When I first began working with my own IFS practitioner several years ago, I couldn’t believe how much silence she afforded me.

After I said my bit, I braced myself, expecting her to immediately interject to tell me what she thought. But instead, she asked if I had more to share.

I wasn’t used to being given so much space. I’d worked with therapists and healers for years, but I was accustomed to a dynamic where the other person was the authority figure, doling out diagnosis or directions, and proactively charting the course of the session.

As an autistic person and a woman, I was no stranger to having my perspectives dismissed, or minimized, or hijacked onto an entirely different tangent by my conversational partner.

But to have my words simply land, be witnessed, and validated? To be respected as the expert in my own life? To have another person meet me at my pace, when I’d spent so much time straining to meet others at theirs?

The experience was nothing short of life changing.

Living in a culture as fast paced and demanding as ours is, I’d become used to often feeling a step or two behind. Where even something as allegedly calming as a yoga class seemed to increasingly overstimulate me, with more teachers playing background music and incorporating activating poses like handstands into classes, I’d become on a subconscious level resigned to always struggling to keep up, to never truly being seen or mirrored.

***

As my work with my IFS practitioner progressed over the weeks, which turned into months, and then years, I noticed something else that felt really nice: she never seemed to have any ideas about what I should be doing.

In all my time of sampling various healing modalities before I started IFS, I had many helpful experiences. But sometimes I’d have a session with a therapist or practitioner where their opinion was both obvious and palpable about where I should live, whether or not I should have children, how I should use my money, or even who I should date.

Well intentioned as these people might have been, the danger in inserting their views into my session was that the parts of me that didn’t agree with their opinion no longer felt safe to express themselves.

As a disabled person in a misogynistic culture, there are many spaces in the world where I am wary of showing up authentically. How frustrating it was, then, to pay money to explicitly purchase the safety to show up authentically, only to be met with thinly concealed disapproval, or even a nudge to move in a direction that might have made sense for the person suggesting it, but which did not arise from the wisdom of my own system.

In all these cases, I decided to stop seeing the practitioner or therapist shortly after, not necessarily being fully able to articulate at the time what exactly felt off, but knowing somatically that something did.

IFS has helped me to realize what a rare gift it is to show up for another person without steering them one way or the other.

Because when we remove our agenda and simply be with another person where they are at, what arises is space for their own needs, for their own point of view, and for the deepest desires of their heart to emerge.

Being held without judgement or agenda helped me realize how often I, too, have unconsciously brought my own ideas about what is right to various conversations with friends, family, and colleagues. Sometimes, I really thought I knew what was best for them. Other times, their situation upset me, and a part of me that wanted to fix it for them took over, doling out solutions and advice.

In every instance, my reaction damaged the relationship.

***

I noticed too, as I looked back at my life, a more subtle dynamic of inserting myself, where doing so wasn’t necessarily the choice that best served the relationship. I realized how often, during a conversation with another person I’d jump in and offer a relatable story, or I’d get excited and quickly reply or change the subject, without really giving their words the opportunity to land and be heard.

Both these tendencies are, in fact, ways that neurodivergent people often express empathy. That in itself is wonderful, and my choosing to not to interject indiscriminately anymore is not a judgment toward those who do. At the moment, though, I’m sitting with how my conversational partner, who might have just disclosed something tender that needs room to breathe, might feel if I quickly offer a relatable story or go off on a tangent.

I’ve found relationships deepen when I pause and ask if the other person would like me to sit with them, or if they might like me to offer something relatable, before simply forging ahead with what feels good for me.

I have deep compassion for this very human experience of being activated by another person, and the very human response to self disclose or offer advice.

We all want to be heard.

And IFS has taught me how to hear others, and myself, more effectively.

With other people, IFS has given me the gift of noticing when my own parts are activated by another person. In this awareness, I’m able to ask those parts to relax. I let them know I’ll check in with them later, so that I can remain present with the person in front of me.

And when it’s my time to speak, I make an effort to first listen to my part, and I aim to speak for it, rather than from it, to increase the likelihood that the other person can hear me.

Within myself, IFS has given me the skill to turn toward my parts and listen for the deep wisdom that arises.

IFS has allowed me to cultivate space within my own system. And in that space, what has deepened is love for myself, the capacity to identify and meet my own needs, and the ability to show up more compassionately for others.

A Gentle approach

Transforming the inner oppressor