I first discovered IFS through my dreams. I am part of a long-standing dream group and one of us is an IFS therapist. I was relating a dream and there was a very busy character in there – a small Italian man, tight chinos, loafers and no socks and a worried face who was very expressive and very efficient. He was organising whatever was going on and in the dream I felt gratitude about how much he was helping me. Our dream group gently probed and questioned and I soon realised he was a super-helpful, if not a little controlling, manager in my system. I connected immediately with another dream I had recently, where the character was different – this time a teenage boy who held my hand so I didn’t feel alone – but equally in control and helpful, and the energy of both of these dream characters was very similar. This got my attention. They were very different but performed the same function in my system. I began to explore more – reading more IFS books, listening to podcasts and also beginning to notice what was showing up in my dream with an IFS lens which I haven’t done before.
The thing with dreams is that the more you invest in them then the more you get out of them. It is like any relationship – it is reciprocal and both parties receive more by giving more. So when I became curious about the different parts in my dreams then my dreams really began giving me more and more to work with – managers, fire-fighters and then came exiles of all ages. Wounded, wild abandoned children with messages that I could really work with and begin to heal. Sometimes it was the image alone of an exile that would give me a deep understanding of a part that I knew intuitively was there but had no way to access or communicate with. And they began to emerge. Different parts of me – not just the named parts of IFS but I found a deep presence that is always with me ‘the voice of God’, and wise elder parts, magical child parts and the list keeps growing – the inner village is expanding!