Getting To Know All the Parts Of You

Dear Colleagues,

​Just as you might be preparing to sit down and eat with the cast of characters you call your family, consider taking the time to periodically sit down with yourself and invite your internal family to weigh-in and have their say.

Whether you prefer to use the Internal Family Systems Model or something more like "Meeting the Committee," doing so offers the opportunity to bring to light subconscious material that might be sabotaging your goals or your sense of fulfillment. It might also reveal the source of stuckness you feel with certain clients. Bringing the body into the process can take it one step further.

Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks teach something called the Persona Interview. It begins with establishing a clear, bodily felt-sense of a feeling, belief, or part of yourself. Sometimes you're encouraged to assume a posture, stance, or physical shape. From this embodied perspective, you respond spontaneously, without censor, to questions from a partner or facilitator like, "What's the most important thing to you? When did you make your first appearance? What are you most afraid of?"

Answering from the bodymind, and bypassing the thinking brain, tends to offer surprising insight as to what unconscious material might be driving things behind the scenes. It's also a great tool to use with your clients. But like most techniques of this nature, it'll be much more effective when you've practiced it with and on yourself.

If you'd like some help or more information, please let me know. In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours and all the parts of you - known and otherwise.