Welcome to both the new year and the IFS column on eating disorders and addictions! My name is Mary Kruger. I’m an assistant trainer for the Center for Self Leadership as well as a certified IFS therapist. Working with eating disorders, addictions, and related issues has been my passion for more than twenty years. I am delighted to be able to share my enthusiasm, experiences, and ideas with my colleagues. I look forward to a rich, varied dialogue and exchange of ideas that piques curiosity and fosters creativity and connection.

During the first ten years of my career, I worked in a substance abuse treatment facility PHP (partial hospitalization program) and IOP (intensive outpatient program) as well as inpatient. I also worked in an outpatient setting where I helped to establish a substance abuse program and established an eating disorders group. During that time, I also founded my private practice, near New Haven, CT, which serves adults, adolescents, and children. My clients work with me in individual, family/relational, and group therapy modalities. I have been fortunate to be able to attend supervision, trainings, and workshops with a number of leaders in the field. In 1999, I was trained in the IFS Model of therapy, which has transformed both me and my work as a therapist.

IFS has been an easy paradigm shift for me in some ways. Prior to IFS, I had embraced the idea of not pathologizing clients, a perspective that is inherent in IFS. Being a systems thinker by nature and training, the concept of imbalances occurring within the inner system (family) was intriguing to me and made perfect sense.

My feminist parts resonated with the collaborative aspects of IFS. The parts of me that love the experiential were attracted to the body focus and right-brain aspects of IFS. And the psychospiritual aspect of IFS has made it easy to integrate with the Twelve Steps.

More difficult, and yet the most rewarding, has been the emphasis on working with our own therapist’s parts, which has made all the difference in my work with clients with eating disorders and addictions. Early on, it became apparent to me that the managerial energy inherent in some of the most popular therapies interfered with their effectiveness. IFS enables me to continue to work with any of my parts that may become polarized with my clients.

Another advantage is that IFS’s compassionate, Self-led approach makes the work safer and easier because clients and their parts feel trusted, honored, and held.

In my early years as a therapist, I often felt stuck as to where to go next with clients. We would create a role play of a client dialoguing with his or her addiction, involving only the client and that part. While it was great for the client to be able to differentiate from the part, it felt to me as though there was so much more to the work than just that. And there certainly were many more parts that weren’t known or acknowledged. IFS offered a way through that situation. Today it is possible to map, sculpt, and unblend from a part as well as the parts connected to it.

Another stuck point: What do we do with shame and other vulnerable feelings? How do we keep clients from being overwhelmed? One of my clients was unable to move past her eating disorder because despite her successful life, she still experienced herself as the ragged girl from Northern Ireland whose family had been burned out of their home. We came upon what I now recognize as a part, again and again. With IFS, it became possible to unburden this part without the client becoming overwhelmed. What an amazing discovery and contribution!

There is so much involved in working with eating disorders and addictions from the IFS perspective that it is best to break it down into smaller pieces. In each blogpost, I intend to share a small piece for discussion. While I have many of my own ideas, I am also very open to requests, comments, and questions. I look forward to some exciting and thought-provoking discussions!

Movement is the unifying bond between the mind and the body, and sensations are the substance of that bond.   —Deane Juhan

The New Year is a time for setting intentions and goals. Many of our goals typically involve movement; more cardio, strength training, and agility training may be on our to-do list. One of my goals is to bring more embodied Self energy as a gift to myself, my clients, and other loved ones. As with the other tools of Somatic IFS, we begin with ourselves. Beginning a regular practice of mindful movement is a step on the path to Embodied Self.

Mindful movement brings Self awareness to spontaneous gestures and movement styles to witness, access, and unburden parts. This fourth tool of Somatic IFS also includes re-embodying early developmental movement patterns associated with trauma and faulty attachment, and encouraging movement practices that foster and stabilize Self energy.

Although I am not trained in Dance Movement Therapy, I have been privileged to study with several people from whom I have learned about movement—Susan Aposhyan, Susan Harper, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Amina Knowlen, and Pat Ogden, as well as IFS therapists Barb Cargill, Gina Demos, and Francine Passias. My experiences with these teachers, my academic study, and my clients have shown me that movement—moving with mindfulness—is an essential component of Somatic IFS.

My eight-month-old granddaughter, Sadie, is my most recent movement teacher. Applying my knowledge to my observation of her motor development has been fascinating. I was present at her birth and was awed by the power of her spinal push—head to tail and tail to head—as she worked with and pushed against the uterine contractions to birth herself.

Her original grounding was through her navel—her point of connection to Life itself and her sole source of nourishment. The sense of core Self is experienced by the infant at this early stage of life. Cohen believes that this development begins in utero and is supported initially by the motility of the cells through the process of cellular breathing, and also by the organization of fetal movement around the umbilical centre in the navel radiation pattern. The infant experiences, through movement, a basic sense of being a unified whole, with separate parts that are both differentiated and connected.

