The Missing Link: How Your Inner World Shapes Your Health

A few months ago, my girlfriends invited me on a fun adventure—dinner and a movie. Girls’ night out! I was so excited. I could already picture myself laughing, relaxing, and enjoying the evening.

But then Kelly showed up.

“Tina,” she said with that tone. “You’re just going to leave? What about your work? What about your family? Have you forgotten your responsibilities?”

And she didn’t stop there.

“You have so much to do! Emails and paperwor are piling up like laundry. Speaking of laundry—do you think it’s going to fold itself while you’re off having fun?”

By the time she was done, I felt guilty for even considering one night of fun.

Here’s the thing: Kelly isn’t a colleague or a friend. She isn’t even real. She’s a voice in my head. “Kelly the Caretaker” is one of my parts I’ve been getting to know through a powerful model called Internal Family Systems, or IFS.

Do you have a Kelly, too? Maybe you’ve even said, there’s a part of me that wants to take time for fun, and there’s another part that says I have too much to do. Or maybe yours sounds more like a worrier, a pleaser, or an inner critic. Maybe you’ve noticed that when a part gets triggered, it can be so loud it drowns out everything else.

Here’s the catch: these parts don’t just mess with our mood. They affect our biology. Chronic stress, constant self-criticism, unresolved conflict—all of these can dysregulate our nervous system, suppress immunity, increase inflammation, and even influence gene expression. All the things we do for our health with diet, sleep, movement, and detox can be undermined by our own minds.

IFS offers a different path. Instead of fighting or silencing these parts, we learn to “unblend”—to notice, that’s my anxious part talking, and then step into our calm, compassionate, wise Self. From there, we can listen with curiosity and even gratitude. Because these parts aren’t enemies. They’re protectors. But they were never meant to run the show.

And when they feel heard, they relax. Stress unwinds. Our biology follows.

That night, my True Self heard Kelly, thanked her for caring, and still sent me out for dinner and a movie. And yes—the laundry waited.

So if you are working to stay healthy or heal from a chronic condition, don’t just focus on food, hydration, and supplements. Those matter. But so do the voices inside. Because when we create inner harmony, we create the conditions where real healing and prevention become possible.

What part is talking to you right now? What does it want you to know?