Embracing All Parts of Ourselves: A Healing Framework for Black Women
Have you ever felt like you’re juggling different roles, constantly adapting to meet the demands of those around you? Maybe you find yourself overworking to prove your worth, aiming for perfection to avoid criticism, or people-pleasing to maintain harmony.
These aren’t flaws—they’re parts of you that have been working hard to keep you safe in a world that hasn’t always felt welcoming.
For Black women, these parts often stem from a lifetime of navigating environments where stereotypes and systemic stress make authenticity feel risky. But what if you could embrace these parts, not as burdens, but as powerful protectors deserving of compassion and care?
Understanding Parts Work
Parts Work is a therapeutic approach rooted in the understanding that we are made up of various “parts” or subpersonalities. These parts develop to help us adapt, survive, and thrive in the face of challenges. Unlike the idea of having multiple selves, this framework recognizes that all parts contribute to a unified whole.
What is that Part of you protecting?
Parts Work teaches us to listen to, honor, and integrate these parts, allowing us to show up as our whole selves.
This practice, popularized by Internal Family Systems (IFS), identifies three main types of parts:
Exiles: Vulnerable parts of us that carry unprocessed pain, fear, or shame.
Managers: Protective parts that keep us functioning by controlling our environment and emotions.
Firefighters: Reactive parts that jump in to suppress discomfort, often through impulsive actions.
Parts Work teaches us to listen to, honor, and integrate these parts, allowing us to show up as our whole selves.
The Protective Parts Black Women Carry
Black women often embody parts that arise from the pressures of systemic oppression and societal expectations. These may include:
The Overworker: Pushing yourself beyond limits to counteract invisibility or prove your worth.
The Perfectionist: Setting impossibly high standards to avoid criticism or judgment.
The People-Pleaser: Suppressing your needs to keep peace in spaces where you don’t feel safe.
These parts didn’t emerge because something is wrong with you—they developed to protect you in environments where being vulnerable could lead to harm.
For instance, overworking may have helped you succeed in spaces where your contributions were undervalued. Perfectionism might have shielded you from criticism. And people-pleasing may have ensured acceptance in environments that felt unwelcoming.
The challenge is that these strategies, while protective, can also lead to exhaustion, disconnection, and feelings of unworthiness.
Signs of Inner Conflict
Sometimes, the protective parts we rely on can lead to internal struggles. Here are four silent signs of inner conflict and ways to address them:
1. Internalized Aggression
Do you find yourself being overly critical or lashing out at yourself? This often stems from anger turned inward, a pattern that may have developed because of the stigma around Black woman’s emotions and/or intergenerational patterns.
How to Heal: Give this part space. Connect with your sensations of anger, and try to imagine it as a symbol or maybe even a character. Imagine placing this symbol/character outside of your body seeing how it moves, gestures. Ask it what purpose it’s served to keep you protected. Ask it what it needs. By acknowledging this, you can start to release the self-blame, detach your emotions from your worth, and start to investigate what a part of you needs when it feels these sensations.
2. Unshakable Shame
Shame is a very dangerous emotion. Shame is where we vibrate lowest. Shame is when we’re the smallest version of ourselves. It tricks you into thinking you are incapable and worthless. It often manifests in how you interact with others, set boundaries, or view your body and voice.
How to Heal: When shame begins to surface (when you notice judgment creeping in instead of observation), pause and turn your attention inward. Notice how it feels in your body—does your posture change? Do you hunch over, tighten your chest, or feel a wave of heat or heaviness?
Start by shifting your physical stance. Can you take up more space by lengthening your spine and widening your shoulders? This movement helps energy flow, counteracting the freeze or contraction that often accompanies shame. Standing tall also reconnects you to your integrity—a reminder of your inherent worth.
Next, try activating your pelvic floor. This area, tied to your root chakra, is deeply connected to feelings of safety and grounding. Engaging it can help you feel more empowered, present, and secure in your body.
Once your body begins to feel more open and supported, turn your attention to your thoughts. Replace self-critical dialogue with words of compassion. How would you speak to a child or a dear friend experiencing shame? Offer yourself the same kindness and understanding—you are just as deserving of grace and compassion.
This process isn’t about erasing shame; it’s about meeting it with curiosity and care, allowing it to shift rather than take root. You have the power to rewrite how you respond to shame, starting with how you treat yourself in these moments.