Sadie’s first task was to learn to breathe and to suck and swallow. The first motor nerves to myelanate are the sucking nerves. She practiced these movements in utero. At first, her body movements seemed mostly random, radiating from her core. She gradually gained increasing control and coordination over the gross movements of her trunk, legs, and arms. I noticed the various movement patterns of her limbs as they developed from homologous to homolateral and then to contralateral movements. I observed the infant movement patterns that Cohen describes—yielding, pushing, reaching, grasping, and pulling—which she says underlie the secure passage through the stages of psychological development and the emergence of the sense of self. Daniel Stern also describes how the sense of an “emergent, core, subjective and verbal” self develops out of the intimate reality of bodily sensation and expression—which is movement.

As Sadie learned to sit up, the sitz bones of her pelvis became an additional source of grounding (assisted by a fluffy diaper). Over the next few months, she learned to support this newly integrated spinal core upon all fours. Cohen says that the crawling patterns, which are initiated by yielding weight into and pushing out of the ground, facilitate ego development by embodying and strengthening muscles. Crawling creates a boundaried sense of self as the infant engages with weight, earth, and gravity. All of these movements that Sadie approaches with the same urgency as her birthing are developing her perceptual relationships, including spatial orientation and body image, and the basic elements of learning and communication.

With clients who have experienced trauma and attachment wounds in utero or during infancy, working with the internal family in an embodied way offers an opportunity to directly enter the preverbal matrix of the parts’ experience. IFS recognizes that certain qualities are “lost” when a part absorbs burdens. These qualities in very young parts are imbedded in the body’s systems. As the early movement patterns are reenacted, the associated memories and emotions may be accessed, allowing for witnessing and unburdening of the parts. In Somatic IFS workshops, I have led participants in reembodying the basic developmental movement patterns to access the burdens and restore the underlying sense of unity of Self. We begin on the floor as infants and experience both ontogenetic and phylogenetic movement development. We play frog and lizard, we roll and crawl, and happily suck our thumbs.

Mindful Movement can be employed at every stage of the IFS process. Movement can access the part, help the part unblend, enhance the relationship between Self and the part, witness the part’s story, unburden the part, and assist with the integration and completion phase of the IFS Model. The movements that can be addressed with Somatic IFS include spontaneous movement, habitual gestures, protective stances, and frozen/blocked impulses. These movements and gestures are generally outside of our awareness. We bring awareness, exploration, and mirroring to facilitate the IFS process. Specifically, we invite the client to notice the movement and any impulse to block or inhibit the movement. With permission from the part that is blocking, we encourage the movement to sequence through the body to completion. A movement may originate in the core of the body and sequence to an end point—the head, tail, or any of the four limbs.

Laura is a client who has benefitted from this embodied approach to her internal family. In the last year, she radically changed many of her addictive behaviors. She has lost a good deal of weight and is off some of her diabetes medications. In spite of these improvements (or because of them), in a recent session she reported feeling paralyzed—unable to continue on this course of behavior change. I invited her to experience the paralysis while she was sitting with me. She accessed a young part that felt scared, alone, and powerless. She heard another small voice that said it would be good to stand up and move around, but to move felt dangerously assertive and powerful for the first part. The first part eventually allowed her to stand up, and Laura began to move, quite stiff with fear. She cried and said this is how it feels every time she makes the choice to eat the right foods and not eat the wrong foods, as if she has to change a switch in her brain.

To integrate this shift, I reminded Laura of a session the year before when she made the decision to choose Life. There were more tears. I suggested she find something in the room that represented Life, and mindfully move toward that. She moved toward the object and held it tenderly in her arms for several silent minutes. She reported that her fear was calmer. It felt different from when the fearful, paralyzed part is pushed away by parts that are choosing new behaviors. She invited her guides to be with her. She realized that when she takes the initial extremely hard step to get off the couch, she inherently chooses Life, and she can trust her body to lead the way. She could imagine that her brain was being rewired. Since that session, it has been easier for her to turn on the switch, and it stays on for longer periods of time.

A session with my client Anne is another example of working with parts through mindful movement. Anne is an accomplished, successful corporate executive, wife, and mother with a complex and difficult early history. An exile was expressing itself in her body as a collapse—being pulled down from her solar plexus, while a manager was resisting that impulse and taking a strong, independent stance that pushes through, accomplishes, and achieves. We oscillated between the impulse to collapse and the opposing upright posture. As she inhaled, she extended the front of her body, and as she exhaled, she moved into the collapse and flexed the front of her body. Both parts of the polarization felt understood by Anne through witnessing the movement. We appreciated the upright protector that has served her so well, and learned that it is very, very tired and can’t keep up the resistance. The exile’s collapse was taking over in her body and in her system. Anne allowed that movement to sequence to its endpoint as it curled up in fetal position. She stayed in this position as she accessed a part that knew she was not wanted as a baby and that blames herself for her neglect and abuse. This exile wanted her to curl up and die. The part felt Anne’s compassionate presence toward her and knew that she was wanted by Anne. Eventually the pressure to curl up released. Anne uncurled and no longer felt the pressure in her solar plexus to collapse. She felt ease and calm in her body. Her life is moving toward more balance as her protector no longer needs to battle against the desire to give up and die.

