An IFS Therapist Explains: You Don’t Need to Calm Down
You don’t need to be less reactive—you actually need to be better at it.
Some version it always comes up with new clients: “I just want to be less reactive.” Not less hurt. Not less unseen. Just…less reactive.
Sometimes it’s buried under paragraphs of context. Sometimes it’s the whole damn paragraph. Either way, it’s one of the most common reasons my clients cite for starting therapy—the thing they think will make everything feel more manageable.
And I get it. Of course she does. She’s tired of snapping at her partner. Tired of crying in the pantry while the pasta water boils. Tired of hearing herself say things she regrets two seconds later. She wants to feel calm, composed, and unbothered.
But here’s the thing - being reactive isn’t actually the problem. It’s not some character flaw to be ironed out. It’s a signpost. A flare. A cue from your inner world that something inside you is desperate to be seen.
And what if the most powerful thing you could do wasn’t to fight it, or numb it, or manage it into submission… but to listen?
Reactions Aren’t the Problem—Your Relationship to Them Is
Let’s get one thing straight: having reactions doesn’t mean you’re unstable. It means you’re alive. You weren’t designed to coast through life like some blissed-out, beige version of yourself. You have parts of yourself that respond to pressure. Parts that get loud when something feels off. Parts that jump in to protect you the second anything smells like danger.
Reactivity, at its core, is protection. But when you’ve spent a lifetime being told to “calm down,” “be the bigger person,” or “not take things so personally,” you start to believe the only version of you that’s lovable is the one who doesn’t react (read: feel) so much. So you try to eliminate your reactions (again, read: feelings) entirely. You breathe through them. You meditate them away. You tell your family and friends you’re “working on it.”
But the truth is, your reactions don’t need to be deleted. They need to be tended to. It’s not that your internal system is broken when it’s reacting - it’s that it’s been left on autopilot without anyone in the cockpit.
And something like Internal Family Systems therapy can teach you how to lead yourself through the heat of your reactions, without abandoning the parts of you that feel the most on fire.
Calm Isn’t Self-Regulation. It’s Often Just Self-Suppression.
You can look completely composed on the outside and be in full-blown chaos on the inside. In fact, you probably already do. You can deliver a perfectly measured, rational monologue while a younger part of you is screaming internally, Why don’t I matter?
You can nod and smile while resentment coils like barbed wire in your gut. You can tell yourself you’re being mature when really, you’ve just gagged the part of you that’s been trying to speak up for years.
But those things aren’t automatically emotional regulation - they are just as likely to be emotional suppression. And suppression doesn’t lead to peace—it leads to pressure. Pressure that inevitably explodes.
The kind of explosion where you say something you didn’t mean—or worse, something you meant deeply but only felt safe enough to say once you were hijacked by anger. Where you wind up regretting not necessarily what you said, but how and where and why you said it.
We praise “calmness” like it’s a virtue, but let’s be honest: a lot of what passes for calm is just stuffing and silence, when what we actually need is to learn how to be better at noticing, tending to, and expressing/sharing our reactions.
And being better at reacting doesn’t mean suppressing more effectively. It means knowing how to stay in connection with your system as it lights up—and relating to it from the seat of clarity, not panic.
What Being “Better at Reacting” Actually Looks Like
This is the shift I see again and again with my clients. They start out thinking they want to not react. But what they really need—and what they actually get once we start doing the work—is the ability to stay in connection with themselves while reacting.
They still get activated. The button still gets pushed. The old story still lights up. But now, they can tell what’s happening. They know what part of them just jumped in. And because they know how to turn toward it instead of being taken over by it, they can stay in the driver’s seat.
Being “better” at reacting means staying with the anger instead of being consumed by it. It means recognizing when a part wants to shut down—and being able to say, I see why you’re pulling away, but we don’t have to disappear. It means feeling heat rise and choosing to speak for your anger instead of from it.
That’s the shift. That’s the skill. That’s the difference between spiraling and leading. And it’s exactly what Internal Family Systems teaches you to do—not through suppression, but through relationship.
Parts Work Makes You a Better Listener—to Yourself
Here’s the foundation: IFS is a therapeutic model built on the truth that you are not one thing. You are a system. A collection of inner voices—parts—that each have their own thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and protective strategies. And even the ones that feel like they’re ruining your life or sense of peace, joy, or contentment? They’re just trying to help.
The angry part? She could be protecting you from collapse. The shutdown part? She might be guarding you from saying something you’ll regret. The sarcastic, sharp-tongued one? She’s buffering against how raw it would feel to say “I’m actually really hurt.”
These parts react because that’s what they were built to do. But you weren’t meant to become them. You were meant to lead them.
IFS gives you access to that internal leadership, not by asking you to override your reactivity, but by inviting you to get curious about the one who’s reacting. You learn how to notice your reaction without fusing with it. You pause—not to suppress, but to listen. You ask, “What’s happening in here?” And over time, your system learns to trust that someone’s actually paying attention.
That’s when the panic starts to ease. That’s when the fire burns cleaner. That’s when your reactions become something you can move with, not against.
When You Stop Fearing Your Reactions, You Start Leading Them
The most powerful shift I’ve ever seen in a woman isn’t when she becomes less reactive. It’s when she stops being afraid of her own intensity.
When she can feel anger rise, and doesn’t flinch. When she can sense the retreat coming and say, I know why you’re pulling away, but I’ve got us now. When she can stay in the room—with herself, with the person in front of her—and not abandon either.
That’s what internal leadership looks like. And that’s what things like “emotional regulation” and “mindfulness” actually mean.
You don’t need to fear your reactivity. You need to learn how to be in a relationship with it, so that even when it flares, you’re still here. Still leading. Still grounded.
And that changes everything. Because the goal isn’t to stop reacting. The goal is to stop letting your reactions run the show. And once you learn how to do that, you won’t need to fear your reaction ever again.
This isn’t about becoming a calmer version of yourself. Start working with an IFS therapist in St. Louis, MO
It’s about becoming the kind of woman who can stay with herself in the heat of any moment - and that’s the kind of work I do with clients in 1:1 sessions at Good Woman Therapy. Click here to explore working together - and let’s make you better at being reactive, not less.
Other Services Offered at Good Woman Therapy
As an IFS therapist, I love helping women and fellow therapists navigate their everyday lives with greater ease using Internal Family Systems Therapy and specialize in therapy for stress & overwhelm, inner critics, perfectionism, peacekeeping, and relationship concerns. My office is located in Ballwin, MO and I help everyday women navigate their everyday lives with greater ease by offering both in-person counseling as well as online therapy to clients throughout Creve Coeur, Ladue, Town and Country, Chesterfield, and St. Peters. I also provide online therapy Missouri -wide to clients outside the St. Louis and St. Charles County area. You can view my availability and self-schedule a free, 20-minute consultation on my consultation page.
