LOVE YOURSELF LOVE YOUR MARRIAGE

&

LOVE EVERY PART OF YOU

  Process

To enroll in your Immersion Experience, we will meet and you will create log-in information.

You will then receive an email welcoming you and it will go over the details of when to meet for the Bounce Forward group and other important infromation.

You should then go to the Welcome videos and follow the directions for getting a notebook, pacing yourself, confidentiality, etc.

You will receive an email reminder to set up your first appointment with your therapist which is approximately a week ahead.

When you view the videos, it is recommended that you make notes of questions you have about the content and how to apply it to yourself. Then you can ask those questions in the Bounce Forward group or in the private 1-1 sessions. In emergency, you most certainly can reach out to your therapist by text or email.

Experience

Most people feel a bit overwhelmed because your Immersion Experience invites you to search inside yourself for things that perhaps you had not thought of in many years.

Sometimes, there is an uncomfortable feeling as well because as you dig a bit, there are reminders from the past that you’ve wanted to not recall. But remembering is not only normal but necessary.

The goal is NOT to retraumatize anyone. It is to LIBERATE everyone. What do I mean?

When we try to hide the pain and just forget it, it doesn’t go away. By trying to forget, we’re fooling ourselves. It comes out in the form of bad moods, anger, hopelessness and worse. And, because we were hiding the source of the pain from ourselves, we don’t even know why we are in those moods.

So the steps in this Immersion Experience should lead you to plunging into who you are, really, including the painful childhood events, so that you can “unburden” or even RESCUE these hidden children inside.

What, in real terms, does this mean? – Neuroscience Overview

Our brains store our memories in different places for our different senses and emotions. Emotions are all over our brains, and as rational as we want to believe we are, we are basically emotional beings. Older memories are simply stored in our brains with networking to the outside of those neuronal pathways.

That networking to the outside means that present events that are in some way similar to the ones in the original memory can trigger defensive and protective reactions. That is how and why we get triggered.

However, it has been shown through the neuroscience lab working with animals and humans, too, that if those original memories are re-invoked and contradictory thoughts are placed into them, the pain can literally disappear. Thanks to Bruce Ecker, a physicist who turned therapist, this has been proven and demonstrated again and again.

Using Our Imaginations

Independently, Dr. Richard C. Schwartz capitalized on this process by teaching people to heal each of the memories of the hurt children inside of them from each scene such that the safety of the present moment contradicts and nullifies the pain and fear of the original memory.

Schwartz created Internal Family Systems which consists of learning who your inner protectors are, ‘unburdening” your exiled parts, and enjoying the peace and perspective of Self energy.

This is where the feeling comes in of being liberated.

Nevertheless, you will be triggered by significant others because so many, many episodes of pain have piled on top of the original childhood memories. We need to do many unburdenings, not only of children from the past, but of adults caught up in struggles within the marriage. This is the biggest reason why people elect to work through Level 2:  to give themselves enough opportunity to unburden each and every one of our “inner children” from painful scenes.

As you learn your parts – and your spouse’s parts – and what triggers all of them, and you are able to soothe and reassure your protective parts using your Self energy, you will be triggered less and less. That means, you will be more in Self energy most of the time and simply use the advice/feelings of your parts to help you make decisions and react with honesty and wisdom. You will feel good; you will like yourself; you will feel connected to each other.

Tens of thousands of people having gone through IFS learn to know themselves and others deeply, to be attuned and aware, compassionate and connected.

So what would that look like with couples?

When each person immerses themself in the Immersion Experience – through watching the videos, recording in their journal, thinking, reflecting, attending the two coaching calls per week, and of course, their intensive individual therapy – they go through the process above . . .

. . . and are able to have Self-to-Self conversations with each other.

Let’s follow James and Jennifer just through Module I to get a taste of the experience. Module I opens up feelings. James, if asked how he feels about the marriage, might say, “We fight a lot and I wish we didn’t.” But if his therapist asked him, “What gets the fight started?” he wouldn’t really know.

He might say, “Stupid things.” That’s what lots of people say. But then, why would “stupid” things be something to fight over?

