author, life coach, Harvard scholar, and speaker, Martha Beck, in Toronto back in October 2024. It was a workshop on “creativity and healing”, and it was Martha Beck who actually spoke quite a bit on her experience with IFS, trying to teach it to the many (enthralled and eager to learn) in the audience. It was also there wherein I learned more about Elizabeth Gilbert’s Substack, Letters from Love, and her community she adoringly refers to as “Lovelets.” In these letters that she instructs her community to write, she suggests people write to themselves, as though from “Love.” This process is not unlike, according to IFS terminology, speaking to our Parts, from the wise and compassionate energy of Self. I find those who use the process, and those she invites to write letters from Love (many interesting and famous folks - check it out! ) to be truly inspiring, motivating, and healing - to themselves and to those who read their letters.
In her most recent post, she references research citing how speaking to yourself from a second person perspective, in a kind way, is good for your mental well-being, much as we do when speaking to our parts, from Self in IFS:
If you say, “I am burned out,” it increases your sense of hopelessness and helplessness. You become even more of the burned out person, defined by it, and trapped in that identifier.
But if you say to yourself, “You are burned out, sweetheart,” it creates a tiny cushion of both detachment and empathy, which makes it possible for you to look upon your exhaustion from a slight remove, with the eyes of a friendly outsider. Now, instead of being the burned-out one, you have taken the form of a kindly stranger who is here to help.
Like: “You are burned out, sweetie, and you deserve to get some rest.”
Or: “You are burned out, and it is not your fault — you’ve had some big blows in your life recently — but I am here to be with you through this difficult experience.”
… there is a big difference in which part of the brain gets activated when you ask someone how they feel ABOUT themselves, as opposed to they feel TOWARD themselves.
Thinking ABOUT yourself triggers the part of the brain that is judgemental and criticizing. But asking how you feel TOWARD yourself triggers the part of the brain that creates empathy, belonging, connection and kindness.
Excerpt above taken from Letters From Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert, dated February 16, 2025.
So the next time you speak to your parts from Self energy, and consider how you feel TOWARDS them, I invite you to notice the difference ! Give it a try and play :)