Why Is It So Hard to Sit With Difficult Emotions? What IFS and Attachment Have Taught Me About Healing

I've been reflecting a lot lately on a word I heard repeatedly during my Internal Family Systems (IFS) training: ‘withnessing’.

It's not really a word we use in everyday conversation.

The more I've reflected on it, the less I think it's simply an IFS concept. I've started wondering whether it describes something many of us needed growing up, but didn't consistently experience.

It also makes me think differently about therapy.

Perhaps some of the deepest healing has less to do with saying the right thing, and more to do with offering an experience many people have rarely had before.

Why We Move Away From Pain So Quickly

One of the things I notice almost every day is how uncomfortable many people are with their own emotions.

Clients apologise for crying.

They laugh while describing something deeply painful.

They quickly reassure me they're "fine", only moments after describing how overwhelmed, and lonely they feel.

I've never really understood those moments as resistance. Increasingly, I’ve come to see them as protective adaptations. Somewhere along the way, many people learnt that difficult emotions were easier to carry alone than to share with someone else.

And I don't believe that’s because people don't want support.

I think many have simply have never experienced what it feels like for someone to stay with them without trying to change the experience.

I don't think children only need reassurance

The more I've learnt about attachment, the more I've found myself thinking less about what children are told, and more about what they experience.

A distressed child doesn't just need someone to say, "You'll be okay." They need someone whose presence helps them feel they're not alone. Someone who can be with them while they're frightened, ashamed, overwhelmed, or heartbroken.

That experience teaches something important. That emotions can be survived in relationship. That someone stayed. Someone didn't become overwhelmed by their emotions. Someone didn't minimise what they were feeling or expect them to move on before they were ready.

I've started wondering whether that's what children really internalise. Not that difficult emotions disappear, but that they don't have to face them alone.

Of course, many people didn't consistently have those experiences.

Sometimes emotions were dismissed. Sometimes caregivers were doing the best they could while carrying burdens of their own. Sometimes there simply wasn't enough emotional space.

Children adapt remarkably well. They find other ways to cope.

They become independent long before they should have to. They stop asking for help. They learn to keep the peace, work harder, look after everyone else, or hide what they're feeling.

And those adaptations make perfect sense. They helped us get through experiences that no child should have had to navigate alone.

This is where I think IFS offers something different

One of the reasons I've grown to love IFS is that it doesn't encourage us to argue with the parts of ourselves that are struggling.

It invites us to get curious about them.

I've lost count of the number of times a client has introduced me to an anxious, angry, critical, or hopeless part, only to immediately tell me how much they hate it.

That always makes me curious. Each time this happens, I wonder, “Has this part ever actually been listened to?” And I mean truly listened to; not analysed, reassured, or managed.

In my work so far, I’ve learnt many parts have spent their entire existence expecting one of two things: they'll either be ignored or they'll be controlled.

So when they're met with genuine curiosity instead, it's an entirely new experience.

It still amazes me how often a part begins to soften once it realises nobody is trying to get rid of it.

Therapy Isn’t Always About Feeling Better Straight Away

Of course, everyone hopes therapy will bring some relief.

These days, I don't think about therapy that way.

But I’ve come to think that relief doesn’t always come from finding answers or making painful feelings disappear. Often, it comes from finally feeling understood.

I’ve often noticed that when we rush towards solutions, we can accidentally move away from the very thing that’s asking for our attention.

There’s a saying I really like, slow is fast.

Sometimes the most meaningful moments in therapy aren’t the big breakthroughs or life changing insights, but that we stay with something that has been avoided for years, while knowing that you don’t have to face it alone.

From the outside, those moments may seem small and not particularly remarkable. But I've come to think that's often where the healing work really begins.

Maybe we're all learning how to stay

One of the things I appreciate most about IFS is that it asks us to develop a different relationship with ourselves. One that's based on presence rather than fixing, judging, or improving.

I've started wondering whether that's what many of our parts have been searching for all along....just someone that is willing to stay.

Increasingly, I don't think the most healing thing I offer clients is a particular intervention.

I think it's that, for a little while, neither of us leaves...

We stay with whatever has shown up. And over time, many clients begin discovering they can offer that same presence to themselves.

I guess that if I had to put ‘withnessing’ into one sentence, perhaps it'd be this:

"I'll stay with you while you have this feeling."

To me, that's the heart of therapy: first experiencing that kind of presence with another person, then slowly and gently, learning to offer it to ourselves.

Nav Wellington is a Clinical Psychologist, EMDR & IFS Trained Therapist. He works in a private practice in Melbourne, provides telehealth throughout Australia, and internationally (except USA & Canada). He provides 1:1 therapy for adult individuals.