With both Anne and Laura, the parts were telling their stories through movement, and these stories were witnessed mindfully. Movement may be the only way the part can tell its story. A part’s movement story may have been blocked and frozen in the body’s structure—impulses to run, to hit, to kick, to bite, to reach out, to suck, to hide, to cry, to cringe, to speak, to look. With permission from a polarized part, we bring intentional, deliberate movement to the block to free up these frozen impulses, completing the sequence, allowing for a physiological unburdening and restoring the original qualities of Embodied Self.

We ask the meaning-making and story-telling parts to wait until the movement has been able to be fully expressed and witnessed, and has come to completion. Often the meaning, the emotions, and the story associated with the relevant phase of development emerge during the mindful exploration of movement. Spontaneous unburdenings are frequent as we bring mindfulness to the movement. The movement pattern is embodied more fully, and the sensorimotor pathways are restored. Expression of unburdened parts that have restored qualities of freedom and joy anchors the transformation. Simply inviting our clients to move through space with these new qualities of body and mind integrates the shift into daily life.

A regular practice of mindful movement can increase capacity for Embodied Self energy. Martial Arts, Yoga, Alexander Technique, Pilates, and Feldenkrais are some structured mindful movement approaches. Yet we may not need to join another class. We may just need to commit the time to noticing mindfully the movement already happening in our bodies. Our bodies, even in relative stillness, are always moving. The fluids of our bodies each have their own rhythm and are pulsing with various frequencies and paces. Every organ is pulsating with its own energy. Every sensation we feel is a movement waiting and wanting to happen. We can start with our grounding—our navels, our pelvic floors, and our feet. We let go of the tension in our mouths and ask the cortical parts if they are willing to relax a bit. We notice the sensations and invite them to move, breathe, rest, and sound. We notice impulses throughout our bodies to reach, push, pull, yield, and grasp. A regular embodiment practice of attending to sensations and allowing them to move and sequence through to a completion is a beautiful practice for enhancing Embodied Self energy and is a gift we can bring our clients for the new year.

Resources:

Cohen, Bonnie Bainbridge. Sensing, Feeling and Action. Contact Editions, Northampton, MA, 1993.

Juhan, Deane. Job’s Body – A Handbook for Bodywork. Station Hill Press, Barrytown, New York, 1987.

Stern, Daniel N. The Interpersonal World of the Infant. Basic Books, Harper Collins, 1985.

Resonance. I love this word. I like to let the word resonate in my nasal cavity. Concerning how to label this third tool of Somatic IFS, I have vacillated about the adjective before the “Resonance.” Cellular? Too limiting. Limbic? Also too limiting. Somatic? A bit redundant. But Somatic it is, since our entire bodies are the instrument of resonance.

Somatic Resonance is a phenomenon in which bodies impact each other at a vibrational and energetic frequency. It includes concepts of empathy, mirroring, attunement, intuition, and kinesthetic sensing. Somatic Resonance is a mutual process, involving both parties. Just as two finely made violins will resonate to the same vibration when only one string is played, the Embodied Self of the therapist and client reverberate in a somatic duet.

With this tool, we have entered the watery realms of relationship. Somatic Resonance rests on the earthy foundation of Somatic Awareness and is enlivened by the air of Conscious Breathing (see earlier posts here and here). As we cultivate a deep awareness of our bodyminds, we form the foundation for the therapeutic container in Somatic IFS. Within this container, we physiologically witness the nonverbal, implicit stories of our clients’ parts and facilitate in them the state of Embodied Self energy.

Recent advances in neuroscience have identified right-brain structures, including “mirror neurons,” that are a possible neurological basis for mutual attunement and resonance. As mammals, our survival has depended on our ability to be aware of and respond to others’ nonverbal messages. Our limbic brains are central to this process. Limbic resonance is described in a book about the science of human emotions and biological psychiatry, A General Theory of Love, by Lewis, Amini, and Lannon (2000). The authors cite research that suggests that limbic resonance actually revises damaged subcortical structures in relationship—both caregiver/infant and therapist/client. Daniel Seigel (in The Mindful Therapist, 2010) speaks of resonance as

“the alignment of two autonomous beings into an interdependent and functional whole as each person influences the internal state of the other. Our heart rates align, breathing becomes in-sync, nonverbal signals emerge in waves that parallel each other, and … shifts in EEG findings and heart rate variability co-occur … Resonance reveals the deep reality that we are a part of a larger whole … that we are created by the ongoing dance within, between and among us.”

Although the brain and the entire body are involved in Somatic Resonance, the heart is by far the strongest resonating organ. The heart’s electromagnetic field is five thousand times more powerful than the electromagnetic field created by the brain. The heart attunes to the rhythm of the dance “within, between, and among us.”

