In several of my blog articles, I disclose much of my history which includes addiction and recovery, being traumatized as a child and then traumatizing my own children as I passed on to them what was given to me.

Thanks to the work I’ve been introduced to and supported by which includes AA, ACA, Alanon, and Coda 12 step programs, Bioenergetics, talk therapy, Landmark Education, The Work of Byron Katie, life coaching, and now IFS, I’ve changed and continue to change as I heal and grow.

The 12 step programs helped me realize I wasn’t the only broken and shameful person on the planet and that there was a safe place to admit I had problems. While 12-step programs probably saved my life, I outgrew them pretty quickly. I continued to attend meetings and to apply the steps and principles, hoping I had missed something that would answer my question, What’s missing? This was the first profound awakening for me and it resulted in long term and lasting abstinence from alcohol and other addictive mood altering substances. But I was still a mess and I knew it. Getting sober, I hoped would solve all my problems. But I soon realized that without the help of alcohol, I was raw and exposed.

I was only about 2 years sober when a friend and I were looking for a Primal Therapist and found a Bioenergetics Therapist in Vancouver Washington. For 6 months we beat pillows, threw tantrums on mattresses, twisted towels while screaming obscenities, and literally shook, screamed, and cried out years of stored up emotional energy. This was my second profound awakening and resulted in a permanent internal shift from deep insecurity that manifested as insane, insecure, jealous husband (extreme codependence) to complete detachment from my first wife. I realized after that what I thought was “in love” was more accurately considered “in desperate need.” Without the drive of childhood insecurity, I lost interest in my wife and the marriage began to unravel. If she hadn’t died a couple of years later of a brain tumor, the marriage certainly would have ended in divorce.

My rebound marriage felt like a life sentence in hell for the sins of my first marriage. Where I had been the crazy insecure person before, I was now married to someone that was even more broken than I had been. After 8 ½ years my murderous rage scared me enough to convince me to leave and thank god I did. Now free of hellish marriage #2, I was terrified that if I didn’t find some help, I would unconsciously repeat the same experience.

I stayed single for 12 years and made a commitment to do whatever I needed to develop the capacity to be in a healthy relationship. During that time I had my third profound awakening. I was introduced to The Work of Byron Katie and learned, at the age of 47 to look inside for change. Even Bioenergetics hadn’t done that for me. I had been externally focused my entire life, connecting my inner pain and suffering to external events and attempting to alter external conditions to manage my internal turmoil. Byron Katie worked for me and I embraced it for the next 15 years. In the meantime, I met my current wife and we have a happy and wonderful marriage.

I became a life coach in 2011 using The Work with my clients. In 2016, I landed back in therapy. I’d been involved in talk therapy off and on for over 30 years and it had been helpful. But this time I had an IFS therapist and I began to experience my fourth profound awakening. I didn’t really understand what my therapist Brenda was doing. In fact, it felt a lot like shamanism (which my inner skeptic didn’t trust) to me. But it worked. I was there to get help with my confidence after a disappointing one-year coach training experience. After four sessions, my performance and approval-based confidence was replaced by authentic, humble confidence in my being.

Now I’m a Certified IFS Practitioner and use IFS with all my coaching clients who teach me how best to use the IFS model. It’s not the same for everyone. I’ve found it best for me to be aware that my clients are influenced by their parts without attempting to impose that view upon them. As a coach, I have learned to stay focused on what the client wants to achieve and to use their language and their expert experience of their own lives to guide the coaching. I haven’t yet had a client that IFS couldn’t help.