LOVE YOURSELF LOVE YOUR MARRIAGE

&

LOVE EVERY PART OF YOU

 

The Tools

Here are some of the highlights of your Immersion Experience:

IFS (Internal Family Systems)

The most powerful, and central, tool that we use is IFS.

It’s power comes from one fascinating principle: It is non-blaming. That means as you’re experiencing it, you will not blame or punish yourself.

While it is necessary to take responsibility for our actions, in the process of learning what to do better and differently, it is preferable not to load guilt and shame into the mix. When one person says, even in the nicest tone, “When you say X, it hurts me,” the most natural and immediate response is to be defensive.

IFS lifts the pain off the shoulders of the person whose behavior needs to change. By attributing undesireable behavior to “parts” of a person rather than the whole person, it both encourages responsibility and change while not causing defensiveness, depression, or counter-attack.

This, in turn, facilitates rapid change and relief. And that is only one of 3 major aspects of your Immersion Experience.

Adding to this, IFS says that “you” are, as the children’s TV character, Mr. Rogers, would say, “good just the way you are.” Grownups need to hear this message as well as children.

When, through our Immersion Experience, we come to see and believe that our core Self really is good, untainted, undamaged, wise, kind, and compassionate, it gives us the hope, the energy, and the drive to keep working on unburdening our parts of odious jobs and taking Self leadership of them.

That is the second powerful principle of IFS.

The third is that we also have a means of automatic healing of the hurt parts of our histories. This may be the most powerful of all the IFS principles.

Have you ever felt sad or anxious and then met someone on the street who said something that completely changed your mood? Or maybe it was reading a book or watching a movie?

Not only can our moods change, but they can change permanently and for the better through a small event.

The “unburdening” of our hurt “inner children” is just such an experience. I am sure this sounds wackoo to many readers. It did to me, too. That is, until I realized that it makes perfect sense: When the tone of memories is altered, feelings change permanently. That is why hypnosis works.

We have powerful imaginations and we can – easily (without hypnosis!) – harness them to heal. Permanently.

Affirmations

Affirmations are the reminders we can give to ourselves of who our true Self really is. The fact that experts want to say our Selves are undamaged doesn’t make us believe that. Before we get to the practice of getting to know our parts and distinguish them from our Selves, we need a tool early in the process to remind us of how good we really are.

In this program Affirmations are not only tailor-made to the individual but they’re bullet-proof. Meaning, you can’t attack them and say, “Nah, I don’t believe they’re true.” That’s because we make them believeable together.

Trigger Tracking

In these programs the very first look you have inside of you is to not only become aware that you’ve been triggered, but when in your life did something similar first happen?

This gets us prepared to recognize that our parts generally developed in childhood and that what triggers us today is an echo of something that happened earlier.

Juxtaposition

Bruce Ecker has demonstrated that trauma-based memories can change their emotional tone when the process known as Juxtaposition is used. Here’s how: When a memory is juxtaposed – that is, placed alongside – a contradictory piece of information, the brain resolves the contradiction by challenging the negative emotion in the memory (if the challenge is realistic). This is applied to traumatic or disturbing memories such that the trauma feeling is gone.

This is a truly amazing phenomenon. What’s more, it is not necessary to re-experience the entire traumatic episode for this to work.

So, imagine remembering yourself as a child feeling frightened in a particular scenario. But imagine that you also can hold that side by side with the feeling that your Self can provide complete safety to your inner child. The non-safe feeling is contradicted by the safe feeling and the child is “unburdened” in the experiential part of the Immersion Experience. At that point, the trauma is gone. The memory for what happened remains intact, perhaps a bit blurry, but the emotional charge is gone.

The Immersion Experience

Level 1

The Level 1 Immersion Experience gives people the foundation of everything they need to understand themselves, love themselves, and relate in a healthy way to each other. The learning includes:

*videos that are completed in groups called Modules, one per week;

*the Bounce Forward group which meets twice a week to  ask questions;

*individual therapy;

*conjoint personal therapy.

The material in the course – videos, diagrams, homework, etc – are yours for a Lifetime.

This period is divided up into 6 weeks working individually on

  • noting what triggers you
  • calming the entire body through deep breathing techniques
  • making Affirmations that are tailored to your triggers – and yet are believable
  • giving you awareness that you have choice to see the positive
  • starting deep self-examination
  • learning the art of Distress Tolerance (not to be used to tolerate abuse! Abuse should never be tolerated!) and Juxtaposition

The next 3 weeks, each person individually works with the therapist twice a week on

  • learning which triggers which protector parts
  • starting to know the “jobs” that protector parts have taken on and why
  • learning the origin of these parts in childhood or in the marriage
  • discovering the Self aside from the parts including the feelings of peace, centeredness, expansiveness, connection, and compassion associated with it
  • starting to unburden in session the exiled (hidden) hurt parts within such that healing can take place

The last 6 weeks, which is in the couple’s program, the couple will work conjointly (together) in therapy once a week and individually once a week each. During this time, the couple works on:

  • recognizing when parts take over and practicing getting back into Self
  • clarifying what triggered the protectors
  • unburdening additional exiles as needed
  • affirming Self leadership over parts
  • listening to and hearing the spouse from a place of Self energy.
  • sharing one’s feelings from a place of Self energy, which means being vulnerable, with protectors taking a back seat.
  • recognizing past abusive behavior by parts and taking leadership over them.
  • taking responsibility for and apologizing for past abusive behavior and planning out how to keep parts in check in the future; spouse must feel safe going forward.
  • learning healthy communication from Self energy

 

        Level 2: Deepening The Intimacy

When Level 1 is finished, you will understand the role that parts play in your life – that they are not “you” but only a part of you and that they mean well. You will pretty much know which parts are playing their roles and how they came into your life. You will have experienced the joy of being in Self energy, perhaps for the very first time in your life.

One more important piece of Level 1: You will have uncovered or re-discovered and “unburdened” (retrieved) hidden memories that have interefered with your functioning. They were shoved into the background to keep you from suffering – but it didn’t work.

Now, you’ll find that working with your spouse can trigger you. And that is not bad…because being triggered means there are hurt and vulnerable parts of you – from when you were a kid – that still need to be discovered and rescued. So the triggering kind of works to bring your attention to these things.

That is the meat and potatoes of Level 2: Using episodes of being triggered to discover lost and hurt parts of yourself that need healing.

And there is a beautiful side benefit to this process happening in joint sessions: When your spouse sees your true Self shine as you allow yourself to be vulnerable, they will come to know the real you. Out of that level of intimacy, trust grows.

How Do I Know How Much Extra Time We Need In Level 2?

The more Self you bring to conversations, the less time you need. That, of course, includes when you are triggered.

People with trauma histories – little “t” trauma is included here – need more time because their parts have been “helping” them to the exclusion of their Self. Self needed to be protected so it was hidden.

You may choose to continue for 3 months, 6 months, or one year. With each choice comes a greater reduction in cost so there are two advantages to working on yourself longer: Basically, I created the cost advantage because I like to see people reaching a place of wholeness within themselves and connectedness with each other and I do believe that requires extra time to assure it’s firmly established.

During this period of time, you will be working both 1:1 with your therapist and, if you’re in the couples Immersion Experience, also conjointly. You will be able to ask questions and get feedback from the Bounce Forward group run by DrDeb twice a week, and you will of course still have your Lifetime access to the course videos and other materials.