Can I do IFS on myself? Internal Family Systems Therapy

[Music] good day to you my name is connor mcmillan i'm a life coach i've been doing life coaching since 2013 and in 2014 i was trained in ifs therapy from the center of self leadership which is now called ifs institute and uh around 2014 probably from 2014 to 2017 2018 i did almost entirely ifs sessions with clients and i found it absolutely incredible since then i've blended my ifs practice into my coaching and i currently work with all sorts of people to establish self-responsibility and self-leadership so that is my background that is uh why i'm qualified to speak on this subject but more importantly this particular subject which i'm going to answer the question can i practice ifs therapy on myself more importantly i have a lot of personal experience that i want to share with you regarding practicing ifs on myself so the very first uh short answer is yes the answer is yes with an exclamation point and an absolutely following it you can absolutely 100 practice ifs therapy on yourself and in fact i think that arguably has the most potential for power for healing for growth and while it is absolutely amazing to find a really good ifs therapist the reality is that the supply is limited and the demand is high so it may not be reasonable for you to find an ifs therapist and to be quite frank it's not necessary in my own journey i have used ifs on myself as my sole therapist like me stepping into the therapist role for myself probably 99 and one percent i have used external therapists to help add additional support or maybe help get through a particular stuck piece that i was struggling with but primarily 99 of my personal ifs journey i have done with myself for myself by myself so not only is it possible i think it's a fantastic option and i would really love to empower you to be able to do this work on your own so i'm going to talk about that process a little bit more in this video i'm going to talk about my personal experience with that process a little bit later in the video but right now while i still have your attention i also want to bring your focus to a program that we created at internalfamilysystems.org which will help you do exactly that it will help you step into self-therapy and self-leadership and self-empowerment by taking the ifs protocols simplifying them and giving you action steps and exercises to begin practicing those ifs protocols and by the time the program is completed not only can i guarantee that you will identify healing that you've created in your system but you're also going to have a tool that you can use for the rest of your life and not just for yourself but how you relate and connect with other human beings and it's going to be incredibly beneficial and positive for about the same cost as one or possibly two ifs sessions with a therapist so again i'm not knocking finding a therapist i think that can be incredibly valuable and for some people it's more important than trying to learn how to do it on your own at least initially but for most of us i think learning how to practice ifs at home on our own time on our own terms is the way to go and i really want to empower as many people as i can to do that so check us out at internalfamilysystems.org and learn more about this super powerful program designed for you now that we've established that the answer is yes you can absolutely do ifs therapy on yourself the next question is well how how do i get started doing that so i'm going to share my own story very briefly uh around 2012 i had a big shift in my life and i was really struggling and around 2013 i heard a podcast regarding ifs i think it was like an hour and a half long podcast and i was working in my garage doing different things and just listening to this podcast and by the end of the podcast i i think i literally like my whole system had shifted just by this very simple perspective understanding or this perspective shift which was viewing my systems my system as having multiple parts and that was all it took to really create this like major shift in how i viewed myself and it brought immediate relaxation to me so just understanding ifs i think provides a sense of healing after i i heard this podcast i started understanding my system as parts i think it was like that night or the next day i bought a book uh and i started reading articles and watching more youtube videos on ifs and i basically designed for myself different ways to tap into these different parts i learned about self energy which i'm not going to go into all the specifics of ifs in this video but i learned about self energy and i learned how to identify if i was in self-energy this is a place of mindfulness or presence this is the place that we want to really cultivate in ifs and develop a really strong connection with and really be in as much as we possibly can so i started building that connection and from that place i started to connect with different parts of my system so the way that i did this was very similar to what a therapist would potentially have you do although you know different therapists do different things right of course but uh many of them have been trained in the same institute and have been taught these same protocols and same approaches one of those is to do what's called a drop-in where in my practice i have people close their eyes take a few breaths i leave them in a short kind of guided meditation in order to connect with their body and connect with their system and then have them identify by simply asking how are you feeling identify the part that is the most alive and from that place we just start connecting more deeply with these parts that are active starting to hear their story starting to connect maybe going a little deeper maybe going a little deeper up maybe not pulling back going to the top of the part again so it's it's about understanding these really really simple protocols which again i'm not going to go into detail in this video but ifs can be very complicated if you make it very complicated but