It Is Incredibly Difficult To Get Unstuck

I get it. Overcoming trauma, psychological barriers, limiting beliefs, and conditioning is incredibly challenging. For years, I’ve been working on healing from people-pleasing, also known as codependency. Yoga, meditation, breathwork, and finding my conscious community have been helpful, but I felt like I reached a plateau.

Finding My True Self

Lately, I’ve been making significant progress in feeling more like my authentic self. I’m becoming more comfortable with who I am, more curious, and have a new willingness to “put myself out there.”

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

For many years, I have been a therapy client using a compassionate, non-pathologizing treatment approach called Internal Family Systems (IFS), developed by Richard Schwartz, PhD, author of several books on the subject, including “No Bad Parts.” More recently, I have enjoyed taking courses through Heather Smith of The Moxie School, to become IFS-informed. Now, I bring my curiosity to my parts daily and invite them into the conversation in my head. Many people call this process “parts work.”

Instead of ignoring, pushing away or numbing those thoughts, images and sensations, I turn toward them and ask them what they want me to know. They actually appreciate my inquiry and answer my questions. I work to develop a Self-to-part relationship.

Doula-ing Birth and Psycho-Spiritual Transformation

My life’s purpose is to guide others to discover their true selves through self-compassion, self-care, and self-acceptance. As a birth doula for 21 years, I have found that supporting a birth is similar to supporting a psycho-spiritual transformation. My greatest joy is witnessing another person’s inner evolution as they move toward wholeness. IFS is a technique that serves this mindful emergence very well.

We Are All Multiples

IFS is based on the concept of multiplicity. We all have multiple parts of our personality, including:

• wounded parts, 
• protective parts, 
• reactive parts, 
• analyzing parts, and lots more.

Your Inherent Goodness

You have a “Self” – it is your compassionate inner leader and a source of wisdom and healing potential. Everyone has a Self. Parts have an agenda, while your Self does not. Self is the mindful, curious, calm, confident, and compassionate aspect that pops up and relates to your parts in a healing way. Think of it as your inherent goodness. People who access their Self in an IFS (parts work) session say, “That’s not a part, that is who I am.“

Capacity to Heal Trauma

Internal Family Systems is not only an effective psychotherapy modality with an extraordinary capacity to heal trauma, as demonstrated in a pilot study in which 92% of participants no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis, but it is also a non-pathologizing, client-directed, and ultimately psycho-spiritual framework for guiding one on the potentially infinite road of inner work.