When Your Parts Are in Conflict About COVID Precautions: Using IFS to Find Internal Alignment

Disclaimer: This blog post is meant for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent any physical or mental disorder. This is not a substitute for treatment from a licensed mental health professional.

If you're still taking COVID precautions in 2025, you've likely experienced intense internal conflict. One part of you desperately wants to attend that wedding, hug your friends, or eat inside a restaurant. Another part feels terror at the thought, scanning for risk and pulling you back to safety. These warring parts can leave you feeling paralyzed, exhausted, and disconnected from your sense of Self.

At Perceptive Insights Psychological Services, we understand that these aren't just conflicting thoughts—they're distinct parts of you, each with valid concerns and important roles in your internal system.

Understanding the Parts in Conflict
Your connection-seeking part might say: "Everyone else has moved on. We're missing out on life. We need community and touch and spontaneity. This isolation is killing us too."

Your protective part responds: "They don't understand the risks. Long COVID is real. We can't trust that others are being careful. If we let our guard down, we'll get sick, and no one will be there for us."

Both parts are trying to help you. The connection-seeking part holds your fundamental human need for belonging and often carries memories of joyful gatherings and intimate moments. The protective part is working overtime to keep you safe, often burdened with medical trauma, stories of abandonment, or knowledge that your body or circumstances make you more vulnerable.

The Cost of Internal Warfare
When these parts are polarized—locked in an oppositional struggle—you might experience:

• Decision paralysis (spending hours weighing whether to attend an event)

• Shame spirals after either choice (guilt if you go, self-criticism if you don't)

• Physical symptoms of stress as parts battle for control

• Difficulty articulating your needs to others because you're not internally aligned

• Exhaustion from constant internal negotiation

Moving Toward Internal Alignment Through IFS
The goal in IFS isn't to eliminate either part or force a compromise. Rather, it's to help you access Self-energy—the calm, curious, compassionate core of who you are—and work with the communication between these parts.

When you're caught in conflict between your connection-seeking part and your protective part, what often happens is that you lose access to the grounded, knowing center of yourself, or Self energy. Both parts are convinced they're right, both are working hard, and you're stuck in the middle trying to referee.

IFS helps by recognizing that this isn't actually a problem to solve through willpower or compromise. It's an internal system that needs attention and understanding. When your parts can trust that you (Self) are actually present and capable, when they feel genuinely heard rather than dismissed, the polarization often naturally begins to shift.

From this more grounded place, creative solutions emerge that neither polarized part could have imagined while locked in opposition. Not because you've forced a compromise, but because you've accessed a different level of knowing—one that can honor the legitimate needs of both parts.

What Internal Alignment Feels Like
When you're Self-led rather than part-driven, you might:

• Make clear decisions without second-guessing for hours

• Communicate boundaries confidently to others

• Find creative solutions (like outdoor gatherings, or relationships with others who are cautious)

• Feel grief about limitations without shame

• Trust yourself to assess risk and respond flexibly

Internal alignment doesn't mean you'll never struggle with decisions about precautions. It means your parts learn to work together, trusting that Self will care for all of their concerns rather than forcing them to fight for dominance.

You deserve to move through this ongoing pandemic not from a place of internal warfare, but from grounded Self-leadership that honors all of who you are.

To connect with a mental health professional who understands the difficulties facing those of us who remain covid cautious firsthand, reach out to Dr. Lauren Bartholomew today!