Hello IFS friends!

One of the top causes of human distress is other people.

We’re often on the receiving end of patterns that friends, partners, and sundry folks impose upon us—intentionally or unintentionally. Then their patterns activate our patterns, and off to the races we go.

Many therapy and coaching sessions are dedicated to unraveling what happened in a particular interaction.

After the incident, we find ourselves carrying leftover, unprocessed emotions.

IFS is outstanding at helping us unravel these experiences because we can identify the parts of ourselves that got triggered, and we can also make educated guesses about the parts of the other person that were involved. By separating the experience into parts, we gain greater clarity about what unfolded.

One classic IFS technique for doing this is the Room Technique. You put the person—or the part of the person—that triggered you in a room, letting your parts know they’re safe from that person. You can imagine the room with soundproof walls, invisible glass, or whatever helps your parts feel protected.

Once you’re situated, you notice what parts arise in response to the person in the room. One at a time, you get a sense of everything this person triggers in you. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by a big knot of multiple parts all reacting in different directions, you end up with an orderly arrangement of individual parts, each carrying its own reaction.

If you’d like to learn—or deepen your understanding of—this classic IFS technique for working with parts that are triggered by other people or situations (world events, for instance), I invite you to join the Room Technique workshop next Saturday, July 18, from 11 -1 pm CT.

IFS to the rescue! Melissa

Hello IFS friends!

As excited as I usually am about parts work, hold your hat! I’m even more excited today!

This weekend I offered an IFS skills class about using finger puppets to externalize parts. It was AMAZING because finger puppets TRANSFORM IFS. Everyone in the group noticed that connecting with their parts was faster, more natural, and more playful when they could see their parts in front of them as plushies, stickers, or finger puppets.

Puppets make unblending easier because all techniques for externalizing parts make unblending easier. The difference is: finger puppets are soft, cute, and embodied—so they help us go beneath protective managers to access deeper, smaller parts.

Finger puppets, unlike externalization techniques on paper, help pull us out of our heads and into a direct, somatic relationship with our inner world.

Also, their cuteness naturally increases compassion. It’s much easier to feel warmth toward a little fox or bunny than toward an abstract idea.

Also, because many puppets are animals, they bring surprising extra qualities—this eagle manager “flies above,” this jellyfish firefighter “floats in the sea”—which also adds new dimensions to the work.

I’ve known that finger puppets radically turbocharge IFS work because they did exactly that for me over 20 years ago!

I’m so convinced that finger puppets are one of the most powerful ways to support IFS work, I’m going to offer a monthly drop-in IFS + Finger Puppets Practice Group.

You don’t need experience with puppets (or even any puppets at home)—use plushies, stickers, or other objects (there’s a full list at ifsfingerpuppets.com).

The first group is Saturday, August 8, 11 am–1 pm CT.

HOWEVER! If this idea is as exciting to you as it is to me, please reach out and I will schedule one in July!! I’m not sure I can wait until August to start!!

With great exuberance,
Melissa

Decluttering is on my mind—and even inside my mind.

I’ve been thinking about how IFS is a form of mental decluttering.

Many of us are weighed down by the excess baggage of unresolved emotional hurts we’ve been carrying since childhood.

I’ve been doing a lot of vibe coding lately: I approach it exactly like my house and my consciousness: no stray code left behind. After every session, I prune everything that isn’t needed.

I can feel how satisfying it is to have lean, organized coding projects. In the same way, I feel relief when I go to bed at night and nothing in my house is staring at me saying, “Aw, you didn’t get to me today, huh?”

The more lightly we travel—with our schedules, possessions, projects, and psychological baggage—the lighter life becomes. Things are more fun, peaceful, and nourishing when we’re not dragging excess stuff behind us like a flock of ragged albatrosses.

IFS isn’t just for trauma and old wounds, although the unburdening process helps clear them out better than anything else I know.

IFS can also help us transform our daily lives by working with protectors who hold on to what no longer serves us.

If you’re curious about how IFS can help you streamline your schedule, home, or projects, I invite you to join me for the next class in the IFS in Daily Life series: Why Can’t I Let Things Go? on Tuesday, June 30, from 3–5 PM Central.

We’ll let go of June—and maybe a few other things, too.

Because less is more,
Melissa

This year, I had a RADICAL adventure with my parts.

A wave of energy to declutter my house came over me in late December, so I started the pruning process as I usually do, going through areas, culling a bit here and there.

Some time in early January, a part named Rumpelstiltskin appeared—a little man with a fiery attitude. He was INCENSED at our decluttering ineptitude. “This is NOT enough. You don’t know what you’re doing! This will take a million years. We need to cut, cut, cut! Not nip and trim!” My other parts, not used to being insulted and bossed around, did NOT appreciate his approach. He got MADDER.

