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You are tired. Tired of carrying the weight of everything on your own.
Maybe grief has knocked the wind out of you and everyone around you expects you to have moved on already. Maybe you've spent your whole life translating yourself between cultures, never fully certain where you belong.
Maybe a religious upbringing left you with rules and fears you never chose, and you're still living inside them. Whatever the case, something in you is working overtime just to hold it together, and it's tiring.
Without care and support, this weight doesn't just sit quietly. It shows up as anxiety, numbness, people-pleasing, shame, or a nagging sense that you're never quite enough. You don't need more willpower. You need a kind witness and guide to help you process and heal. I offer IFS therapy in Beacon Hill, U-District, Ballard, Seattle and online across Washington and California.
IFS Guiding Principles
Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy offers a supportive path back home to yourself. I offer a specialized focus on grief and loss, mixed race and multicultural identity, and religious trauma. Sessions are available throughout Washington and California by secure telehealth.
Internal Family Systems therapy holds these guiding principles:
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You have a multitude of different feelings and parts inside of you. If you feel anger, you are not all anger. You might feel overwhelm while also feeling hopeful.
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Each part of you has a particular way they protect you.
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Underneath all of these different parts and feelings is your true self. Your true self is curious, compassionate, and grounded
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IFS therapy can help you begin to understand the different parts of yourself and the deeper pain they carry. While also empowering you to connect to your inner wisdom and true self to guide you.
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Healing and releasing the core wound of your pain is possible.
What is IFS Therapy?
IFS stands for Internal Family Systems, it is an approach to therapy that allows space for complexity and multiple feelings to exist at once. You may have heard the term "parts work therapy" that refers to the idea you have many different parts inside of you that have helped protect you.
A part that feels like something is wrong with you and keeps you from speaking up might be protecting you from feeling stupid in front of others. Or your angry part might be protecting you from the deeper experience of loss and grief.
In IFS therapy each part of you and feeling is respected, honored, and listened to. Each part of you deserves to take up space and be met with compassion. Alongside learning and understanding different parts of you and the deeper message they carry IFS therapy also helps you connect with your true self.
The self inside of you that is compassionate, curious, and calm. Each person has a true self inside and trauma, loss and different experiences can cause you to live out of protection and fear instead of this deeper self inside of you. Our work is to help you slow down enough to listen to all the parts inside yourself while deepening your connection and listening to your true self.
The IFS Therapy Process
Understand
Get to Know Your Parts
It is rare in our modern world to have a place to truly slow down and listen. Our work will be to create a safe enough space that you can begin to identify and listen to the many parts inside of you. Knowing and understanding the different parts inside of you begins to bring clarity to your experience.
Honor
Honor How They Protected You
Each part of you has a valid purpose and reason to protect you. The more clear you become on why and how they have protected you, the more you will feel freedom from being ruled by them. If your anxious part appears and attempts to take over, you will have tools to connect with that part of you with more understanding and compassion.
Listen
Tune Into Your Inner Wisdom
A huge part of IFS work is learning to connect to your true self and inner wisdom. As you begin to notice when you are living out of your true self instead of a protective part of you, you will feel more agency to slow down and tune into your inner guidance. This listening brings grounding and choice to experiences you used to feel overwhelmed by.
How IFS Therapy Can Help
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Learn to identify and connect to difficult emotions with curiosity instead of being overwhelmed by them.
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Grow the capacity to hold complex and contradictory feelings with less confusion and more clarity.
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Feel more grounded and connected to your authentic self.
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Cultivate a relationship to yourself of compassion, kindness, and understanding instead of judgement and confusion.
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Navigate complex experiences like grief, multiracial identity, or religious trauma with clear tools that help you feel and hold all the different parts of yourself with understanding.
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Experience deep healing and shifts as you care for the root of your pain and struggle.
IFS & Multiracial Identity
As a black mixed race person of color, navigating complex identities has been a lifelong process for me and it is an honor to journey with clients also holding this experience.
IFS can be particularly helpful while exploring the different cultures and ethnicities that make up who you are. This approach allows space for multiple experiences and parts of you to exist and be true at once while also helping you listen to your own inner sense of who you are that you get to define.
Whether you feel alone or desire a sense of belonging, IFS therapy can help you sort out the complexity to more deeply understand yourself and your experience.
The experience of learning to slow down and listen to your intuition and inner knowing will help you feel more connected to your authentic self and how you uniquely show up in the world.
IFS Therapy & Grief
Grief and loss can bring many different emotions. Whether you are processing the loss of a community, the loss of a person, a pet, a job, or another transition in life you probably notice different waves of feelings in the wake of it.
IFS therapy allows the spaciousness for any and all of your feelings around grief to take up space and receive care. You get to bring whatever you are holding and wherever you are in the process and know that you will be met with compassion. Whether you are newly in shock from your loss or years in and still struggling to process how the loss impacted you, you do not have to hold your grief alone.
IFS Therapy & Religious Trauma
A common experience for individuals who have experienced religious trauma is confusion. How could something meant to bring community and goodness bring so much harm? What does it mean to be raised in beliefs that were controlling and now be an adult where I choose what I believe?
You are not alone in your experience and IFS therapy can be particularly helpful to process the complex feelings that come up from your religious and spiritual experiences. You might have feelings of grief and loss over the community you once belonged to while also feeling anger at the way shame was used to control your behavior.
Along with making space for complex feelings IFS is a helpful tool to guide you in learning to listen to your inner wisdom and knowing. It is common for religion to teach you to listen to an authority outside of yourself instead of listening to your internal wisdom. Our work can help you learn to connect with your intuition and desire as a wise guide instead of a threat.
FAQs about IFS Therapy in WA & CA
Do you offer IFS therapy in Washington?
Yes, I offer online IFS therapy in Beacon Hill, U-District, Seattle, and all across Washington
Do you offer IFS therapy in California?
Yes, I offer online IFS therapy in Fruitvale, Dimond District, Lake Merritt, Oakland, and all across California.
Are you a trained IFS therapist?
Yes, I completed Level 1 IFS Training through the IFS Institute and also completed an additional 25 hours of consultation on IFS therapy with other therapists.