Abstract The suppression of the microturbulence associated to the emergence of a spontaneous internal transport barrier has been recently demonstrated in a system showing a possible amplification of the zonal flow component in the low-frequency regime (Ghizzo and Del Sarto 2023 Nucl. Fusion 63 104002). We use here numerical experiments performed with a ‘particles modes’ model based on a double average over the fast cyclotron phase and over the bounce (or transit) phase to show the major role played by energetic particles and shear flows in this scenario. ‘Particle modes’ are meant here as classes of particles, identified by some adiabatic invariant after a gyro-average procedure, which are associated to the description of some specific linear modes of the plasma. The introduction of energetic circulating ions or shear flows into the system makes a larger number of particle modes being involved in the synchronization process. A global synchronization of the Fourier modes of the turbulent spectrum can be this way achieved. This process allows for a bifurcation towards self-organization, which is associated to the emergence of a staircase-like structure. This is known to be an essential element in the modification of the zonal flow pattern in phase space during the suppression of microturbulence in tokamaks.