3. Regression in Time
Ever find yourself responding to a situation with emotions that seem out of step with your age or current reality? This might be a younger part of you taking over, often activated by unresolved pain or a pattern that feels all too familiar.
For Black women, this experience is deeply tied to the phenomenon of adultification—a bias where Black girls are perceived as more mature and less in need of nurturing, protection, or support compared to their peers. Research highlights how this bias often leads to the normalization of emotional suppression during childhood, leaving little room for vulnerability or emotional validation.
When those familiar feelings or sensations arise, they can transport you back to those moments in childhood when your needs were unmet or your emotions were dismissed. In these instances, your inner child may step forward, seeking the validation and support they never received. It’s a natural and deeply human response to a lifetime of carrying these unacknowledged burdens.
This understanding is not about judgment but about compassion—for the younger you who had to grow up too fast and for the adult you who deserves the space to heal and reclaim your emotional freedom.
How to Heal: Visualize your adult self sitting with this younger part. Reassure them that you’re here to guide and protect it now. Tell them, ‘you’re safe now, I can hold what you need to do or say.’ See if you feel compelled to vocalize or move in a certain way to support this part. By holding this part with compassion, you create space for growth and healing.
4. Perfectionistic Pressure
Do you feel like no matter how much you achieve, it’s never enough? As Black women, this feeling is often rooted in the societal bias that has told us, implicitly and explicitly, that we have to work twice as hard to be seen, respected, or valued.
This part of you—the perfectionist—may believe that being flawless is the only way to earn safety, love, or validation in a world that often demands more from us while offering less in return. It’s no wonder we often tie our self-worth to our achievements, striving endlessly to prove ourselves in spaces where biases persist and our contributions are undervalued.
But perfectionism comes at a cost. It keeps us in a cycle of exhaustion, chasing standards that are often unattainable. Releasing this need for perfection doesn’t mean settling—it means honoring your worth beyond what you produce and reclaiming the right to simply be.
How to Heal: Challenge yourself to intentionally welcome imperfection. Start small—choose an activity where the outcome doesn’t carry weight, like doodling aimlessly, trying a new recipe without following instructions, or even singing off-key. Pay attention to how it feels to let go of the need for everything to be “just right.” Does it bring a sense of freedom, or does it stir discomfort?
If that discomfort arises, remind yourself: this isn’t a reflection of your worth or capability. It’s your body’s way of saying, “I need to feel safe because, at one time, imperfection felt threatening.” This is a natural response rooted in past experiences, not your present reality.
To help your body shift into safety, try grounding techniques like taking slow, deep breaths or placing gentle pressure on your chest. These actions send signals to your nervous system that you are secure in this moment, allowing you to lean into the present without fear. Over time, these practices can help you embrace imperfection as a space for growth, creativity, and self-compassion.
Disrupting the Cycle of Survival
The goal of Parts Work isn’t to silence or erase these parts of us but to embrace them with compassion. When we acknowledge that these parts have been working tirelessly to protect us, we can disrupt the cycles that keep us stuck in survival mode.
This is how we reclaim our wholeness. By integrating and honoring all parts of ourselves, we create space to show up authentically and unapologetically in every aspect of our lives.
Imagine what it would feel like to no longer overwork to prove your worth. To release the need for perfection and allow yourself to be seen as you are. To set boundaries without fear of rejection or judgment.
This isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about discovering that every part of you has value and that healing begins with embracing all of who you are.
You are already whole. Now it’s time to live like it.
Resources for Your Healing Journey
Harmonna’s Coaching Programs: Explore group coaching and 1:1 coaching options that integrate Parts Work into a comprehensive self-discovery and healing framework. These programs are designed to help you reconnect with your authentic self, process unresolved emotions, and lead with confidence and clarity.
Books: “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk; “No Bad Parts” by Richard Schwartz.
“Black Experiences – Cards for Parts Work” follows the model of Sharon Eckstein’s “Inner Active Cards”, which supports self-exploration, helps people to identify parts of themselves and to tell their stories.This 2023 set of cards was created by Kenjji Jumanne-Marshall, an award-winning Black artist. He took feedback from Black therapists and their clients to create images that spoke to their personal and cultural experiences. The project was initiated and coordinated by Tom Holmes, PhD and Karina Mirsky, MA.
Healing is your birthright. Let’s honor every part of who you are and create a life that reflects your truth.