Sunday Musings: All the World's a Grid (And All the Parts Merely Players)

Re Terry Reals Relationship Grid, IFS parts, neurodivergence

We’re looking at the RLT Relationship Grid this month (take the quiz if you’d like, it’s fab. https://quiz.terryreal.com/quiz/)

No surprise I guess you’ll find that I’m looking at it through an IFS lens and also around neurodifferences and neuronormativity. I see the Grid as a map of behaviour, parts and wiring

Quick orientation, if this is new to you: the Relational Grid is organised around two axes. The vertical axis tracks self-esteem.. from toxic shame (one-down) at the bottom, to grandiosity (one-up) at the top. The horizontal axis tracks boundaries ..from walled-off on one end, to boundaryless on the other. Where those two axes cross is what RLT calls the centre of health : relational, boundaried, neither inflated nor collapsed. The centre point. The goal 🥳. Hopefully over time somewhere to mainly hangout.. but often go meandering off to one quadrant or on a bad day quickly zoom there

In terms of IFS parts I can see my Manager parts can hang out in all segments: proactive and working overtime before anything has even gone wrong for eg the part that keeps you / me slightly one-up: controlled/controlling, competent, a little behind glass. I see a part that keeps me carefully one-down: accommodating, self-effacing, never quite asking for what i need. Pre-emptive disappearance as a strategy. “If I stay under the radar, nothing will come for me.” These parts have a plan and run the show so the Exile underneath doesn't have to make an appearance.

So then life happens and something (relational? Out there in the world?) stirs an exile.. so in rushes one of my Firefighters (or a manager part double down? Maybe?). Firefighter parts don't do subtle instead they’re reactive, fast, and singularly focused on one thing: stopping the unbearable feeling before it lands. On the Grid, this often looks like a lurch towards the edges, away from centre. The boundaryless-grandiose corner (explosive, pursuing, righteous fury, angry complaint, booze, drugs, have an affair!). The walled-off-shame corner (gone, shut down, somewhere far away). As always parts doing their absolute best under conditions of perceived emergency, get that exile back hidden away.

The more extreme the part, the further from centre.. which shows us how much that part is carrying.. a very old, very heavy burden. Cece Sykes often shows this as a triangle. An equilateral one .. so the strength of one mirrors the strength of another either protector to protector or with an exile who’s burdened

The one-up-and-walled-off stance (detached, superior, untouchable)isn't arrogance for the fun of it, maybe a part that learned, early, that intimacy was dangerous and emotions were weakness. It could also be a shadow part one that learned this ie modelling, from a caregiver (or one that was never given limits).

The one-down-and-boundaryless position (accommodating, endlessly available, unable to hold a boundary) isn't weakness either, maybe in IFS terms a part possibly terrified of abandonment, trying to keep connection alive.

A quick comment of course we can go to different quadrants. They’re parts after all! I can go to all four in one conversation! We just tend to go to one particular one on a bad day in a particular relationship. What’s your favourite? Which blends with you the quickest?

Going back a couple of months to the Dance of the Protectors : The Grid can become a collision course. So . the more one person pursues (boundaryless, one-down, please don't go), the more the other walls off (walled-off, one-up, don't come near me). A protector polarity on the outside. The more someone contracts and walls off - in shame or in superiority, the more their partner inflates boundaryless to fill the space either angrily or less obviously in accommodation, fixing, managing.

A word about neurodifferences as they get missed a lot in my experience: for neurodivergent people, the Grid position isn't always straightforwardly a parts story.

Monotropic focus (deep absorption in a current interest or task) can look like emotional withdrawal when it may just be how the brain finds regulation. Direct, literal communication may be read as contempt or rudeness when it for me tends to be honesty and the way I speak. Withdrawal after sensory or emotional load tends to be regulation, not rejection. Alexithymia (difficulty identifying or expressing emotions) can mean the response others expect isn't available..

On the other side: emotional hyperreactivity, rejection and justice sensitivity, impulsivity may all produce what looks very Firefightery on the Grid (the explosive, pursuing, boundaryless-grandiose corner) while also being neurological. The intensity feels like emergency because the nervous system is genuinely registering it as one.

Add in masking (the sustained parts that try and fit into the social environment) which can look functionally indistinguishable from the one-down-boundaryless position. Accommodating, self-erasing, endlessly adaptive ugh.. Usually it's both wiring and wound/burdened part tangled together

The important thing of course is understanding your wiring doesn't remove accountability and responsibility toward the people you're in relationship with. It may look different to neuronormative relationship, it might move at a different pace and involve different scaffolding. The goal for all of us is to show up with enough Self energy or RLT Wise Adult to actually be in contact with another person. .. so when Self is in the lead we can be in the Centre of Health. The parts are still there, still part of the wonderful inner orchestra but you’re now holding the baton. You’re the one who can engage in relationship from a grounded, embodied place and have Self to part and part to Self relationships. You can sit with the exile and help them lift their burdens.

The "All the world's a stage" speech was a bitter joke by Shakespeare.. cataloguing of life's roles, each one replacing the last where nobody was quite themselves. What if the parts we play aren't evidence of inauthenticity, but of protection? What if the grid position we habitually inhabit is less a character flaw, and more a part doing its very earnest best with the information it has? Not "why am I like this?" (said in the voice of mild despair). More as a what part of me is blended and in which quadrant right now, and what might it be protecting? And is there something in my wiring (rather than my wounding) that's also worth getting curious about?

I'd love to know where you tend to go most on the grid ie the corner you recognise most or the quadrant you don't want to admit to. Where would your partner put you? 🫣. Drop it in the comments if you're feeling brave or just let it be a quiet noticing.

Either way .. welcome to the Grid 🥳

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I’ll be adding here my videos each week. First up : The Castle. 🏰

One-up, walled-off. Polishing my crown at a safe and dignified distance.

I have an 8-page resource on ND experience of the grid in the resources section of my website.

#IFS #InternalFamilySystems #RelationalLifeTherapy #RelationshipGrid #PartsWork #SelfEnergy #Neurodivergent #NDRelationships #IFSCircles #SundayMusings #audhd #neurodivergentaffirming