We may need to restore our heart’s ability to resonate. We have overdeveloped our ability to listen with our ears and brain. We focus on the content in order to understand, to get the facts straight, and to remember them. Our parts learn to insulate our hearts so as not to be overwhelmed by the world’s pain. I’m grateful for help on this path. My first bodywork teacher, knowing my background as a clay artist, encouraged me to listen with my hands to the muscle tissue as I had to the clay. I learned to rely less on technique and to trust that my clients’ flesh would inform me of what it needed. Years of Zen practice revealed to me the limitations of cognitive knowledge. IFS helped my parts to allow me to be receptive—more willing to risk the impact of another’s experience. Now I am learning to listen with my heart and with my whole body.

Not only do I listen with my body, I listen to my body. I listen to my body with at least half of my attention. As I sit across from my clients, I notice a synchronicity of our body symptoms. We may simultaneously cross or uncross our legs or touch our heads or faces. We may match the pace and pitch of our voices and synchronize our breathing. I notice many sensations. The sensations may reveal a personal trailhead, or they may be information about my clients’ inner world that is not yet ready to be fully embodied that finds expression in my own sensations. My body is a consultant in the therapy room.

As therapists, we have been cautioned not to take in our clients’ material. We have believed it is important to discern whether a body symptom is ours or our client’s. Somatic Resonance implies that the sensations emerge within the intersubjective field of the therapeutic relationship. We recall Siegel’s words that a resonant relationship is “an interdependent and functional whole as each person influences the internal state of the other.” Perhaps whose symptom it is matters less than what we do with it. Using the tools of Somatic Awareness and Conscious Breathing, we allow the sensations to reveal their information and then to move through our bodies to a completion.

Recalling the vibrating violins, we know that if we were to touch one of the violins, the reverberations would stop. Our ability to somatically resonate can be blocked by parts that obstruct the natural flow of energy in our bodies. We feel bored, numb, tired, distracted, agitated, or many other physical symptoms. Instead of resonance, we experience somatic dissonance. It is essential for us as therapists to know the triggers that block our resonance and to let the sensations sequence through our bodies to restore our ability to listen with our hearts.

So, in our therapy offices, we hear the somatic soundtrack accompanying the verbal story. With the finely tuned instrument of our Embodied Selves, we reverberate with the implicit song of the client’s parts expressed in posture, gesture, muscular contractions, breathing patterns, dissociation, and sexual energy. Our clients experience this full-bodied listening as the therapeutic relationship is buoyed in resonant relational waters.

Somatic Resonance revises and transforms both the therapist’s and client’s internal systems towards more fully embodied Self-leadership. In a state of Embodied Self, our energetic and vibrational alignment allows us to recognize our functional unity with other beings. We experience our interdependence with all of life and come to realize “the deep reality that we are a part of a larger whole.”

Somatic Resonance, the third tool of the pyramid of Embodied Self, provides a safe container for exploring movement and touch, the last two tools, which will be addressed in future blogposts. If you would like to experience these tools, please join us for a week-long Somatic IFS Retreat in Costa Rica. The first week (Jan. 28–Feb. 4) is for IFS therapists, and the second week (Feb. 4–11) is for IFS clients. The retreats are at Pura Vida Spa. For an application, contact Nancy Berkowitz at drberkowitz@rcn.com.

Today a client reminded me that November, being the month of Thanksgiving, is about being grateful. She told me that recently, as she began feeling some real gratitude for her partner, her view of him started to change. It was a personal reminder to me about how important extending appreciation and practicing kindness are, even in hard times.

The latest research on gratitude demonstrates that it is good for your marriage and good for relationships. A 2009 research study by Nathaniel M. Lambert, Margaret S. Clark, Jared Durtschi, Frank D. Fincham, and Steven M. Graham found that

People who experience and share feelings of gratitude and appreciation with their partner rated their relationship more positively compared to only thinking appreciative thoughts about one’s mate (without vocalizing their appreciation).

These findings suggest that it is the act of communicating appreciation or gratitude that feeds positively into our relationship. In other words, we might notice our partner being generous, think about it, and feel into it, yet forget to verbalize it. The key is in speaking for the noticing.

Other recent research shows that feeling grateful enhances physical health, promotes positive reframing of negative situations, increases life satisfaction, and enhances comfort in voicing relationship concerns.

When times are hard and parts of us are struggling with the person we live with, it is sometimes a challenge to imagine that we would have any part that has anything to be grateful for in the other, let alone say something about it.

If we stop long enough to be present with these parts of us and gently ask them for some space, they just might allow us access to the gratitude and appreciation.

This is in no way a suggestion to override, dismiss, or be in denial of the parts of us that struggle in our relationships. It is, however, an invitation to make room for the rough patches and notice the instances of heartfelt connection—the moments of joy and the times when we do get our needs met.

My husband, Jordan, came up from his meditation yesterday with an insight. He said, “Remember when we got our first puppy and the breeder said, ‘This dog is not in your life to meet your emotional needs?’ Maybe it’s true for us as well. Maybe we are not required in this life to meet all of each other’s needs. What if we framed these as gifts, as kindnesses we give each other, instead of as obligations?” A great insight, don’t you think?