“It all needs to GO!” He shouted, stomping his foot down so hard it went right through the floor.

“Oh great, I just broke my leg. I need to go to the parts hospital!” he exclaimed.

My parts have been expressing themselves through symbolic injuries for years, which is why the parts hospital (Hogwarts’ infirmary) is in demand. So off he went to the magical hospital.

Everyone sent flowers.

Things were quiet on the decluttering front for a few weeks while he was recovering.

Then he reappeared, leg healed, with ENORMOUS energy. “Now that everyone had a chance to adjust to my energy, we can WORK!”

I became a whirling dervish of radical reduction. It was ASTONISHING. Even though I’ve been minimizing for years (and I’ve taken some pretty deep dives into letting go of things), this was next level.

I made pass after pass after pass, particularly in my kitchen. Initially I had open shelving on one wall with seven thin, three-foot long, 4” shelves, and a main cabinet of all my glassware with five shelves. By the end, I’d let go of so many bottles, bowls, and glasses I dismantled the open shelves and sold them to a nonprofit that helps immigrants in my neighborhood, AND I took two of the five shelves out of the main cabinet. THIS is what Rumpelstiltskin meant: RADICAL decluttering. Paring down to only what I actually use and nothing held “in reserve” “because I might need it.”

This same tornado of “out!” hit every area of my house: clothes, books, papers, hardware, computer cords, you name it.

I got rid of my STOVE! I use Instant Pots instead, so I replaced the range with a chest freezer.

This EXTREME declutter lasted around five months, January-May. On the other side, I’m still finding things to let go of but I live in a totally different house. It’s easier to clean. It’s calm. It’s relaxing. It radiates peace! I had no idea that when you own less, your entire nervous system can relax, and there’s less hanging over your head that feels like it needs to be done.

I’ve always been an organizing genius, but Tetris-ing your way to a house that ‘works’ isn’t the same thing as having an ultra-functional home where everything has a place and a lot of space around that place—where cabinets and closets and drawers are EASY to use because they’re only 1/2 or 2/3 full.

This last Rumpelstiltskin-led pass at minimizing has certainly been the most powerful, but it’s built on over a decade of deep decluttering. I’ve used a TON of techniques to achieve the essentialism I now embody, from The Minimal Mom Podcast, the Nourishing Minimalism Facebook group, Marie Kondo’s books and Netflix series, and much more.

But above all, I used IFS to work with my parts to let go of things. And on the other side of this journey, I’m inspired to offer an IFS workshop on the last day of June: “Why Can’t I Let Things Go?” We’ll befriend the parts who need things “just in case,” explore the impact of clutter on our capacity to be Self-led, and discover what we truly need to create more spaciousness in our homes and lives—because decluttering isn’t just for things, it’s also for old relationships and events we may need to prune or pare back as well.

To spaciousness in your life, inside and out,

Melissa

Like many managers who keep doing their jobs using old techniques that aren’t adjusted to our current lives, the Farmer is in need of updating.

Twenty-five years ago, I was at the tail end of hanging out with actors, musicians, and artists while sometimes performing as a storyteller; I was enrolled in a Master’s program in Performance Studies at Northwestern.

But I was transitioning to a more meditative, inward, spiritual life—I took a summer class on Tibetan Buddhism as part of my Master’s and started a very intense Korean Taoist meditation practice with the Dahn Center, which culminated in completely letting go of my former lifestyle and personality, including dropping out of grad school to go to Energy Healer school. Which was a great decision!

Twenty-five years ago, ANY environment that offered a way to go inward was the right direction. Kirtan, sound healing, yoga, Rolfing, acupuncture, process work, Alexander Technique—everything was new, everything was a step up. It was an exciting time of tremendous growth and novelty. I look back on it with delight.

I also started going to every IFS training I could find—and there weren’t many, back in the day. I eventually spent fifteen years taking 2 Level 1s, 5 Level 2s, 13 Level 3s, and dozens of additional IFS trainings. I went all in on IFS, and I have no regrets!

In the beginning, the Farmer’s job was easy: find an alternative event or modality, then go and try it!

As I grew, I gradually retained only the methods I got the most out of. I committed deeply to the Discipline of Authentic Movement and IFS. I let a lot of others go, including meditation, because I find IFS more effective for me personally.

The Farmer hasn’t had as much to do since I stopped taking IFS trainings after a good run from 2002–2017. But when I’m in a phase of deeper transformation like I currently am, the Farmer gets activated. He can feel the system trying to level up and wants to contribute. Can he find a teacher, class, or method that could bring us more energy than we can cultivate on our own?

The answer is less often than it once was, because after doing 10,000 hours of IFS training and personal practice, I can drop into my exiles immediately and move through witnessing and unburdening with tremendous ease. IFS gives you the power, in the long run, to be your own witness. That’s part of its magic.

