What is internal family systems?

Example: You sit down to write at 6 AM as planned. One part of you is energized — it wants to create, to push forward, to build something worth publishing. Another part is exhausted — it wants sleep, warmth, the comfort of not having to perform. A third part is anxious — it scans for email, wonders what your manager thought of yesterday's presentation, calculates whether the mortgage payment cleared. These are not distractions. They are drives. Each one exists because it once kept you alive, and none of them is willing to be ignored.

This concept is part of Internal Negotiation in the How to Think curriculum.