When we make a commitment to a relationship, our partner never agrees to meet all our needs, yet every day he or she shows up in little ways that we often miss.

Here are some helpful tips when practicing gratitude for your partner:

1. Look at the small ways your partner is there for you and express your appreciation verbally. Do it when he or she is available—not as your busy, distracted parts are running out the door.
2. Practice unconditional acts of appreciation. Try helping your parts let go of the need to get it back right away.
3. Once a day, experiment with taking note of your parts that ARE getting their needs met and what IS working in your relationship. Then verbalize it to your partner.

Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
— Voltaire

Newer IFS therapists sometimes become discouraged because the remarkable demonstrations and deeper work experienced in training triads does not occur as frequently in their sessions with clients. It can can feel as though we are doing something wrong if we are unable to get into that Self-led flow that we would like.

So, what is the difference between what we did in triads and what we are doing now in our own office? When not in flow, we have to look two places to see where parts may be getting in the way of the process. One is inside our own system. What is going on that our parts are not allowing us to be in Self at this moment, and what can we do to address this?

Sometimes we are working too hard. We may have thinking parts that are trying to figure out what to say next. Good intentioned as they are, they may interfere with the Self-to-Self relating between the client and us. When that quality of relating is not present, we do not have flow. Therefore, noticing and working with our own parts, including asking them to step aside in session, can help. I often spend a few seconds before I go to greet my client and ask my parts to help me be present with the person I am about to see.

The other place to look when flow is not happening is inside our client’s system. What is going on with him or her that this Self-to-part relationship is not happening, and what can I do to facilitate greater Self-leadership? This is where the questions we learned in the first days of training are so important.

How do you feel toward that part?
What does it want you to know?

These questions often seem to work like magic because they invite the basic ingredient for healing: the relationship between the client’s Self and a part. When the flow is not flowing, it is often because that relationship is not established or is not trusted. Our job, then, is to facilitate an improved relationship by asking the two questions and helping the client’s part to feel genuinely understood. I appreciate that the questions are so simple to remember that they usually do not trigger a thinking part. In fact, in my early IFS days, the simplicity of the IFS questions could trigger my concerns that the client thought I had only a ten-sentence repertoire for therapy. However, asking those parts to step aside was easy because they quickly saw how well the questions worked.

When we consistently remember that our job is to guide the client toward an improved relationship with his or her parts, our work becomes easier. We can ask ourselves, “Is what I’m doing now adding or detracting from the client’s relationship with the part?” When we add to the client’s words, we are often detracting. Instead, we can simply reflect what we heard and introduce a way to be with the part that is often new to the client.

Therapist: “So this part is always trying to figure out what is expected of it, right?”
Client: “Yes.”
Therapist: “Let it know you get that.”

Remembering that this last piece—directing the client to let the part know it is understood—is crucial to creating flow. Because we have just heard about the burden that the part carries, we might want to begin exploring right away how the part took on its role. That is the right path to take, but not until we have enhanced the connection with the part. Sometimes we do that by saying the above words. At other times, we invite the client to just be with the part, and we sit in silence, holding the space for that Self-to-part relationship. We get into flow when the Self of the client can see and be with the part and when the part can see and be with Self. We also get into flow when our Self can see and be with the client and the client’s parts.

Once we sense that the Self-to-part relationship is present, we ask the next question: “What is the part afraid will happen if it stops doing that?” When in flow, a sudden awareness often shows up for the client. The client might be surprised by the answer and say: “This sounds weird (or this doesn’t make any sense), but the part says if it stops…” And there it is—the flow of being inside with the client’s system. From there, we move to exiles and unburdenings, but those only happen if we have created the Self-to-part relationships and remain in flow.

I welcome questions and comments on this and future topics you would like to see in the next Finding Your Way column.

The Somatic IFS tool that rests upon base of the pyramid (Somatic Awareness), is Conscious Breathing. With Somatic Awareness, we uncover and develop our innate capacity to be aware of our bodies. We apply this awareness to our breathing. The act of breathing is largely outside our awareness. Bringing consciousness to it is a simple yet radically effective act. Breathing air into our bodies awakens, nourishes, energizes, and creates more spaciousness and calm. Conscious Breathing, resting on the earthy foundation, provides an airy cushion for the tools of resonance, movement, and touch, which lead to the state of Embodied Self.

Try it now. Just simply notice that you are breathing for several breaths. Does anything change for you in your body or mind? You might want to try to notice your breathing as you continue to read.

The connection between breath and Self/Spirit/Soul is evidenced in many cultures and is reflected in their languages. The Latin spirare is the root for both “spirit” and “respiration in our language.” The Hebrew and Sanskrit words for breath are synonymous with Spirit. The Greek psyche means “breath” and “soul.”

Although technically the lungs occupy a limited space in the body, the breath as prana, as Self Energy, is not limited. Prana is a central concept in Vedantic philosophy, referring to a vital life force comparable to the Chinese notion of Qi. Prana enters the body through the breath and travels to every part of the body, connecting them with this life force.