it does not have to be there are some really basic concepts that if you just stick to i don't think you can do it wrong um if you if you're understanding what self-energy is and you know how to get back to it then you can do ifs on your own and that practice in itself it may take a little time to really understand what self-energy feels like and and to identify when we're not in self-energy but there's no rush and that's a really really beautiful and important piece in doing ifs period but especially doing it on your own is being incredibly patient go as slow as the slowest part needs to this is something i tell people all the time go as slow as the slowest part needs to there's no rush and i guarantee you there's gonna be a part or some parts that really want to speed the process along and really want to get the healing done and i really got to identify where this part is coming from or what's this memory attached to why do i do this thing and that's cool but that's just a part of you self-energy is going to naturally be calm curious compassionate relaxed and patient so as long as you follow these very simple protocols and you can kind of identify for yourself when you are out of self-energy and learn how to come back to self energy you're going to do a great job in addition there's there's so many other little things you can add in and again this is something that we teach at internal familysystems.org how to get really nuanced with this practice in a very simple way such that when you are dropped into a very deep space you can recall these protocols that we offer without much effort so again going back to my story you know i used i used ifs very very deeply on myself for a period of time i noticed such a degree of healing and and i would say like the primary thing that i really created for myself was self-awareness and i speak about this with clients all the time i have different videos and different articles on just how important self-awareness is you cannot do anything any type of healing without a degree of self-awareness and the more self-awareness you have the more healing the more growth the more celebration honestly you can bring to your life so self-awareness is key and as i increased my self-awareness i mean i was just i was so convinced that this was an incredibly powerful model um that i wanted to get trained in it so i took the time and i spent for me at the time it was a significant amount of money to get trained in ifs therapy and i was literally the only person uh at the at that particular training of which i think i want to say there's like roughly 40 50 people i was the only person who didn't have a psychology degree i was the only coach everyone else was a certified therapist psychologist psychiatrist um but it was great i had a great time i met great people all of us were interested in the same thing and it was just yeah it was just incredibly powerful for me and i absolutely loved it and so through that process i i identified that you know actually the way that i was doing it just by reading some books and watching some videos was pretty spot-on and then what i learned in the in the uh in that program or in that course was how to do it even more effectively and i translated all the work that i did with these individuals and that they did with me into the practice of self-therapy i brought that home and i increased my own practice while also beginning to utilize ifs with clients and doing very specific ifs based coaching calls so that's that that's been my journey um it's many many years later now and i use ifs i'd say every single day i use it in the way i speak to other people i use it in the way i understand myself i use it with clients as a backdrop to all the work we do and certainly when a client is having a particular challenge or becomes overwhelmed i always bring in ifs and i let them know like hey this is just a part you know let's just figure out let's just figure out what this part is feeling overwhelmed about and hang out there for a bit and like that a change happens just by shifting our perspective to identify this singular part that's feeling overwhelmed is not the entirety of my system so again um i love that you're here i feel i feel like this is a passion of mine is to help other people empower themselves whether that's through ifs or it's through some other type of coaching work that i do this is what i'm here to do currently in life so i'm very grateful to have you here and to be tuned in with you and i also want to extend again this offer for this program that we've developed at internalfamilysystems.org which will further empower you and it will further teach you how to use ifs on yourself and i can guarantee you it will change your life by the time the program ends your life will be changed but more importantly you will have a tool to carry with you for the rest of your life and i think that is the most important piece in any kind of uh self-growth work that you choose to do whether that's with a coach or a therapist an online program even just reading a book or doing some research ideally you want to be finding skills that you can have for the rest of your life not just something that feels good while you're in a six-week container with a coach and then you're out and everything goes back to where it was i really want to help you empower yourself for ever and i 100 believe in this program that we've created so please check that out subscribe to this channel if you're not already you can like the like button that helps this video get seen and of course you can share it around with other people you know we welcome comments questions feedback i'm here for you and i wish you an absolutely beautiful day talk to you later [Music] you

Channel: Self Therapy & Internal Family Systems (IFS)

Views: 17,672

Keywords: ifs therapy, internal family systems, ifs, self-therapy, self-knowledge, self-work, self therapy, internal family systems therapy

Id: wOX9_W-1_sU

Length: 14min 48sec (888 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 18 2022