The real answer is that they’re not stupid after all. Rather, each “thing” comes from a place of pain inside and it’s important for James and Jennifer to learn their sources of pain – and heal them. I give people an “Emotions Chart” to check in with through-out the day and identify what they’re feeling and what happened just prior to having this feeling so they can start to learn the causes of all their feelings.

James, with great surprise, discovers that he hates the feeling his wife is bossing him around. He didn’t even know that that is what bothered him when she would innocently remind him to take care of something he’d forgotten. Turns out that the reminder was a huge trigger for him.

Prior to our work, he didn’t even know that. Now, he’s discovered five or six triggers and where they came from – just in the first week of immersion in the program.

Thoughtfully, James says, “I shut down my feelings a long time ago.”

“Why?” asks the therapist. And James explains how much easier it was back then not to feel pain by getting numb and tuning out. . .

“What do you want now?” the therapist asks softly.

“To be part of my family,” James admits.

It’s a beginning. He knows that he has to re-connect to his own feelings in order to “get” everyone he loves.

Jennifer recalls that terrible, queasy feeling of not knowing what would be happening because if her father came home very angry, there would be a beating. And if he came home relatively more normal, he might put her down. She learned to be an A student, have place cleaned, and to even take care of the little ones to ward off his moods. So naturally, she wants to remind James of what needs to be done; getting things done is exactly how she’d stop trouble growing up.

See how this works? That is the beginning of an intense journey for both of them.

That means by the end of the Immersion Experience –

• Each person is open, honest, and vulnerable, not at all defensive anymore
• Each person truly wants to hear and understand the other
• Each person wants to share deeply who he or she is inside
• And there’s a true spiritual connection between them.

What happens to past hurts?

It takes time to heal those, but when each spouse understands deeply what they did that hurt and are truly regretful of it, it goes a long way towards healing.

Furthermore, when each spouse can be Self-led, they are able to receive feedback without becoming defensive.

Wow! Isn’t that a wonderful thing? What would that be like for you?

How Long Does All Of This Take?

The more past trauma, the longer it can take.

The longer we have been ruled by our “parts” rather than Self, the longer the process of parts learning to trust the Self to handle difficulties.

The greater the focus on our partner’s treatment of us rather than how we respond, the longer the process.

NEVERTHELESS, there is an endpoint for everyone and it is GUARANTEED. In Dr Schwartz’s book, The Mosaic Mind, he helps a woman who had been incested by her own father. She saw him twice a week for 3 years and then was completely healed of the past and living in the wisdom, peace, and perspective of Self energy. So that is the absolute longest it should take.

For others – as you can see from the interviews in the Guides section of our Facebook group, it can take only 4 months. There is a range, depending on the person. But complete healing is guaranteed.

What It Feels Like

• It’s exciting to slowly, over time, see your dreams for a happy life, a life of togetherness and teamwork, realized.

Instead of wasting years, you’re gaining years of true intimacy, which means being able to speak your truth with compassion to each other.

• It feels good to know that YOU were never bad. Even your parts that acted badly were just relics of your childhood. YOU always had an untainted and beautiful soul.
• There’s a safety net, too. Although it’s scary to unburden yourself to a therapist – who was a stranger, after all – it feels safe to know that your therapist is highly trained and experienced, kind, compassionate, understanding, and will never, ever blame or shame you. (Please refer to our Core Values.)

That safety net means that you can search the dark corners of your history with complete safety that you’ll be held through it and come out lighter and unburdened.

• In spite of the safety net, it is normal for you to start out feeling suspicious: “How is it possible for these therapists to undo so many years of damage?” You’re right to be suspicious! That is why you need to check us out. Meet with us and listen to your gut feeling. Do all the IFS reading and watching you can (watch the library of Live replays) and refer to the material in the Linktree list.

We were all suspicious when we started learning this material. It seems too good to be true. But we also know that change and growth are built into us. We just have to find the right modality to get to our goals. The Love Yourself Love Your Marriage and the Love Every Part Immersion Experiences are the right modality and nothing else compares.

• if you’re sick and tired of thinking that you or your partner is a narcissist, borderline, or any of these horrible things, so are we! We don’t believe in that. We know those are just descriptors of our protector parts. They are not US.

The folks who created those terms forgot to keep looking! If they looked at the whole person, they would find the wisdom, the strengths, the beauty that is in all of us. That is their loss. Your gain.