Awareness of the breath is at the heart of most contemplative practices. It has been said that the Buddha disappeared for a month while he was teaching in northern India. Upon his return, his students discovered that he had been on retreat, practicing Anapanasati (the “full awareness of breathing”). They were perplexed. Why would he spend time in retreat with such a basic practice when he was already enlightened, they asked. He replied very simply: “Because it is a wonderful way to live.”

For me, it’s easier to notice my breath when I have nothing else going on, but it can be challenging to sustain this full awareness of breath—mine and my clients’—while sitting in my therapist chair. But as I cultivate this tool, I have found that it is a wonderful way to do IFS as well as a wonderful way to live. My breath is always available to me.

Conscious Breathing in Somatic IFS doesn’t typically involve particular breathing techniques. However, there are many wonderful breathing techniques from Pranayama Yoga and other Eastern practices. These techniques can influence the sympathetic nervous system to help with regulation of parts-mediated body processes (blood pressure, heart rate, circulation, digestion) and to change subtle energies within the body for health and well-being. These specific breathing techniques also can be useful for unburdening and unblending as well as for accessing Self energy.

The tool of Conscious Breathing reveals the parts and their burdens that affect the mechanism of breathing, and brings Self energy to the parts as they inhabit and use our bodies. Conscious Breathing is useful in every step of the IFS therapy process. I will share some ways I use this tool at the beginning of a session, when working with protectors, exiles, unblending, and polarizations, working with trauma, and the therapeutic relationship.

Are you still aware of your breath?

Beginning a Session

I like to begin by tuning in to my breath. Conscious breathing helps me monitor and regulate my own nervous system and somatic experience and anchor this experience in Self energy. I notice the breathing patterns in my client. I might invite the client to focus on his or her breathing.

To do insight work in IFS, the client needs to be able to go inside. Sometimes they need guidance to do this. Awareness of breath helps the client to turn inward—to slow down, to make space to notice what’s happening inside. Breath is the bridge that carries our clients as they transition from the outer world of activity and things to their inner world of sensation and feeling.

Shunryu Suzuki, in Zen Mind, Beginners Mind, described breath as a swinging door:

“When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world. . . . When your mind is pure and calm enough to follow this movement, there is nothing; no “I,” no world, no mind nor body; just a swinging door.”

Not being enlightened, I still differentiate inner and outer worlds. So when we explore our inner worlds with an abundance of Self energy, information is revealed to us about these inner systems just by noticing our habitual breathing patterns. When Self energy flows on the breath connecting inner worlds and outer worlds, it is contagious.

Working with the Protective System

Manager parts have learned to control feelings by tightening the muscles and fascia. The respiratory muscles of the torso and diaphragm are one of their favorite sites for holding in strong feelings. Once an effective and necessary strategy, the breathing pattern may become chronically restricted, shallow, and rapid. The person has limited access to their emotions and their aliveness, and their physical health is affected. Awareness is the first step to shifting this pattern. Once the muscles finally let go and allow a full breath, the frozen feelings melt and turn to tears.

Our protective system skillfully and diligently uses any part of the body to do its job. I invite my clients to channel their breath to these restricted and armored places. I will say to a client, “Breathe into this tightness (pain, block, numbness, and so on). Let your breath explore the area of tightness, as if it is saying a gentle ‘hello.’ Notice if this tightness feels You present in your breath. ”

Working with Exiles

As the protector’s body armoring begins to melt in response to Self energy through the breath, the feelings, sensations, beliefs, and stories of the ones they have been protecting may spontaneously emerge. We focus on the physical sensations of these exiles with the inbreath, and we send the young parts the qualities they are needing (reassurance, acceptance, presence) on the outbreath.

The core beliefs of the exiles can be revealed in habitual breathing patterns. The beliefs that we are not worthy or loved can be reflected in shallow breaths in the top lobes of the lungs. The client can experience this somatic story of the exile and then experiment with breathing deeply Self qualities of spaciousness and compassion into those restricted areas. Painful emotions and memories may flow as the exile feels connected to this life force. The burdens can be released on the outbreath with sighing and other sounds, and new qualities can enter on the inbreath. Reinstatement of a normal breathing pattern follows.

Unblending

When Self energy in our clients (or in us therapists) is obscured by blended parts, the process of IFS Therapy can be slow going. Conscious Breathing can be a helpful tool when highly verbal, overanalyzing, storytelling protectors don’t trust Self, or when exiles flood the system with their emotions. I bring awareness to the blended situation and suggest to my clients that they momentarily shift their attention to their breath. I invite them to be curious about their breathing. They may laugh and say they were barely breathing. I direct them to focus on the sensations of the inhale and exhale through the nostrils and the movements or restrictions in the torso for several breaths. Depending on the part that has been blended, I may suggest an appropriate breathing technique to bring more Self energy to the part. Once the client feels calmer and more centered, we can proceed to develop a relationship between the previously blended part and their Self.

