IFS • As We Evolve, Everything Evolves
What happens when a manager's old strategies no longer fit your life?
Hello IFS Friends!
Recently I’ve been working with one of my managers named the Farmer, who goes out into the world to find resources like IFS trainings or sound baths to help us evolve. He is a ‘farmer’ of consciousness, trying to plant, nurture, and cultivate new crops of higher awareness and Self-energy.
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