Tips for Starting Internal Communication

For me I try my best to set up a comfortable environment for my young alter then let her come out slowly by then making about her interests like birds or cute animals, or go on a walk!

I began almost a year ago to make a practice to set a timer and do “ten” minutes each day to devote to trying to connect in some way and listen. I had found that I wasn’t being a good listener to my parts and frustration was a huge concern. Doing that ten minutes a day has allowed everyone to feel heard without me feeling constantly overwhelmed. It doesn’t always work, but I make sure I show up every single day no matter what just so they all know they’re a top priority for me, and our mental health is important.

What really helped us was to picture some place internally. Like maybe someplace you know really well from childhood or just a place you would consider to know all the ins and outs of (although I wouldn't recommend making it your current living place). I've heard some people call it inner world or headspace although our system really likes the term 'mind palace' For us it really helps to have a place with multiple rooms and floors we can picture in order to gauge how close or far someone is from fronting, as well as have a visual marker for being able to call someone 'into the front room' so to speak. Other times though it can just feel really vacant and like nothing is working. Playing stuff like other alters favourite songs or eating something they really like will usually help to bring someone to the front if nothing else is working for us and kickstart that communication up.

We’ve spent a long time working on it, but our internal communication is almost constant! We share information back and forth very frequently, but when that communication either fades or suddenly blocks out and we don’t know why, it usually helps to go back to external communication (leaving notes mostly) to try to get to the bottom of the issue and work that communication open again (usually it’s because an alter is having a particularly bad problem or emotional outburst or trauma response, and the shut down is an effort from our gatekeeper to those of us in the front safe and functional)