Notice, Name, Nurture Part 3: Loving Every Part of You

This is the third installment in the Notice, Name, Nurture series. If you haven’t read the first two pieces yet, start there — this work builds on itself.

You’ve done something courageous. You named the parts of you that show up — the worried one, the people-pleaser, the critic who never sleeps. You noticed them with curiosity instead of judgment. Now comes the part that, in my experience, asks the most of us — and gives the most back: Nurture.

And let’s be honest about what nurture is not. It is not a quick fix. It is not a one-time healing session after which everything resets and the difficult parts of you quietly retire. Nurturing your inner world is a relationship — ongoing, evolving, and built on real trust over time. Like any relationship that matters, it asks something of you consistently.

Love Every Part That Shows Up

The core practice of Nurture is deceptively simple: love what arrives. When a part of you shows up — especially the inconvenient, embarrassing, or exhausting parts — the invitation is to meet it with love rather than resistance.

This is where Internal Family Systems (IFS) offers us something radical. Every part, no matter how disruptive its behavior, has a positive intention. That hyper-critical voice inside you? She is not your enemy. She has been working around the clock trying to protect you. The question becomes: from what? And for how long?

Parts That Need Updating

Imagine a part of you that formed when you were fourteen — awkward, unsure, easily embarrassed, certain that one wrong move would lead to social catastrophe. That part developed a fierce inner critic to keep you in line, to make sure you never humiliated yourself again.

Here is the thing: that critic may still be operating as though you are fourteen. She doesn’t know you have decades of lived experience, hard-won wisdom, and a completely different life now. She is not malicious. She is just working with old information.

Nurturing this part means introducing her to who you are today. It means sitting with her and saying, gently and genuinely: things are different now. You don’t have to work so hard. I’ve got this. When parts receive this kind of honest updating, something often shifts — they soften, they breathe, sometimes they express relief they’ve been waiting years to feel.

Parts That Are Still Stuck in the Past

Some parts don’t just need updating — they need retrieval. These are the parts still living inside an old scene, still trying to solve a problem that no longer exists, still carrying a burden that was never really theirs to carry.

In this work, we can actually travel back — intentionally, safely, with compassionate witness — to the places where those parts are frozen. We can let them know that the situation is over. That they survived. That they are allowed to leave that moment and come home to the present.

This is unburdening. It is not about erasing the past or pretending pain didn’t happen. It is about freeing a part of you from having to endlessly re-live it. When a part is no longer stuck carrying that old weight, it can begin to exist in the here and now — and often, its whole character changes. The protector becomes a supporter. The frightened child becomes a source of genuine joy.

Nurture Is a Process, Not a Transaction

Our culture is deeply invested in the idea of fixing things and moving on. We want the breakthrough moment, the release, the resolution — and then we want to check it off the list. But parts work does not operate on that timeline, and pushing it to do so is actually counterproductive.

Think about trust in any relationship. It is not established in a single conversation, no matter how meaningful. It is built through repeated experience: you show up, you listen, you follow through, you repair when you miss the mark. Your inner parts are no different. They have often been ignored, overridden, or shamed for years. Earning their trust takes time — and that time is well spent.

Nurture means coming back. Checking in. Asking, how are you doing? What do you need today? It means celebrating small moments of ease alongside the big breakthroughs. It means accepting all of who you are — not as a destination you arrive at, but as a practice you return to.

You Are Worth This Kind of Care

The NNN process — Name, Notice, Nurture — is not about becoming a different person. It is about becoming more fully yourself. The parts of you that have been working so hard to keep you safe, or small, or acceptable, or invisible — they deserve love too. Especially them.

This is what the Nurture phase asks of you: not perfection, not a dramatic transformation overnight. Just a willingness to stay in relationship with yourself. To keep showing up. To keep choosing love, even — especially — for the parts that make that the hardest.

Want to experience this work firsthand? The Name, Notice, Nurture drop-in group is opening soon. Come as you are.