Polarizations

Breathing patterns, as a rhythmic process of expansion and contraction, are often the place where our polarized parts come to play. Existential issues of life and death are reflected in this core process. Bringing full awareness to the entire process of breathing in and breathing out with exquisite awareness holds the polarization in a place of curiosity and openness where it can be explored.

The polarization may show up somatically with left-right, top-bottom, or front-back splits. The client can breathe into one side of the body and then the other to both parts of the polarization to feel connected to Self energy so the system can move toward depolarization.

Working with Trauma

Physiological reactions to trauma (flight, fight, freezing responses) affect the musculature that controls the breathing patterns. Traumatized parts are frozen in these muscles. Bringing awareness to the pace or quality of the breath can regulate the autonomic nervous system and is effective in navigating the cycling of hyper- and hypo-arousal. With a few full breaths, the client has more access to Self energy and can possibly avoid the blending and dissociation that often accompanies processing traumatic memories.

Therapeutic Relationship

Within the therapeutic dyad, I find that my breath can be affected by my clients—becoming more rapid or shallow, for example. Noticing this, I intentionally shift my breath—breathing deeply into my sides and back, and resting at the end of each exhale—and I soon feel more centered and grounded. My breathing pattern may in turn affect my client’s, resulting in a shift in my client toward more Self energy.

Sometimes I intentionally synchronize my breath with my clients’ for a few breaths. It helps me to attune to the feeling state that my client may only be expressing nonverbally. This segues into the next tool—Somatic Resonance—which will be the topic of my next blogpost. In the meantime, I continue to look forward to your comments. And let’s all continue to experience awareness of our breathing—a wonderful way to live!

A question frequently arises in trainings about how to introduce IFS to the client. In training triads, we just say: “Is there a part you would like to work with?” and almost instantly we are helping the client work with an identified part. No wonder it is confusing when we return to our offices and realize we have no words to help shift from “Hello, my name is Mary. Did you have any trouble finding the office?” to “Would you like to go inside and focus on a part?”

For the client who is truly curious about the IFS framework, we can give a brief overview. Here is a sample of what you might say to a client who wants help with her fears of intimacy:

Let me explain how this model of therapy works. It is based on the idea that we all have a core Self that embodies our essence and all of our finest qualities, like compassion, creativity, and wisdom. We are born with these qualities, this Self, this Spirit. And as we begin dealing with and relating to the world, we develop inner protectors—parts that want to keep us safe from harm or pain. Some parts do this in an outwardly positive way. For example, I have a part, developed in childhood, that feared appearing stupid. This part actually helped me to be a diligent student and a hard worker. However, the fears of this part sometimes kept me quite anxious and unable to trust my own ability. Other parts protect us in ways that have a more negative effect. For example, a part might learn to use alcohol to keep us from feeling fear or pain. This part has found an effective tool to manage our inner hurt despite the damage it causes to health, judgment, or relationships. In the IFS Model, we help parts heal not by pushing them away, but by getting to know them better and understanding the underlying hurts. When we heal those wounds, parts then do not need to lead or be so extreme because they begin to trust that we are now safe.

You mentioned that you have a part that always seems to sabotage your relationships. Would you like to get to know that part better to see if we can help it? Okay, how does that scared part show up? Do you notice it physically, in or around your body? (And now we’re in.)

Many clients, however, do not want or need this much explanation, so I usually do not lead with it. After I have done an intake and have a sense of the presenting issues, I usually say: “I would like to give you a taste of how I would begin to help you with this issue so you can see whether I am the therapist you would like to work with. Does that sound okay?” There is almost always a yes answer to that. Then I use the same language as above. “You mentioned you have a part that gets scared and sabotages your relationships…”

Sometimes our explanations of the Model happen in the course of the session because when we begin the IFS language, the client asks more questions.

Client: Parts? You think I have parts?

Therapist: Yes, I think we all have parts. We say it all the time. Part of me wants to do this. Part of me wants to do that. In this model, we do not just listen to those inner messages—we get into dialogue with them and begin to truly understand them.

Or, we introduce the idea that all parts have a positive intention:

Therapist: Can you ask this part how it is trying to help you?

Client: Help me? Are you kidding? You think this part is trying to help me?

Therapist: Yes, all our parts are trying to help us, even if we are not yet able to see how.

We even continue to teach the Model with a longer-term client. Here’s one who knows and works rather well with her parts. But this small exchange helps her understand her own system better.

Client: I hate this part that makes me eat all the time. And, I know, I know, I’m not supposed to hate my parts.

Therapist: It makes sense that a part of you hates the part that makes you eat. And it’s not that you are not supposed to hate your parts. The fact is that it is not you that hates the part; it is another part. Let’s see if it needs to say more or if it would be willing to step aside so that you can be with the part that eats.

These dialogues may offer ideas to use as you are creating the words that fit your style and your client’s comfort. I also send clients to the About IFS link on the Center for Self Leadership website or to the IFS Store to purchase Dick Schwartz’s book Introduction to the Internal Family Systems Model. Many of my clients easily find themselves in these pages and gain a greater understanding of the IFS path to healing.

