Reorganize From The Inside Out
Photo by SevenStorm JUHASZIMRUS: https://www.pexels.com/photo/red-rose-438379/
I help my clients create lives that they really want and enjoy. To do that, I first help them begin to imagine what that life looks like. By the time we finish Phase 1 of our coaching, my clients have identified a project which is described by an Aspirational Result Statement. The Aspirational Result State is a present tense description of the outcome the client wishes to experience.
Focusing on four categories of life; Career, Relationships, Well-being, and Fun and Joy, the client identifies the most important change or improvement they would make in each of these categories. We explore the problems their desired change or improvement will solve and then explore what then might be possible. From this information my clients craft Aspirational Result Statements for each category, and select one. This will be their Self-Led Project and will serve as our objective during the first round of coaching.
It is called their Self-Led Project because they will achieve the results they want by accessing internal resources that have, until now been inaccessible. These resources are only available when we reclaim our innate power as the authentic Self. Round 1, Phase 1 is complete when the Self-Led Project has been identified and declared.
There are three reasons the client hasn’t already realized their Aspirational Result.
They lack the clarity to know what they want,
They don’t believe they deserve what they want, and
They have been unconsciously and automatically producing the results they have always gotten.
In Phase 2, Identify the Cycle, we use an example from the client’s life to identify the cycle that prevents them from having the result they want. In Phase 3, I help the client understand and appreciate the cycle. In Phase 4, the client becomes reorganized from the inside out.
Understanding the cycle can make all the difference for clients. Once they understand that they are in an unworkable cycle, and that the cycle is automatic, clients have a variety of reactions.
1. Some clients initially feel hopeless – “If this cycle is automatic and unconscious, how am I ever to break out of it?”
2. Some clients become more determined and committed to breaking the cycle and changing their lives – “If this cycle is automatic and unconscious, I will consciously make better choices and take better actions.”
For clients who feel hopeless, I offer hope. For those who are determined, I offer a path.
Let’s start with those who recognize the automaticity of their lives and feel hopeless. For them, the frustration and disappointment of life finally makes sense. But for these individuals, their awareness is coupled with despair. Many blame themselves and use their new insight as a weapon to beat themselves up. This, too, is part of the cycle they are stuck inBut if they are willing to try something different, these individuals can change their lives like many of my clients have.
For those who become more determined when realizing that their reactions to life are automatically producing the results they are unhappy with, I offer a compassionate and transformative path.
There are several paths to a transformed life. Some use willpower. They consciously choose to react differently when recognizing they are back in the cycle. Use of willpower is often coupled with the negative but effective strategy of self-shaming. These individuals have the right idea: the choices they make must change to stay out of the unworkable cycle and adopt a new one that works. But shaming and willpower are tools of the conscious mind and are defeating and disempowering. The cycle is being generated by the unconscious mind which is far more powerful than the conscious mind.
The path I propose replaces shaming with curiosity and willpower with the willingness to try something new. I teach my clients a process that empowers the unconscious to automatically generate the results they want. A new, equally automatic cycle can be created that generates results with ease.
Armed with clarity about what they want and the awareness that they themselves hold the keys to getting it, it’s time to get to work. For those who have developed enough Self-leadership, the process is straightforward. But for those new to the model, the development of Self-leadership must be learned and practiced.
To help with this, I offer a basic IFS Process group. Over the course of 16 weeks, my clients learn about the IFS model and learn how to use it to understand and appreciate themselves and their automatic choices and behaviors. What they think, feel, choose, and do begins to make sense to them. It is during the process of getting to know the internal family of ‘parts’ that influence our thoughts, feelings, choices, and behaviors that Self-Leadership is developed.
For some, it becomes apparent that past traumas will require deeper work using the same skillset developed in the IFS process group. These are often the same clients who respond with despair when realizing the automaticity of their reactions and results.
Others find that repeating the basic IFS Process group or moving on to a Second Level group helps them learn the practical application of the IFS model in their lives.
While the journey may be longer for some than others, the destination remains the same: the development of Self-leadership which results in the ability to respond with compassion and wisdom in the face of life’s challenges.
When the client is ready, we return to the process of breaking up the cycle that prevents them from getting the results they want. We do this by getting to know and understand the parts of the internal family that are in need of healing and updating. The IFS model can and does accomplish this when practiced and applied to any objective.
I designed the third group, Self-Led Results for clients who have reorganized themselves from the inside out. They have become so Self-resourced that they are able to intentionally break out of unworkable patterns and achieve their Aspirational Results.
The path begins where you are and takes you where you want to be.
Are you ready to get started?
New IFS Process groups are forming now for introduction to the internal family systems model. For more information, complete the IFS Process Group Interest from found here.
