• This applies to all groups, but is particularly important to ‘classes’ where there is a ‘teaching’ goal, like the Four Techniques class

Is this a learning class or a personal work
/ personal practice class? 

This is a personal work / practice class in which we will, along the way, learn and practice four techniques for doing our personal IFS work. 

My experience of learning IFS in the traditional IFS community: there’s a tension between learning the model and doing one’s inner work WHEN managers run the trainings. Managers set up this tension because they're afraid of the messiness and chaos that arises when they can’t control the learning process — and it's true, the learning process can not be controlled if the focus is on personal work and practice. 

Therefore, I want to set up expectations correctly! My focus in this class is on helping each one of you DO and DEVELOP your own personal IFS practice with yourself and your parts. The techniques — the ostensible ‘focus’ of each class — are only there to give us a structure to work with, like the backboard to hit a tennis ball against. 

The four techniques are tools we are going to hold LIGHTLY, very LIGHTLY, in the SERVICE OF doing inner work.

The larger goal of the classes is always to create a safe space where we can vulnerably engage with our parts, at whatever level feels safe and comfortable for us at the moment. Within that larger goal, we have this structure of noodling with a particular technique during each class — but the inner work comes first, learning the technique comes second. Because the techniques are super easy! There’s nothing very complex about each technique. The true learning is the EXPERIENCE and practice with the techniques. 

So with the clarity that the class is for personal work / practice — we can hold the techniques lightly during the class. There is no “right” way to use the conference table or to make a mind map or to pick a puppet or to do parts art. Along the way, YOU can determine which, if any, of these techniques ends up appealing to you as a method to do inner work. 

As you may know about me, puppets are my absolute, deeply preferred method of working with parts, so for sure I use that 90% of the time, and rarely use the other techniques. However, when a LOT of parts come up or a tricky decision confronts me, a conference table can help clear through a pile of parts to begin getting traction. A mind map sometimes helps when an issue comes up that seems to have too many different nodes of parts to cope with. So I invite you to internalize and embrace the techniques that work for you, and leave the ones that don’t behind!