In my last blogpost, I introduced Somatic IFS and the five tools that lead to a state of Embodied Self energy, which is so crucial to the practice of IFS. This post focuses on somatic awareness.

Awareness of our bodies is fundamental to Somatic IFS. Somatic awareness is the first of the tools that make up the pyramid and the foundation. As the base, it is the largest, not only in terms of size but also importance and the amount of time we use the tool.

All the other four tools rest and depend on somatic awareness. They flow organically from awareness and lead to an experience of Embodied Self. With somatic awareness, we can be conscious of our breath, our body is available as an instrument of resonance with another, our movements will be integrated and coherent, and our touch can be an open, sensitive channel of communication.

Somatic awareness is our birthright. As I hold my newborn granddaughter, it seems to me she is only aware of her body sensations as she roots for the breast, yawns, sneezes, cries, and sucks on her fist. She is aware of temperature, sounds, and textures from her skin receptors, and she responds to them with her entire body. Her eyes seem to be looking inward. By the age of two months, she has begun to expand her awareness to include the outside world as she smiles and sticks out her tongue in response to the faces I make.

For many of us, it is this interaction with the outside world that begins to limit our inherent capacity for awareness. The wounds that happen to our vulnerable, open systems happen to our bodies. The wounds eventually scar over with layers of protection, and these are also in our bodies. Our protective parts find ingenious ways to try to keep somatic states out of our awareness. Cut off from our sensate experience, we are cut off from our deepest knowing, from our sensual pleasures, from our relationships with others, and with the natural world. At our core, we long to regain intimacy with our bodily experience and to explore the intricacies of communication of our tissue, viscera, bone, and fluids.

IFS offers a powerful method to heal the nearly inevitable dissociation from our body awareness that occurs during our lifetime, even the extreme dissociation that occurs as a result of extremely harmful situations. Simply having a willingness to be aware is a place to start. A client many years ago taught me about how to begin the process. We acknowledged her dissociation as a necessary and even brilliant response to her trauma. Then she was able to notice the tip of one small finger for 5 seconds before she was flooded with feelings. We slowly reassociated her awareness of her body. Eventually she was able to restore her awareness to her entire body and notice the sensations she liked and those she didn’t.

Awareness implies Self energy. Awareness evokes Self energy. When, in any given moment, a part is dominating our lives and we bring awareness to that fact, it’s as if we have brought a ray of light into a dark room. Awareness that we are withdrawing, or that we are speaking critically, opens the door to options other than spinning our wheels. When we bring awareness to that set of feelings and behaviors, curiosity can follow, and more internal space is created.

We can begin with scanning our bodies and noticing what is easily in our awareness and what is less in our awareness. We enjoy the sensations that are there and get curious about the places in our body that are harder to notice. We find the parts that contribute to the blocks, the numbing, and the dissociation. We discover how they accomplish their jobs. We learn that they believe they are protecting us. We appreciate them for this important work, and we may learn what happened for them to believe they had to do this cutting off. They may admit they are tired of it and would long to not have to do it. It is hard work to block such an inherent, powerful capacity as our body awareness.

We explore whether it is truly safe now to shift this bodymind organization. Parts may be willing to trust in a little body awareness for a little time, like the client I mentioned above. We may discover more of the story as the block lets go slightly and other body sensations or feelings emerge.

If we can stay with sensations over time, we notice that they change. Often the sensation lessens—the muscle tension releases and may be replaced by pleasurable sensations of tingling or warmth. Or the more vulnerable parts may want to express through different body sensations. They may get stronger as they notice they are finally being listened to and want to “talk” louder and longer. We can ask the sensations to stay at a tolerable limit, reassuring them we won’t ignore them. Staying with sensations alone, and asking the associated emotions, thoughts, and narratives to hold off, is helpful when the client is on the verge of being flooded or overwhelmed with the hurtful situation from the past.

In addition to bringing our awareness to the body, the body also has its own capacity for awareness. When freed from the burdens it carries from trauma and attachment wounds, our body is a wonderful resource for awareness.

Every cell of our body hums with awareness. Each organ has its own awareness that communicates with other awarenesses. There are the organs of perception—sensory receptors of the skin, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and musculoskeletal proprioceptors. In addition, each of our 80 trillion cells is busy exchanging information and communicating with other cells, with the larger systems of the body, and so on, ad infinitum. Each cell knows about connection, one of the qualities of Self. Through the act of breathing, each cell is connected with the outer environment in a continual exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The proprioceptor cells as well as structures in each cell, which have an awareness of the action of gravity and our relationship to our vertical alignment, help us feel centered and grounded.

Each of the trillions of cells in our body contributes to a larger field of Self energy that we always have available to us. Simply connecting with some aspect of our body—our spine, our feet, our pelvis—can help us access this Self energy when our parts are taking over all the energy of our mind.

In my next blogpost, I will focus on the second of the five tools—conscious breathing.

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