So begins my journey of writing about my mental health journey using Internal Family Systems. (I explain IFS here)
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where this started. Some time after my son was born in 2011, I began to take my mental health more seriously. I realized that I had struggles with mental health for a long time and I needed to take action, the problem was what action to take exactly.
I tried therapy, coaching, personal growth programs, reading a lot on self help generally. But I wasn’t getting anywhere, in fact my mental health seemed to have been getting worse over time. I was feeling more depressed, anxious, and battling low self worth.
Simultaneously to all this, I was becoming more well known as a parent coach. I spoke at events such as Dr. Shefali’s Evolve conference and at Mercedes Samudio’s Diversity in Parenting Conference. I was on podcasts, I was writing, coaching parents, and also helping parents on facebook in groups and on my own pages. In 2018 I even got certified as a parent coach with the Jai Institute for Parenting.
So while my parent coaching and advice was getting increased attention and acclaim, I was also battling emotional pain and hurt that was devastating my personal well being. I didn’t know what to do, other than continue trying therapy and self help programs.
Not to knock any of those programs at all, but I wasn’t getting the results I wanted. Eventually I gave up therapy and coaching, but by 2022 I realized I needed to try therapy again.
In late 2022 I found a new therapist to work with. I didn’t know the therapist was trained in IFS, and I had no knowledge or understanding of it. I went along with the exercises he introduced me too, and I was making connections that made sense.
By maybe the 4th or 5th sessions, things started to click. I was developing self understanding that I never had before. And maybe more importantly for me, I also developed a self-compassion and self-love that was deeply missing previously.
Before IFS, I just wanted to get rid of all these parts of myself that felt so emotionally hurt. I wanted to fix and change myself desperately, thinking I was broken. But after starting to understand the IFS perspective, I realized I wasn’t broken at all, in fact all parts of me had incredibly self-loving and self-protective intent.
The realization that all my parts were coming from a place of deep self-love and self-protection was the first big break through for me. That happened roughly around my 5th session working with my IFS therapist. I can’t say for sure, my memory on that is a little fuzzy. All I knew was I wanted to dive into IFS further, and that is what I did.
I got all the popular IFS books (list of recommended IFS books here), I listened to podcasts, watched probably every youtube video with IFS founder Dr. Schwartz, and generally immersed myself in it.
I also continued IFS work with my therapist, and on my own. By 2024, the results I was feeling was undeniable. I was transforming in ways I did not think possible. I was feeling better about myself, I had self-love, I was transforming all the shame and grief and emotional pain that had plagued me for many years.
Now, it’s March 2025 as I write this and I see I still have healing work to do, and that is ok. I look forward to continuing to heal and transform. I journal, I do daily parts check-ins, and I still listen to podcasts and to Dr. Schwartz.
That is the short overview of how I got into IFS, and how it’s helped me in just a couple short years of learning and understanding the model.
In future blog posts I will go into more specific details of how it’s helped me personally.
To learn more about IFS for the unfamiliar, I invite you to view another website I am working on at IFSBasics.com