This means that the more the Farmer researches and thinks and gathers information online to find events and classes, the more other parts feel annoyed and distracted by his searching. His findings look good on paper, but energetically--the teachers aren’t compatible with where we are now, or the containers are leaky, or the groups aren’t curated enough.

As we evolve, EVERYTHING in our life evolves. Who we can accept as teachers, as friends, as partners, as students. Self-transformation doesn’t care what it dissolves: old patterns, old relationships, it’s all the same material. Evolution entails loss. There’s no way around it.

But we gain as we lose. Less really is more. Our schedules and lives become clearer and easier. Our managers have less to manage! This allows them to relax and make space for Self-energy.

If you’d like to explore how helping managers transform can help your entire system shift, I invite you to join the monthly IFS Sunday class on June 14: From Inner Critics to Inner Coaches. We always meet once a month on Sunday from 2:30-4:30 pm CT. There are two spaces available.

Particularly if you’re looking for support with your own IFS work, with some IFS teaching in the mix, I invite you to consider this monthly group as a way to connect with your parts and continue to grow in your personal IFS practice.

To endless self-transformation!
Melissa

I used to go to a few IFS workshops every year for around a decade—Esalen, Mexico and Kripalu. They were the highlights of my year—five or seven days dedicated to just doing IFS and being with my parts as fully as I could.

One year, the first day at Kripalu, I had to announce a finger puppets workshop I was going to offer later that week.

Before standing up in front of ~50 people, I checked in with my parts and reassured them that all we had to do was talk about the workshop clearly. Otherwise, it was a low stakes moment—I had confidence we could talk for 30 seconds without too much stress.

I did a perfectly adequate job explaining the workshop, but afterwards one of my stronger managers—the green crocodile—told me I had failed. It handed me a report with a big fat F.

This was puzzling, because I did not fail at all. I explained the workshop coherently and was reasonably well received.

This led me to spend the rest of that week working intensely with the green crocodile. I learned a lot about how inner critics work. I saw up close the distortions they experience in perceiving reality and how powerfully they often miscommunicate.

It ended up being “the Green Crocodile Retreat.”

I went into that week with a very strong inner critic.

I walked out with a very strong inner coach.

The green crocodile transformed from a part that menaced and frightened my other parts into one of the most supportive, encouraging, and loving managers in my system.

My managers all have enormous confidence in their capacity to transform because of how the green crocodile led the way.

And I have enormous confidence in the capacity of managers to transform, because I’ve experienced it so many times inside myself.

If you struggle with inner critics and want to explore their capacity for transformation, I invite you to join “Befriending Our Inner Critics” on Sunday, June 14 from 2:30-4:30 pm central.

If you want to learn more about the exact details of what the Green Crocodile was doing when it gave us an ‘F’ and how it transformed to an ‘A,’ you can read my very first Substack about it here.

Melissa at Kripalu, 2007

To befriending inner enemies and finding beloved new friends,
Melissa

I’m thinking about inner conflicts around getting things done in preparation for this Wednesday’s class on Working with Protectors in Daily Life.

The more IFS I do, the less inner stress I experience. What were once wars have resolved into battles, then skirmishes, and now diplomatic conversations in friendly settings.

Despite not being heated, there are still the same polarizations in my system that I hear in most people – they’re just at a low simmer instead of a rolling boil.

Managers who feel disappointed and impatient with “not getting enough done.”

Firefighters who say, “We need time to rest and recuperate!” If I don’t relax enough, they generally steal low-quality entertainment time at night through watching TV or scrolling instead of going to bed on time.

Before IFS, I was a private tutor, and this was the top stalemate undermining my struggling students. Smart, great kids who couldn’t focus on schoolwork because their firefighters needed a break, but their managers kept pushing past empty.

I think a lot of us are caught in this spiral because the world outside us has become more demanding while few of us have found sustainable ways to reduce overwhelm.

The process of bringing deeper peace to this conflict isn’t something that can be solved in a workshop; it’s something to start living into through new lenses and by identifying IFS trailheads to walk down with the parts in your system.

I know some of the solutions are decluttering, inner peace talks, and maintaining an ongoing IFS practice.

If you’re looking for more techniques to work with your protectors on your own, I’m offering one of my foundational IFS Four Techniques workshops this Saturday from 11 AM–1 PM Central: Parts Mapping! It’s one of the most accessible and easy-to-use written techniques in classical IFS.

There are more technique classes coming up, including Parts Art and Using Finger Puppets or Other Objects.

A follow-up to this week’s class on polarization around getting things done will be a decluttering class in June.

My goal is to be of support, wherever you are on your IFS journey!

Melissa 2007

To more inner peace through parts work,

Melissa