For this post, I wanted to do something a little different. My parts pull me in different directions, and when I do the same thing constantly, I tend to get bored or pulled in a different direction. I feel committed to doing this blog and don’t want that to happen, so I’ve decided every five or so sessions, I will dive into certain characters in media that I love and want to talk about.

For these posts, I will talk about one character and what qualities they exemplify throughout their movie, show, or book.

I would like to start by talking about one of my favorite characters in media: Nausicaä from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. If you haven’t seen it, I really recommend it, and I will be talking about the entire movie in case you don’t want it spoiled.

To start, I will give a little background about Nausicaä and the movie she is from. The movie takes place 1,000 years after the near destruction of the world by giant warriors. Humanity survived, but a toxic jungle protected by giant insects threatens their survival. Nausicaä is a princess from a small village in the Valley of the Wind. While the rest of humanity wants to fight the toxic jungle, the people of the Valley of the Wind have learned to live in harmony with the jungle. Nausicaä especially has learned and tries to show the world the need for the toxic jungle.

Quick note that if I continue to do this in the future, I won’t have an exact formula. In some cases, I might focus on one or two moments, or a specific trait that a character has that is consistent throughout the movie. For this one, I will be taking moments throughout the film when Nausicaä showed a specific trait and how that affected the characters around her, much like how our Self helps the Parts in our system.

At the beginning of the film when we are first introduced to Nausicaä. She is resting in the toxic jungle when she hears a person being chased by an angry Ohmu. She uses her creativity to calm the Ohmu by nonviolently stunning it with flash grenades and soothing it with an insect charm. With the Ohmu calm, she leads it back to the jungle (she also does something similar later in the film too). To tie this to IFS therapy, this is like when two parts are at war with each other, and Self may need to mediate and come up with a creative solution to make it so both parts are no longer fighting. Creativity is also important because we want our parts to trust us, so if a part is causing you trouble, coming up with a creative solution to its concerns may be exactly what the part needs to end its belief it needs to do self-destructive actions/beliefs.

Next, Nausicaä portrays both Patience and Calm in the next scene. When she meets the man she saved from the Ohmu, she realizes it is an old member of her village, Lord Yupa. He reveals to her he has a fox-squirrel (who Nausicaä names Teto) he picked up in his travels. When Lord Yupa lets Teto go, he tell her “even the babies can be vicious.” Nausicaä is unbothered and lets Teto run across her arms and shoulders. She offers Teto her finger and assures him there is nothing to fear. He bites down on her finger and you can tell she’s in pain, but she remains calm and patient with Teto, letting his nerves calm with another assurance that there is nothing to fear. He relents and licks the wound he caused. This shows the importance of being Calm and Patient with our parts, even the ones that lash out at us. When we show them calm and patient, they will learn to trust us and work with us so we can help no longer have such negative feelings.

Courage and Compassion are the last two I will talk about. There are several times Nausicaä shows courage and compassion, like when she takes off her mask in the toxic jungle to assure her allies that they don’t need to fear landing in the jungle or when she cares deeply enough for the wounded baby Ohmu that she puts herself in danger to protect it.

The moment I want to focus on for Courage and Compassion is in the climax of the film, when she brings the baby Ohmu in front of a stampeding herd of angry Ohmu. She stood in front of thousands of great beasts larger than tanks trampling forward to bring the wounded baby Ohmu to its family. She remains stalwart in the face of certain death. She cares so much for this being nothing like her, wants so much to protect the people of her village, and to calm angry Ohmu. This is much like how we care so deeply for our exiles, the wounded and forgotten parts in our system, and how we have to be brave to help them. They carry our trauma that is easier to forget and scary to see.

But just like Nausicaä, we have to be courageous to show these parts the compassion they deserve so they too can heal.

A lot of the characters around Nausicaä hold a lot of anger and hatred toward others, much like our parts might hate each other or certain people, but much like Self, Nausicaä brought that hatred crashing down and changed the lives of the characters around her because of her Creativity, Patience, Calm, Courage, and deep Compassion for those around her. I have always resonated with her character, because compassion is definitely the strongest feeling I have when doing IFS work, and I love seeing how that compassion affects the characters around her.

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I hope you enjoyed this little short essay I will do from time to time. I really enjoyed writing about it, and plan to do more character essays like this in the future. I hope you stick around for them between my therapy sessions!